Ooni Pizza with Portuguese Sausage and Cheese – Leite’s Culinaria

I’m always excited to stumble upon a recipe for a pizza we haven’t tried!  I love our wood-burning Ooni pizza oven, but we get in a rut with the same old toppings, time after time.  This Portuguese pizza was a welcomed twist on classic wood-fired pizza. 

I will say that my biggest hurdle with wood-fired pizzas is maintaining the fire so the oven temperature remains consistent. This pizza fires at 600°F, so it’s a bit more forgiving than the high temperatures that give you very little room for error. 

The dough was very easy to work with, unlike some other doughs I’ve tried that are so sticky they won’t slide off the peel. Speaking of the dough, trust the process. It is ugly and shaggy at first, but it comes together, I promise – resist the urge to add water. I ended up bulk fermenting my dough for about 20 hours in the fridge, it doubled beautifully. 

As for my toppings, I went with the creamy and nutty Manchego cheese, and wasn’t at all sorry. I ended up being able to find ground Portuguese chouriço (seasoned with garlic and paprika), that worked well. I definitely recommend hunting down chouriço in any form, if you can. The flavor profile of the genuine Portuguese sausage takes the pie to a whole new level. 

I typically make my own sauce, but for this pie, I went with the recommended Rao’s pizza sauce. It was a lovely sauce with a hint of sweetness that we enjoyed. As for the lemon, I grated a bit over the pizzas as soon as they came out of the oven for a bright hint of acid. 

The pizza is successful and scrumptious as is, but my family craves the heat. I had some Portuguese piri piri hot sauce on hand, so we drizzled it over the top right before eating, which added the kick we were looking for. 

This was one of my most successful wood-fired pizza sessions. I credit the dough. This will be my go-to dough recipe from here on out. And the Portuguese toppings are absolutely being placed in our regular pizza-topping rotation, no doubt!