Popular Pizza Toppings
Bucceto’s Pizza & Pasta has been serving Bloomington for over 30 years. When we opened our doors in 1991, the Indianapolis Star put us on their list of “10 hottest restaurants in Indianapolis.” That streak continued for years, and in 2019, Herald Times readers gave us the Readers’ Choice award for the Best Italian Food. Even the Indianapolis Monthly called our first Bucceto’s branch one of the top five Italian restaurants in Bloomington and the surrounding Indianapolis metro area, so we know good food, and more specifically, we know great pizza, which is why we offer some of the most popular pizza toppings around. But what are the popular pizza toppings you should be looking at when you consider a pizza for yourself, your friends, or your family?
Here are some of the most popular pizza toppings you can enjoy on your next pizza from Bucceto’s.
Cheese
The basis of any delicious pizza is the layer of cheese that can be on the top, bottom, or both. While mozzarella is the most common choice, well-known for how stretchy and gooey it gets, there are a lot of different choices here.
Some of the better picks for cheese are:
Fontina Cheese
If you like the stretchy “gooiness” of traditional mozzarella but love the taste of a milder Swiss cheese, Fontina cheese might be your best choice. This has a flavor similar to nutty traditional Swiss cheeses like Emmental, known for its holes.
Feta Cheese
Feta cheese is traditionally made from sheep milk, goat milk, or both. It’s a more crumbly cheese, which is a great accompaniment to traditional mozzarella. The creamy, crumbly texture combines with a sharper, salty, and tangy flavor that can complement many popular pizza toppings that are “Greek style,” like olives, spinach, and onions.
Ricotta Cheese
Similar to feta, ricotta is another cheese that tends to hold its shape, rather than melt and become gooey. It’s a spongy, fluffy cheese. It’s a milder Italian cheese that can be made with all types of milk, and because of its slightly nutty flavor, it goes well with sweet, salty, pasta, or pizza.
Plants
While some pizza lovers will eat only meat on their pizza, most people prefer some additional plant toppings, whether that’s fruit or vegetables. That’s no surprise, as some vegetables, in the proper combination, can lend some extra sweetness, tanginess, texture, or other flavor complements to a pizza. Here are some of the popular pizza toppings in the fruit and vegetable department.
Olives
Olives are an extremely popular fruit that many people mistake for a vegetable. For pizza, the most popular toppings are black and green olives, which are really just the same type of olive at different levels of maturation. Green olives are unripe and offer a firmer texture, with a more astringent, less salty flavor. Black olives are fully ripened, feel softer in the mouth, and have a sweeter and saltier taste.
Tomatoes
Many people mistake tomatoes for vegetables, but they are technically a fruit! In addition to often being the base for many pizza and pasta sauces, tomatoes make a fine topping on pizzas. Raw tomatoes added to pizza lend a sharper, more astringent flavor. We have both Roma and sun-dried tomatoes.
Bell Peppers
A very popular vegetable topping, bell peppers, particularly raw, can add some extra crunch to a pizza, in addition to some sweetness if you’re looking to complement the other flavors. Green peppers tend to complement rather than compete with flavors, which is why they are used so often in many pizza recipes.
Meats
Of course, meat is one of the most popular pizza toppings, and there are a variety of different ones to choose from. Bucceto’s has a range of classic favorites, as well as some alternatives to choose from to make things taste a little different.
Bacon
While classic bacon is always a perennial favorite, Bucceto’s also offers Canadian bacon, which Canadians call back bacon. While the American bacon we’re all familiar with is thin, long, “streaky” strips of salt-cured pork belly, Canadian bacon is a cut of loin from a pig’s back, which is why Canadians call it “back bacon.” Canadian bacon has a sweeter, hammy flavor compared to normal, salty bacon.
Hamburger
While Italian sausages like slices of pepperoni are the classic for meat on pizza, plenty of other traditional meats are popular pizza toppings too. If you love hamburgers and pizza, and wish there was a way to enjoy both, why not put some hamburger on your pizza? Depending on how it’s seasoned, hamburger on pizza can either taste like a typical American burger or give you a Mexican kick with the right peppers and seasoning for a more taco-like experience.
Anchovy
While anchovies have often been the butt of jokes about pizza, they’re a worldwide favorite, and with good reason. Anchovies provide that elusive “umami” flavor profile that’s more common in Asian dishes, but Italians made use of it with this little fish.
Whether you’re interested in one of our menu pizzas or want to create your own, you can either come down to Bucceto’s or have it delivered straight to your door with one of many popular pizza toppings.