This Pastrami Pizza takes the classic deli sandwich and turns it into your favorite Friday night treat. It’s more delicious than you could ever imagine!
I don’t know about you, but I am sooo glad it’s Friday. It has been a long week and I am so ready for the weekend and a quick and tasty dinner to kick it off.
When Chris and I were kids, BOTH of our families had a tradition of Friday night pizza and the TGIF shows on ABC – specifically Family Matters and Full House (hello fellow children of the 90’s!) We’d get home from school, put on our comfy clothes, and hunker down in front of the TV for a night of watching Steve Urkel and Michelle Tanner with a big, fat pizza pie (or two.)
Chris and I don’t have a family of our own yet, but we talk often about wanting to start a tradition like this once we do. Fridays = pizza, and although TGIF is no longer airing, I’m sure we’ll be able to find one thing or another to watch amongst Netflix, Hulu, Amazon TV, etc. etc.
So, to celebrate the end of this crazy week, I whipped up a pizza for us to not only enjoy this week, but also keep in our archives for those fun Friday nights of the future, along with this fresh fig and burrata pizza, this colorful root vegetable pizza, this bacon and goat brie pizza and this avocado and cilantro pizza. The opportunities are endless!
How to Make Pastrami Pizza
In keeping with the “nostalgic” theme of this post, I recreated this pizza based off of one we have whenever we go visit Chris’ parents. Since we both have to work until at least 4 or 5 on Friday afternoons, we usually don’t get up to their house until 9PM (or even 10PM.) It’s become a tradition for his folks to go to one of their local pizza joints, My Pizza, and bring home a couple of pies to keep in the oven until we arrive.
One of the pies that is ALWAYS waiting for us when we arrive is their Pastrami Pizza. This has been a favorite in Chris’ family for a looooong time and it quickly became one of mine as well. As soon as I had it, I knew I wanted to try and recreate it so we could enjoy it at home in between our trips up north.
Although, not EXACTLY like My Pizza’s, the version I created is pretty darn close and will help satisfy us between visits.
We start with a classic no-knead dough (which I found via My Name is Yeh who found it via Jim Lahey, thanks guys!) This is a REALLY easy dough recipe (it literally takes less than 5 minutes to whip up), but you have to plan in advance since it takes at least 18 hours to rise. Once the dough has finished rising, simply split it up into parts depending on how big of a pizza you want to make (four parts make mini, more single-serving pizzas, while two parts make a pizza that will serve 3-4 people.) Use some and freeze the rest (hello, meal prep hack!) OR – since it’s already Friday and we want this pizza tonight, we can just buy a pre-made crust or dough at the grocery store on our way home from work. Sound good?
Then, we add the toppings that will get baked on top of the dough. Mayo for sauce, mozzarella for cheese, pastrami, and red onions (cooking the onions will help take away some of their bite.)
After baking, we throw on some more toppings: lettuce, tomato, pepperoncini and mustard.
Voila! Pizza’s done. While we’re letting it cool, let’s throw on our sweatpants and find something good to watch on Netflix. Friday night never looked (or tasted) so good.
Pastrami Pizza
Ingredients
- One recipe of Jim Lahey's Pizza Dough or store-bought dough
- Extra flour for working with the dough
- 4 tablespoons mayonnaise (2 tablespoons per pizza)
- 8 ounces mozzarella, sliced (4 ounces per pizza)
- 8 ounces pastrami (4 ounces per pizza)
- ½ of a small red onion, diced (1/4 of an onion per pizza)
- 2 medium tomatoes, diced (1 tomato per pizza)
- ½ cup chopped pepperoncini (1/4 cup per pizza)
- 2 cups shredded iceberg lettuce (1 cup per pizza)
- 3-4 tablespoons yellow mustard (1 ½ - 2 tablespoons per pizza)
Instructions
- Prepare dough according to instructions. Once dough has risen, cut into two portions. While working with the first portion, place the other portion in the refrigerator.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
- On a pizza stone coated with cornmeal/flour or on a pizza pan coated with cooking spray, roll out the pizza dough to the desired shape.
- Spread 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise over the dough, then add mozzarella, pastrami and red onion. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.
- Remove from oven and sprinkle with tomatoes, pepperoncini and lettuce. Drizzle yellow mustard over top.
- Repeat with second portion of pizza dough.
- Let cool slightly before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
I am so happy I found this post. I used to live in San Jose and my husband and I would order the Hot Pastrami Pizza from Fast Pizza. We have since moved away and since I can’t find another place that makes this pizza it’s time to make it myself! This sounds exactly like the one that Fast Pizza made. Thank you!
Shagen – I’m so glad you found it as well! It is such a treat for us whenever we visit my in-laws that I just HAD to figure out a way to make it on my own. Best of luck and let me know how it turns out!