Merlot & Chorizo Sausage Pizza

Dan    Mains, Recipes     olives, pizza, sauce, sausage, wine

What you’ll need…

Merlot Pizza Sauce:

1/2 yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

2 medium-sized tomatoes

1 cup merlot

1 TBSP balsamic vinegar

1 TSP dried basil

1 TSP sugar

salt & pepper

olive oil

Pizza toppings:

2 chorizo sausages (cooked, sliced)

6 red swiss chard leaves (blanched, chopped)

1/4 red onion (thinly sliced)

1/4 cup pitted green olives (sliced)

1 cup goat’s cheese

Now you can have your wine and eat it too! My favourite part about cooking with wine is that you can drink what you don’t use. Needless to say, I cook with wine quite often, but I digress…I had never thought of putting swiss chard on a pizza until I had the Swiss Chard Pie at Una Pizza. This is, more or less, an ode to them. Thank you for inspiring me with that utterly delicious pizza pie! This one is not quite at their pizza level, but delicious nonetheless! Shall we?

Just to briefly address to the pizza dough situation. Feel free to use a plain old run-of-the-mill frozen pizza shell, but making your own pizza dough at home is super easy! Most pizza dough-appropriate yeast’s will have the recipe right on the jar. C’mon, enjoy a sense of do-it-yourself satisfaction!

To make the sauce you’re going to start by chopping the onion and garlic. Place into a medium-sized pan with some olive oil. Turn to medium-high heat and cook until softened. While you’re waiting, chop the tomatoes. When you add the tomatoes, sprinkle some salt on top of the mixture. It helps release their juices. Let cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add-in the remaining ingredients. Give a good stir and once everything starts to bubble, reduce to low heat and let simmer for 15 minutes, or until the sauce has reduced by 1/2. Remove from heat, pour sauce into a blender (or food processor) and puree until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Now for the pizza dressings…This recipe is set to cover 2 12″ diameter pizzas, with some sauce leftover (for crust dipping of course). Start with a nice slathering of your merlot sauce, followed by the chorizo sausage, swiss chard, red onion slices and green olives. Finish the pizza by crumbling the goat cheese on top. Place into your preheated oven and let bake for 15 minutes, or until the crust turns golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool briefly before slicing. Top with some sliced green olives and a drizzle of olive oil.

Served best with the remainder of that bottle of merlot you used in the sauce.

Serves 5-6

Total cook time…40 min

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