CHEESEBURGER PIZZA
The idea to put together some cheeseburger pizza came about in kind of an odd way. I was thinking to myself about stuff I hadn’t eaten for quite some time; a good old-fashioned cheeseburger and a hearty slice of pizza both came to mind. I thought to myself that it would be pretty fun to try to put the two together, and thus, cheeseburger pizza was born.
Cheeseburger Pizza
Makes 8 slices
Core Pizza Components:
~ 1/2 lb. ground beef
~ Lettuce
~ Tomato
~ 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Sauce:
~ Mayonnaise
~ Thousand Island dressing
Burger Seasoning:
~ 1/4 tsp salt
~ 1/4 tsp pepper
~ 1/4 tsp garlic powder
~ 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
My kitchen isn’t stocked with a pizza pan yet, so I opted to go for one of those rectangular pizzas and used an oven tray to bake it in. I used a bag of pre-made pizza dough that I bought from Trader Joe’s, but I know that Whole Foods sells some as well (or you could make your own).
Prepare the vegetable toppings for the pizza by cutting up the lettuce and tomato into small chunks. I used Romaine lettuce that was from the salad section at the grocery and also bought a whole beefsteak tomato to dice up. I had also included some pickles in my toppings, but I will opt to leave them out the next time I make this. More details about this in “Potential Adjustments” below.
Roll the pizza dough out into your desired shape and then transfer it over to your baking pan (which needs to be lightly oiled). Mix together your sauce base to put onto to the dough by adding together the mayonnaise and Thousand Island dressing. I found that you get a good flavor if you mix them with a 1:1 ratio, but feel free to experiment around to your liking. Set aside your sauce once you’ve mixed it together. At this point, go ahead and start warming up your oven to 425 degrees.
Take your ground beef and add in all the seasonings, mixing the meat together thoroughly to make sure that all of the spices get a chance to distribute evenly. Warm up a skillet over medium-high heat and then put your ground beef in. Our main objective in cooking the meat is to brown the outside (cook to about a medium rare – medium level), as the meat will cook along with the pizza in the oven. The browning process will probably take a little more than a minute; I had to vary my heat from medium to medium-high to prevent from cooking too much.
With the beef done, we are ready to assemble our pizza together. Spread your “pizza sauce” onto the dough, and then add on your hamburger meat and shredded cheddar cheese. Use about 1 1/2 cups of cheese at this stage, and we’ll use the rest after it’s come out of the oven. An optional step that you can do at this point is to take some melted butter, brush the crust with it, and then sprinkle on some basil and Parmesan cheese. I was trying to go for a nice, golden color, but it ended up looking the same. The addition of the Parmesan and basil to the crust, however, gave it some nice supplemental flavor.
Once it’s all assembled, pop that into the oven for about 7 – 9 minutes, or when the cheese is bubbling. After it comes out of the oven, sprinkle on your chopped lettuce and chopped tomatoes, along with more shredded cheddar cheese. Your end product will be nice and colorful, and should smell pretty good, too!
The first bite that I took, I managed to get a good chunk of hamburger meat, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. That single bite captured the flavors of a regular cheeseburger, and I was very happy that the pizza was successful in doing that.
Potential Adjustments:
- Like I had mentioned above, the pickles didn’t really mesh well with the pizza. The individual flavor of the pickle overpowered the rest of the cheeseburger taste, which took away from what I wanted to accomplish.
- For a pizza of that size, the hamburger meat was a little on the scarce side. I might try to up the ground beef amount to 3/4 lb. next time, and also adding some more cheese to compensate as well.
Categories: Recipes
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