Hot Honey Meat Pizza

This Hot Honey Meat Pizza is made with crumbled Italian sausage, salami, spicy hot honey, serrano peppers, savory garlic, and caramelized onions.

It hits all notes: sweet, savory, spicy, and salty. This is the pizza we make when we want to take our Friday Pizza Night over the top.

This recipe is a labor of love. There are a lot of components, but each contributes to the pizza so that each bite contains many layers of flavor.

Both the honey and the caramelized onions are sweet. The sausage and salami are savory. The serranos and hot honey are spicy, and it’s finished with flaky sea salt, which, along with the salami adds saltiness.

We also occasionally use these same toppings on this Grandma Pie Pizza Dough, which is an easy way to feed a crowd.

For other hot honey dishes -> Hot Honey Brussels Sprouts, Crispy Hot Honey Chicken, Hot Honey Lemon Pepper Wings

💡Recipe Inspiration

This recipe is inspired by a pizza that we had in the small Hill Country town of Wimberly, outside of Austin, TX.

We traveled there as a family of 5 (before our youngest was born) and stayed for a couple of months on our year long trip around the country. This town was one of our favorite stops, with a real western feel, great food, and amazing hikes and scenery.

🍴Make Ahead

All of the toppings can be made in advance, and even the dough can be made ahead. This makes assembling and baking the pizza much easier when pizza night is under way.

• Toppings: The garlicy olive oil, hot honey, caramelized onions, and Italian sausage can all be made ahead of time.
• Dough: The dough can be made one day in advance and rise in the fridge overnight.

While I am pretty attached to this homemade Poolish Pizza Dough recipe, you could certainly simplify and use store bought dough, or ask your local pizza place if you can buy some of their dough, or use this Grandma Pie pizza dough instead.

🛒 Ingredients

Below are the ingredients needed to make this Hot Honey Meat Pizza.

• Pizza Dough: Homemade or store-bought. For more details on the dough and the ingredients, see the full recipe for Poolish Pizza Dough.
• Garlic: Use whole, fresh cloves, sliced in half. The garlic softens in the warm olive oil, adding garlic flavor to the olive oil, and taking the intensity out of the garlic so that it can be used as a topping on the pizza.
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Using real extra virgin olive oil is key and adds lots of flavor.
• Honey: Any store-bought honey works.
• Red Pepper Flakes: Combined with the honey to make a hot honey drizzle.
• Onion: Choose a medium to large yellow onion, sliced julienne.
• Italian Sausage: Use sweet or spicy Italian sausage. I tend to use sweet sausage since the hot honey and serranos are already spicy, but either works.
• Mozzarella: Use low-moisture mozzarella. Fresh mozzarella adds too much water content, which will make this dough soggy.
• Salami: Any brand works.
• Serrano peppers: Slice these very thin.
• Flaky sea salt: For sprinkling on the pizza right before baking.

See the recipe card further below for full information on ingredients and quantities.

📝How to Make Hot Honey Meat Pizza

Below are the step-by-step instructions and photos for how to make this Hot Honey Meat Pizza Recipe.

Note: This recipe includes details for making a Neopolitan-style pizza dough, which needs to rest overnight. If you want to save time, you can make this simpler Grandma Pie Pizza dough, or use store-bought dough.

Step 1. Make the Poolish: In a medium bowl or tupperware, combine 200g water, 5g honey, one ¼ oz package yeast, and 200g 00 flour. Let sit uncovered for 15 minutes. Then cover and let sit for 1 hour, then place in the fridge for 12-24 hours.

Step 2. Make the Pizza Dough: In a large bowl, combine the poolish, bread flour, 00 flour, water, and salt.

Step 3. Work the Dough: This dough is too wet and soft to knead. Instead, you will work the dough on the counter by picking up the dough, flicking it, and smacking it onto your work surface, while still holding a small portion of the dough in your hand. Scoop up the dough and repeat. Continue this process for 10 minutes. Do not add any additional flour. Your hands will get sticky with dough.

Step 4. Rest and Rise: Let the dough rest for 15 minutes. Then divide the dough into two, and shape each piece of dough into a ball. Place them in two separate bowls, coat each with a small amount of olive oil and a dishcloth or plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size, 1-2 hours.

Step 5. Make the Garlicy Olive Oil: Add the olive oil and garlic to a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer, then immediately reduce to low. Keep it at a low temperature while working on the rest of the pizza or for at least 15 minutes, and the garlic is fork tender. This will infuse the olive oil with garlic flavor and soften and mellow out the intensity of the garlic itself.

Step 5. Make the Hot Honey: Add the honey and red pepper flakes to a small saucepan at low heat. Do NOT bring to a simmer as this will thicken the honey, making it more difficult to drizzle on the pizza later. Keep it at low temperature while you work on the rest of the pizza.

Step 7. Caramelized Onions: Add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to a large sauté pan at medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally for 8-10 minutes until caramelized. Remove and set aside.

Step 8. Italian Sausage: Add the loose Italian sausage removed from casings to the sauté pan and a tablespoon of olive oil if needed at just under medium heat. Cook, breaking up the sausage into small pieces with a firm spatula. Continue to cook until the fat renders and the sausage starts to get caramelized and crispy, about 10-15 minutes. Set aside.

Preheat the Oven: Add a pizza stone to the middle rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 500°F. Ideally, let the oven preheat to 500°F for 30 minutes.

Step 9. Create the Pizza Crust: Turn the ball of dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and use your hands to press down in the middle of the ball of dough. Flip over and repeat. Continue working your fingers to the edges of the dough, pressing the air outwards and eventually pinching the crust closed to seal the air into the crust.

Step 10. Stretch the Dough: Place the dough on the back of your fists and stretch the dough, moving in a circular direction to shape the pizza.

Step 11. Place on a Pizza Peel: Once your pizza is roughly the size of your pizza peel, dust the pizza peel with flour. This is crucial to ensure that the pizza can slide off the peel onto the pizza stone. This is particularly helpful when working with a pizza with a lot of heavy toppings like this one.

Place the pizza on the pizza peel with one edge/crust of the pizza hanging off the edge of the pizza peel. This is super helpful in getting the pizza to "catch" on the stone, allowing you to shimmy the entire rest of the pizza cleanly onto the pizza stone in the oven.

Step 12. Assemble and Bake: Spread half of the garlicy olive oil onto the pizza, including half of the garlic. Sprinkle with half of the mozzarella. Then top the pizza with the caramelized onions, Italian sausage, salami, serranos, and sprinkle with flaky sea salt.

Bake at 500°F for 8-12 minutes. Using the edge overhanging the pizza peel to catch on the back of the pizza stone, and slowly shimmy the rest of the pizza onto the stone.

Carefully remove the pizza (I use long tongs to pull it onto the pizza peel) and drizzle with the hot honey. Slice and serve.

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If you've tried this Hot Honey Meat Pizza Recipe or any other recipe on my site, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Every comment helps!