Alex Guarnaschelli on Her Oven ‘Fried’ Pizza: ‘Any Pizza Worth Eating Starts With Great Dough’

Food Network star Alex Guarnaschelli’s unique pizza recipe doesn’t require a pizza stone or even a baking sheet.

All you need is your trusty cast iron pan, your favorite toppings, and hearty appetites.

Guarnaschelli’s pizza recipe is uniquely delicious

The Chopped judge’s fun recipe calls for pizza dough ingredients including active dry yeast, warm water, all-purpose flour, kosher salt, ground white pepper, honey, and extra-virgin olive oil.

 For the dish’s topping, you’ll need more oil, spicy lamb sausage removed from its casing, thinly sliced red onion, honey, cubed fresh mozzarella cheese, and basil leaves.

“For me,” Guarnaschelli says in the Food Network video, link below, for this recipe, “any pizza worth eating starts with great dough.”

Get the complete recipe, video, and reviews on Food Network’s site.

The chef’s pizza is a snap to make

The dough, then, is where the Supermarket Stakeout host starts off. Active yeast is combined with warm water (“Something you’d take a bath in”) in a bowl and it’s set aside “anywhere relatively warm, like kind of right by the stove while we get everything else together.”

While the yeast sets up, she starts browning the ground lamb sausage in a skillet.

Flour is stirred into the yeast mixture as the lamb cooks away, followed by the white pepper, kosher salt, and “a scant tablespoon” of honey.  “Even though we don’t want this dough to taste sweet, we do want to get a little bit of sugar in there. It’s kind of like a yin yang with the salt and the pepper,” Guarnsaschelli explains.

The dough is worked into a ball by hand, adding “a touch” of olive oil “because we’re really going to taste it in the dough.” It’s then rested in a bowl to allow the dough to rise.

With a slotted spoon, the chef places the lamb sausage on paper towels to drain and then stirs the raw sliced red onions into the leftover sausage grease: “Why not use that lovely flavor base to caramelize our onions?”

Guarnaschelli turns the dough onto a floured surface and kneads it “until you have the right consistency.” She then rolls it out and “gently” drops it onto an oiled cast iron skillet.

Once it browns on the edges, she tops it with the onions, cheese, and sausage. It’s placed in a 350-degree F oven for about eight minutes. “Remember, the dough is almost cooked. All we’re doing here is making sure that cheese is melted and gooey on top,” the chef notes. Fresh basil is sprinkled over the final pizza and it’s done!

Reviewers gobbled up Guarnaschelli’s hearty pizza

There isn’t much not to love about pizza, and the chef’s cast-iron version won home cooks over, as is clearly shown by comments on Food Network’s site.

“The recipe yields the most delicious pizza dough I have ever tasted! It made such a tender yet crispy crust. The topping was outstanding too,” one person wrote.

Another reviewer may not go back to takeout: “This is a fantastic recipe. I used spicy sausage instead of lamb and added mushrooms. My husband loved it too! Who needs to order in when you can make pizza like this! Thanks, Alex, you are a wonderful teacher!!!”