Grilled Breakfast Pizza
While I have you up and grilling sausages for breakfast, might as well take that a step further and turn those deliciously spiced patties into some extra special, breakfast pizza! While I was slightly apprehensive about what the results of this might be, it turns out that throwing an entire morning meal onto some grilled pizza dough is not only a great idea, it produces some incredible eats.
When considering a breakfast pie, the first thing I thought of was meat, of course. Using breakfast patties was a no-brainer, as I often have a store of them in the freezer, ready to go at a moments notice. Knowing that this would provide a great deal of flavor to the final pizza, I then went on to think of other toppings that could hold their own against the sausage.
I came up with some finely diced, deeply browned home fries, done in Cook's Illustrated fashion. These little potato nuggets not only held a great deal of flavor to match up with the sausage, but they also provide a mixture of textures with their crispy outsides and fluffy innards.
Thinking those two provide enough variety in terms of toppings, I only grated some cheddar and chopped a little sage to complete my pre-grilling prep.
As I've mentioned before, I am no longer afraid of yeast and proudly make my own pizza dough. Along with breakfast sausage, I actually usually have a few balls of dough in the freezer too, great for pizza on a whim. While I've been experimenting more with my pizza stone inside, grilling the dough is still my favorite way to go, which started with cooking it on one side until it got nice and crisp and brown.
Then off the grill the toppings were added. First went the sausage, followed the home fries, cheddar, and sage. The pie already looked like a work of art that was hard to resist eating before even finished.
Luckily, on the hot grill it only took a few minutes to the melt the cheese and finish cooking the dough all the way through.
Then the fateful moment came to chow down. What I worried might be too much for one pie ended up being a breakfast explosion of awesomeness. The sausage provide a hefty, meaty spice, while the potatoes deepened the flavor and added a great texture. The sharp cheddar held it's own against the two main players, and the sage was a fitting morning herb to round the whole thing out. The best part was the delivery method—pizza made it easy to eat an entire array of breakfast foods in one bite...and how grand each of the bites were!
