Beer-Pickled Vegetables May Be The Ultimate Frozen Pizza Addition
Homemade pizza is cool to cook and tasty to munch. To make it, you only need all-purpose flour, warm water, dry yeast, and your favorite toppings ... or not. Although making a pie at home may be fun, frozen pizza is always a quick route toward a satisfying meal, especially when you know how to spice it up for the table.
A few tricks transform a frozen pizza from good to great. For example, ensuring your oven is hot enough before putting in your pie results in a crispier crust. Better yet, why not whip out that pizza stone you got for your birthday? The stone material mimics a real pizza oven and allows for even heating, making your pizza perfectly crisp on the bottom yet fluffy on the inside.
Besides the baking technique, countless customizations can make a piping hot frozen pizza even more delicious — like adding last night's roasted chicken, charred broccolini, or a drizzle of hot honey. But have you ever tried a flourish of zingy beer-pickled veggies?
These zingy pickles are the perfect finishing touch
The first step toward pizza-worthy beer-pickled vegetables is the brine. For this magical liquid, per Lifehacker, you need the beer of your choice, salt, sugar, vinegar, and any of your go-to pickling seasonings, like garlic or peppercorns. Cool, crisp, and tangy, beer-pickled veggies — from red onions to bell peppers — provide the perfect contrast to a rich, bubbling, cheesy pie. For best results, don't put them on your pizza before it bakes: Arrange them on the finished pie just before serving.
Adding toppings to your pizza after cooking is a trick supported by plenty of other experts. According to Jamie Lynch, a former "Top Chef" contestant, marinated artichokes, shaved Parmesan cheese, and Castelvetrano olives are perfect toppings to sprinkle on your already baked pizza. "Not many people think to garnish their pizza after it's done cooking, but this actually adds a ton of unexpected flavors and texture," Lynch told Insider. For inspiration, here are pickled vegetables from around the world.