Southwestern Pork and Black Bean Pizza

1. Remove pizza dough from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 degrees and sprinkle a 16-inch round pizza pan with cornmeal.
2. Using flour (if necessary), begin to stretch the dough out into as large of a circle as possible. Place on the pizza sheet and work the dough at the edges using the heel of your hand to press and stretch toward the edge of the sheet. This will take a few minutes. Try to make the crust of the pizza as even as possible or you’ll have pockets of thicker chewy crust when the pizza is cooked.
3. Once the crust is stretched all the way to the edge of the pan, sprinkle with olive oil and rub the olive oil over the surface of the crust. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
4. Pre-bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.
5. Spread the cheese sauce evenly over the pizza crust and sprinkle with cheese, beans, and tomato. Sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan cheese.
6. Place back in the oven. While the pizza is cooking prepare the pork as you desire (I sprinkled it with blackened seasoning and cooked it in a pan), then slice.
7. Bake the pizza for 10 or 15 additional minutes or until edges of the pizza are beginning to brown and turn crisp.Remove from oven and top with sliced pork, cilantro and additional shredded Mexican-flavored cheese. Enjoy!

Sis and I deemed this pizza OK. After adding some salt, it tasted a lot better. Oddly, the sauce lost its flavor while the pizza baked.  Not sure how that happened. Other than the lackluster sauce, I think I put too many beans on the pizza – if I ever put beans on another pie I’ll cut down on the beans.

The good news is I’m beginning to get the crust down cold. You definitely need to pound the dough out as thin as possible. Also, pre-baking the crust is key. The entire crust (even the middle!) comes out crisp.

Recipe rating: 