If you’re American or have seen us portrayed in the movies, you know that we spend a considerable amount of our lives feeding our faces with the ever-popular and most delicious of dishes, the pizza.
But, what exact pizza toppings and pizza topping combinations are the most preferred here in the home of the brave and the land of the free?
Read on to discover which five pizza toppings are America’s favorites, which ones almost made the list, and which ones we dislike the most. These answers might just surprise you! Let’s just say the differences between American and Italian pizzas are vast.
The Top Five Favorite Pizza Toppings
America’s top five favorite pizza toppings are hands down pepperoni, sausage, extra cheese, mushrooms, and onions (way to go America, those are some well-balanced toppings!).
Surprise, surprise, bacon and ham, you guys didn’t make the cut!
Below, we take a closer look at each one of these mouth-watering toppings that’ve tantalized enough tastebuds to end up on the top of our list today.
Pepperoni
Pepperoni pizza is the main staple when it comes to the American romance with pizza. If pizza were people, pepperoni would be the most well-liked person in town.
According to Brian Roemmele’s research, a massive 36-percent share of total pizza sales belongs to pepperoni. To back up his point, pepperoni tops all American pizza topping polls that exist.
Sausage
Sausage is currently the second most loved pizza topping in the USA. It isn’t hard to believe either, as I’ve spent my life picking them off of my pies (sorry, folks, but I’m not sorry!).
If you want to get jiggy with it, many pizzerias offer both crumbled sausage and Italian sausage. That way you can go completely hog wild with your pie if you like.
Growing up, the majority of the pies ordered in my house were sausage. Thankfully the other half were good old pepperoni or cheese.
Extra Cheese
Extra cheese, for most people I know, was love at first sight. The hot gooey mess of cheesy, saucy, and herby perfection, is simply spectacular in your mouth. The go-to choice is mozzarella, but there are endless other cheese options for your pizzas.
If you’re anything like us (god forbid), then the moment you bit into your first piece of extra cheese pizza was the moment that you knew everything was gonna be ok. That all your troubles in life were going to work out.
If pizza were people, extra cheese would be the person who always makes everything better, no matter how terrible things seem. No matter what toppings your roommates order, you can always extra-cheese that pie, and everything will be alright!
It’s really that good.
Mushrooms
What pizza topping list would be complete without mushrooms? Definitely not yours, if you were either Donatello or Leonardo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both of these caped crusaders prefer scarfing mushroom pies over any other.
Apparently, Donatello and Leonardo aren’t wrong for their business either, because over 50-percent of Americans reportedly enjoy mushroom pizzas.
Personally, I love a nice mushroom pie with extra cheese. Throw in some onion? To die for.
Onions
Speaking of throwing in the onions, just under half of the people polled during Roemmele’s study said that they like onions on pizza. I stand before you, one of the millions, a proud onion fan. I say if you toss onions on just about any pizza there is, you’ve improved it.
Onions are one of the main ingredients that make veggie lovers so tasty. Yep, along with their good friends green peppers, mushrooms, and black olives, onions contribute to one of the best pizzas ever made.
Toppings That Almost Made the List
Some toppings show up on a lot of pies and satisfy plenty of greedy lips and rumbling bellies, but they just don’t have what it takes to be one of our favorite toppings on their own.
These close-but-no-cigar type toppings include:
Bacon
If there were any more pork products that fit on pizza, they would probably be listed right after bacon and ham. It may even be surprising to some that bacon or ham didn’t make the top five, as popular as these particular toppings are today!
That said, bacon and ham are definitely the next toppings that may well eventually move on up the ladder in rank (look out onions and mushrooms, bacon and ham’s a-coming for ya!).
Green Peppers
Healthy choices don’t always have to hurt. America has proved it yet again by electing green peppers as one of their almost favorite pizza toppings.
As with mushrooms and onions, green peppers are a great topping when you feel like having a mouthful of crispity-crunchity green-watery goodness.
In all seriousness? Green peppers bring a lot of crunch to any pie and are especially tasty on vegetable supreme (veggie-lovers) pizza.
Black Olives
I’ll admit, I’ve always been a sucker for black olives. But, hey, apparently I’m not completely alone (even though every time I order them on my pie my friends look at me like I have a tinfoil hat on my head), or black olives wouldn’t be runners-up for one of America’s favorite pizza toppings.
Pineapple
What can we say about poor pineapple, as a pizza topping? Not much, except that there are these wacky nutjobs who for some reason or another are convinced pineapple is actually a really tasty pizza topping.
I may or may not be one myself. Further, I may or may not enjoy a bit of bacon or ham with my theoretical pineapple pizza.
Spinach
Another healthy pizza topping you may be surprised to see on our list of the toppings that almost made it to the top five is none other than Spinach.
As tasty as it is, spinach is usually ordered along with secondary toppings like tomatoes, onions, or extra cheese, thus, this nutritious topping falls short of the glory of being a true fan favorite.
But, what would Popeye say?
Toppings That Fail to Impress American Pizza Fans
If you thought it didn’t get any worse than spinach, you were sadly mistaken. There are far worse fates for otherwise perfectly good pies than smothering with spinach.
For example, most of the following toppings are not preferred by Americans:
- Anchovies
- Artichokes
- Avocado
- BBQ Sauce
- Broccoli
- Clams
- Corn
- Eggs
- Eggplant
- Kale
- Ranch Dressing
- Shrimp
- Squid
- Tuna
A Final Word About America’s Favorite Pizza Toppings
It’s no surprise that pepperoni and cheese are the heavy-weight champs of the favorite pizza toppings world championship, because, quite frankly, they’re both equally as amazing together as they are by themselves.
Sausage, mushrooms, and onions are also great choices if we’re being absolutely honest and unbiased here.
That said, I stand firm in the resolution that no pizza topping comes close to beating pepperoni and cheese. Not even bacon, and definitely not tuna fish or squid seafood on pizza.
