Spicy Sausage and Arugula Pizza

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 500 degrees F (or as hot as it will go!) If you have a pizza stone, place it in the oven while it heats up. No pizza stone? Use a sturdy baking sheet and place it in the oven upside-down. This will give your pizza a hot surface to sit on right from the get-go, helping you get that extra-crispy crust.
2. Heat a medium saucepan over high heat. Add sausage and cook, breaking it up into chunks with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Cook sausage, stirring occasionally, until it is cooked through, about 8 minutes. Set aside.
3. Roll or stretch out pizza dough on a floured surface. I like my dough relatively thin – maybe 1/4-1/3″ thick. Leave the dough on the floured cutting board or a pizza peel, or place a piece of parchment paper between the dough and the board so that it will slide into the oven easier. You want your pizza to easily slide off of your peel or cutting board and onto the hot sheet pan or pizza stone.
4. Top pizza dough with crushed tomatoes (you may not need them all!) and a layer of mozzarella cheese.
5. Slide pizza into the hot oven and bake at 500 degrees F until pizza is lightly browned and crispy. The baking time will vary depending in your oven and the size of the pizza, so keep an eye on it – I check my pizza every five minutes and generally bake it for 10-15 minutes total.
6. Use a pair of tongs to gently pull the finished pizza out of the oven and onto a cutting board (you could also use a pizza peel for this if you have one).
7. Top your pizza with the fresh arugula. I like to set it in a pile at the center of the pizza, but you could also give it a rough chop and scatter it over the top if you aren’t a big fan of huge arugula leaves.
8. Slice pizza and serve immediately.