Before any of you jabronis start commenting with “Just take off the pineapple,” or “That’s not real pizza,” please consider that this has all been said before, it’s very boring, and nobody cares. There is nothing wrong with putting fruit on pizza (tomato is a fruit), and adding tangy, sweet pineapple to a doughy, cheesy, greasy pizza is a logical move. The acid balances the fat, which—say it with me now—allows you to eat more pizza, as it prevents your palate from becoming saturated with salt and grease.
That being said, placing watery bits of canned pineapple on a pizza is a crime—at least a misdemeanor—and this practice most likely accounts for the pie’s polarizing reputation. The best pizza-makers consider every ingredient and prepare them in a way that lets them be their best selves. Pineapple—and any other ingredient you choose to pair with pineapple—is no different.
Grill your pineapple
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Raw pineapple can be astringent, and it has a tendency to release water as it is cooked. Grilling your pineapple beforehand mitigates both of these issues. Grilled pineapple is simply more flavorful. The heat caramelizes the pineapple’s sugars and drives off water, intensifying the flavors and tempering astringency while keeping things tangy. A little char doesn’t hurt either.
If you don’t have a grill, you can sear the pineapple in a cast iron pan, or waffle it, or roast it at 400℉ until it’s as dark and caramelized as you want it. Just cook it before it hits the pie. It will change the way you think about pineapple on pizza.
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Mix up your meats
No disrespect to our northern neighbors, but Canadian bacon is a mid-tier cured pork product. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that my favorite ham to pair with pineapple is prosciutto, but you may be slightly scandalized to hear that I don’t cook it, not even a little. Instead, I drape cold pieces of fancy ham over the hot pizza, which melts the fat slightly and gets those salty, porky flavor compounds moving and grooving just enough (the cold meat also protects the roof of your mouth from hot cheese).
There’s also no rule that says you have to stick to the ham family. Pepperoni is right there, and its aggressive, salty character practically begs to be tempered with tangy fruit. Even better, try a spicy pep—sweet and heat are a natural, harmonious pair. (I wouldn’t even be mad at pineapple and Italian sausage, though my Italian-American significant other might pass away from the cultural insensitivity of it all.)
Grease it up
Full disclosure: I haven’t tried this trick yet, but it’s a hack that comes from Ken Forkish or Ken’s Artisan Pizza, a well-respected pizza place here in Portland, so I trust it. Forkish enhances the porky quality of his pineapple pie by smearing a thin layer of bacon grease under the toppings. According to Food52, it makes a subtle but delicious difference:
Beneath the layers of sauce, cheese, ham, pineapple, and more cheese, Forkish smears a very thin layer of bacon grease. You won’t taste bacon, you will just taste good. We tried a blind side-by-side taste test at Food52 HQ and confirmed this. And while the clever trick is very much at home on this rumaki-era pizza, pretty much any other pizza—with its just-under-salted strands of mozzarella, its sharp, tangy sauce that welcomes a little more roundness like a good vinaigrette—will get notably, yet untraceably better.
You can, of course, smear bacon grease on any pizza you wish, not just those with pineapple. (Just don’t tell my Italian-American boyfriend. He’s very sensitive when it comes to pizza.)