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Don’t let the fact that this French bread pizza rustica doesn’t have a sauce on it throw you off. Every bite is incredible. All of your favorite toppings, but with a little twist. Spinach. Yes, spinach. You can play around with the toppings, substituting whatever suits your fancy, but don’t leave out the spinach. For years I wasn’t a big spinach fan. Now I am. Now I say things like “don’t leave out the spinach”.
I’ve found variations on this French bread pizza rustica online, and some have you cook the vegetables a bit before putting them onto the bread. I opted to skip that step. We found the slightly crunchy (they do cook a bit in the oven) vegetables to be perfect. If you do want to cook the vegetables, just add to the skillet after you cook the Italian sausage and saute for about 5 minutes.
I highly recommend that you shred or grate your own cheese at home. Don’t buy the pre-shredded or pre-grated stuff. It has stuff added to it to keep it from sticking together. That ‘stuff’ affects how the cheese melts. Shred it yourself and use the good stuff.
Also make my baked Italian sub pizza.
French Bread Pizza Rustica
Ingredients
- 1 loaf French bread
- 1 pound Italian sausage
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ small red bell pepper seeded, chopped
- ½ small green bell pepper seeded, chopped
- 1 small red onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 12 ounce spinach frozen chopped spinach, defrosted, squeezed dry
- kosher salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 ½ cups Ricotta
- ½ cup Parmesan grated
- ½ stick pepperoni chopped
- 4 cups cheese Mozzarella and Provolone, shredded
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes or more
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 F.
- Split the bread lengthwise. Optionally, hollow out the loaf by removing some of the bread. Love toppings? Hollow it out. Want less topping? Don’t hollow it out. (You might have topping left over).
- Crumble sausage into a large skillet with the oil and cook until done.
- Remove and let cool. Optionally, transfer sausage to a food processor and pulse a few times to make the meat finer.
- Transfer meat to a large bowl.
- Add the remaining ingredients and stir.
- Spread mixture out onto the bread halves.
- Place bread on baking sheets and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the bread is crunchy and the cheese starts to melt. Place under the broiler to brown lightly if desired.
Nutrition
Nutritional values are approximate.
