A previous version of this post for Meatball Pizza was published in July 2012. We added some word content as this was just a picture post — not sure what we were doing in 2012, ha!
In the first few years of living together after college, Fatima and I lived on meatballs and pasta, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and cereal. Not only were we busy with work, we were just starting out in our careers. We faced a mountain of student debt and sky-high rents in New York City. We got by, made it work, and paid off those loans. Every once in a while, we’d splurge on a ‘fancier’ dinner. So I upgraded our pasta and meatballs into meatball pizza.
It’s really easy to make. Buy some jarred pasta sauce and frozen pizza dough, and make some meatballs. What I love about the meatball recipe is how versatile it is. Use turkey, beef, or ground chicken. Whichever way, they come out great!
Meatball Pizza
Ingredients
- Meatballs
- 1.1lbs of ground turkey meat (93% lean meat preferred)
- 1 cup of breadcrumbs
- 1 medium red onion, chopped
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
- 1/4 tsp oregano
- 1/4 tsp basil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- Pizza
- Frozen (or homemade) pizza dough
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- Jarred marinara sauce (although we prefer pasta sauce)
Instructions
Be sure to take your pizza dough out to thaw - may take 4-6hrs so plan ahead!
Meatballs
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine all ingredients together in a bowl.
Roll up the meat and place on a cookie sheet. I get about 16 large meatballs.
Place in the oven and cook for about 10-15 minutes or until the outsides are golden brown and the pink on the inside has turned grayish.
Pizza
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
Dust your surface with cornmeal and rub corn meal all over your pizza dough.
Roll out your pizza dough so that it can fit nicely on your oven racks. To do this, I had to cut my dough in half, and roll it out. A nice thin dough if preferable.
Take out your oven racks, place rolled dough over the rack, put back in the oven, and cook for about 10 minutes, or until somewhat cooked and little browning occurs at the bottom of the dough – do that with each dough.
When the crust is ready, remove and let cool for 2 minutes.
You’ll use about 1-2 cups of sauce for each crust, however, begin to spoon out your sauce over the dough from the center to the edges.
Add cubed meatballs on top of the sauce and spread around.
Top with the mozzarella cheese.
Place back in the oven for another 10-15 mins.
Remove the pizza when the cheese is bubbling and melted all over. Let cool for about 2-5 minutes, and serve.
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