Name: Spicy Lover's Pizza Copycat Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: Pizza dough or premade pizza crust for 12-inch pizza; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1/4 cup Hatch Red Chile sauce (or homemade); 2 cups of freshly shredded mozzarella cheese; toppings such as spicy sausage, spicy pepperoni, Hatch green chile, red onion, olives, etc.; 1 tablespoons dried oregano; 1 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese; cornmeal

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This new pizza hack is so genious, you’ll wonder why you hadn’t thought of it before.

A freshly baked Spicy Lover's Copycat Pizza sits on a pizza peel and is sliced and ready to serve.

Making homemade pizza is a real treat. I know the vast majority of people would rather just order it from their favorite pizzaria, and I enjoy that too (HELLO Dion’s Pizza), but there’s something really fun about creating your own unique pizza pie customized to your perfect taste and style.

What are the steps for making pizza at home?

Of course, having the right kitchen tools make all the difference between feeling like you could be a 5 star chef, or a “hang your head in shame” Hell’s Kitchen reject. I wouldn’t dream of making pizza at home without my pizza peel, my pizza stone (aka baking stone) AND, a bag of cornmeal.

Step 1. You need to decide if you’re going to make your own homemade dough or use store-bought.

The experienced home baker will have no problem making homemade dough, but remember, it takes time to rise, so you will need to plan a few hours ahead if you want pizza for dinner that night. Shaping and flattening it into a disk without ripping it definitely takes some practice, but worth learning if you really want to get into making the freshest, most delicous homemade pizza.

If you don’t feel comfortable making your own dough, there are plenty of store-bought pizza dough options for you! Premade pizza dough can come in a can, a plastic carton (usually made by the grocery store bakery) or what I used below, which is a pre-made 12-inch pizza ‘crust’ that comes in a giant package (although it’s more like bread really), that I don’t even have to roll out! Using this saved me a TON of time and it didn’t taste bad either!

Looking down onto a pizza work station with a pizza crust on a peel, surrounded by ingredients and sauces.

Step 2. Set up your workstation by gathering all your toppings. Generously sprinkle cornmeal over your pizza peel, then place your dough onto the peel. Why cornmeal? This is what restaurants use on their peels to easily slide the pizza off the peel and into the ovens. It keeps the dough from sticking to the peel as you place your toppings on it.

How to make a Spicy Lover’s Pizza

Step 3. Once our dough is prepared and our workstation set up- let’s pile on some toppings to make some spicy pizza!

Marinara sauce is the sauce of choice when making classic pizza. There are of course the artisan-type pizzas that have all kinds of fancy toppings and sauces, but I wouldn’t exactly call the spicy Lover’s Pizza copycat a “fancy pizza”. We’re simply replacing the classic marinara with Hatch red chile sauce- the best tasting red chile sauce around! This pizza is so delicous with the red chile sauce, you’ll wonder why you hadn’t thought to make the switch before!

A spoonful of Hatch Red chile sauce is used instead of marinara sauce as the base of this pizza.

But wait! Before you spread out your sauce, brush some olive oil over the crust (you’re welcome to brush it all over the whole pizza dough if you like. The oil will help the crust to brown beautifully and add additional flavor to it.

Hatch Red Chile sauce is spread over a round pizza dough ready to be covered with cheese and toppings.

MOZARELLA TIP: When making pizza, always use freshly shredded mozzarella cheese. Pre-shredded, store-bought cheese will never melt as well because it has additives in it to keep it from clumping. I buy a brick of cheese and use a food processor with a shredding blade to make quick work of this task.

A hand is shown spreading shredded mozzarella onto pizza dough.

Pile on the mozarella, then layer in the rest of your spicy toppings like sausage, pepperoni and Hatch fire roasted and chopped green chiles!

A hand is sprinkling seasonings onto a freshly prepared pizza.

Before I place my pizzas in the oven- I alwasy sprinkle a mixture of grated parmesan cheese and dried oregano over the entire pizza. This will really put your homemade pizza over the top and make it taste just like it was fresh from a restaurant.

A pizza is being slid into an oven onto a baking stone.

Step 4. Place your pizza in a VERY hot oven, preferably onto a baking stone by gently sliding it off the peel using a quick back and forth motion; this will loosten the pizza and it will slide right off into your oven.

Preheating your oven to as hot as it will go (about 500 degrees F for most people) is important when baking pizza. Comercial pizza ovens will get as hot as 900 degrees Most home oven’s don’t have this capabilty but we can do our best to re-create it! At 500 F, most homemade pizzas will cook in about 8-10 minutes.

Placing a ‘raw’ pizza on a scorching hot baking stone will really help the crust to bake properly while the toppings cook. It’s the best way to re-create that classic pizza texture at home.

A freshly baked and still hot Spicy Lover's pizza (copycat version) is sliced and ready to serve.

Keep that pizza peel handy; you’ll need it to pull your freshly baked pizza out of the oven. Let it cool for just a couple minutes, then slice it up and serve it hot :0)

A closeup of the toppings of a Spicy Lover's pizza (copycat version) showing the Hatch red chile sauce underneath.

Above you can see a little bit of that delicious Hatch Red Chile sauce exposed on the pizza slice. The flavor it lends to pizza is really extraordinary. You are going to LOVE this pizza!

What are Hatch Chile Peppers?

Hatch Chile peppers are world famous for their delicious flavors, produced by the unique climate and soil composition that exists only in the Hatch Valley of Southern New Mexico. These factors combine to grow exceptional-tasting chile peppers with smoky, sweet, and hot flavor notes. More people discover Hatch Chiles each year, and their popularity continues to grow.

Growing up in New Mexico where chile peppers are an integral part of the culture, I know that Hatch chiles have earned a reputation for being the best of the best. I personally only use authentic Hatch in all my cooking because it simply tastes amazing. You should be able to find canned Hatch chile in any supermarket these days, or you can order it directly like I do. Frozen chile is much, much better tasting than canned!

The Hatch Chile Store is the premiere website for ordering your Hatch chile– they are incredibly good at shipping fresh authentic chile right to your door, whatever variety and hotness lever you prefer. It’s where I get all my Hatch Chile, and I must say the flavor really does stand out above any other chile pepper variety.

Wooden baskets at a farmer's market are filled with fresh New Mexico chiles; most of them are green, but a few are turning red.

Head on over now to The Hatch Chile Store to stock up on the most delicious Hatch chile you can buy anywhere- they’ve always got great deals on your favorite products!

Did you know I have a full-color cookbook with lots more easy and delicious New Mexican recipes? You can learn more about it here!

Did you know I have a full-color cookbook with lots more easy and delicious New Mexican recipes? You can learn more about it here!

You know what else is fantastic? Simply giving this recipe a star rating and a comment below! Your comments and ratings are greatly appreciated by me AND the Google algorithm. Thank you!

Did you know I have a full-color cookbook with lots more easy and delicious New Mexican recipes? You can learn more about it here!