Pepperoni, tomatoes and two kinds of cheese: our Trader Joe’s shopping trip becomes dinner.
There are evenings when I’m happy to chop, sauté and simmer. Then there are evenings when opening a jar seems quite enough. A recent visit to Trader Joe’s produced just such a dinner. I hadn’t gone shopping for pizza ingredients, but a ready-made crust, jars of pizza sauce and slow-roasted tomatoes, pepperoni and two kinds of cheese somehow found their way into my basket. Dinner had organized itself.
Some assembly required: Trader Joe’s supplied the ingredients. We supplied the appetite.
A Little Inspiration from Fiorello’s
One of my favorite New York pizzas is at Café Fiorello, at 1900 Broadway. That’s where I first tried pepperoni pizza with hot honey, a combination I loved. Sweet heat with salty pepperoni was a game changer, which explains the bottle of Trader Joe’s Spicy Honey Sauce that joined my shopping.
For cheese, I chose burrata and what Trader Joe’s calls “Pizza Cheese.” Its full name is Shredded Pizza Seasoned Toscano Cheese—a rather grand title for something whose immediate assignment was to melt.
Andrew and I made a pizza apiece. We spread the rectangular crusts with sauce, added the shredded cheese, slow-roasted tomatoes and pepperoni, and baked them at 425°F for 18 to 20 minutes. I added my burrata before baking; Andrew added his after his pizza emerged from the oven. This is what passes for scientific inquiry in our kitchen.
Almost 3,000 Pizzas Later
Now, about my qualifications as a judge. As anyone here will tell, New York has the best pizza in the world. And I’ve lived in New York since September 1969. At a slice of pizza a week (at least), that amounts to nearly 3,000 pizzas. I’ve also eaten pizza around the world, including in Napoli—Naples—the birthplace of modern pizza and where I actually spent an afternoon learning how to make it. New Yorkers may argue that we perfected it, but we should at least acknowledge our parentage.
During a 2015 Mediterranean cruise aboard Viking Star, I joined a “Piazzas and Pizzas” excursion and took a pizza-making class at Ciro a Santa Lucia. I chronicled the experience in “See Naples and Make Pizza.” There is photographic evidence of me actually working with dough, should anyone find these ready-made crusts suspicious.
Like any loyal New Yorker, I maintain that we have the best pizza in the world. That gives a dinner assembled from Trader Joe’s packages some formidable competition. But it also gives me a perfectly reasonable excuse to bring home two kinds of cheese, recruit Andrew and call the whole thing research.
Trader Joe’s Pepperoni Pizza with Burrata and Hot Honey
Ready-made crust, jarred sauce and prepared toppings make this an easy pizza to assemble at home. Add the burrata before baking, as I did, or afterward, as Andrew did.
Ingredients
- 2 Trader Joe’s ready-made rectangular pizza crusts
- Trader Joe’s Pizza Sauce, enough for a thin layer on each crust
- Trader Joe’s Shredded Pizza Seasoned Toscano Cheese, to taste
- Trader Joe’s Slow Roasted Tomatoes, drained, to taste
- Trader Joe’s Uncured Pepperoni, to taste
- Trader Joe’s Burrata, drained and torn into pieces, to taste
- Trader Joe’s Spicy Honey Sauce, for drizzling to taste
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 425°F. Arrange the crusts on baking sheets.
- Step 2 Spread each crust with a thin layer of pizza sauce, leaving a small border around the edges. Scatter with the shredded Toscano cheese, then distribute the drained slow-roasted tomatoes and pepperoni over the top.
- Step 3 For my version, dot the pizza with torn burrata before baking. For Andrew’s version, reserve the burrata until the pizza comes out of the oven.
- Step 4 Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the edges of the crust are browned. If baking on two racks, check both pizzas and rotate the pans if needed for even browning.
- Step 5 Add the reserved burrata to the pizza being finished after baking. Drizzle with spicy honey to taste, slice and serve.
- Step 6 A Note on Quantities
- Step 7 This is an assembly recipe, so the topping amounts are deliberately flexible. You don’t need to empty every jar or package. Drain the tomatoes and burrata well, keep the sauce layer modest, and leave the crust a fighting chance.
