Grilling in the Fall: BBQ Chicken Pizza

As you may have heard, we did not make it to Challenge #5 of Project Food Blog. We had a lot of fun, but we were kind of relieved to get out when we did. Our life is insanely busy enough, and the race to get a contest-worthy post done on the weekend was leaving us with very little weekend leftover and time to relax. We did however get a nifty little cooler out of the deal though, so at least we did something right–right?

Kind of dorky, but it does have a bottle opener, so at least that’s added function right? For now it has been claimed as Felix’s new bed. I swear that cat has more beds than the Queen of England.

All in all we really did have a great time participating in the contest. We met lots of new people, tried a lot of new recipes, and if the contest comes around again next year, hopefully we’ll have a revamped site and more time. Okay maybe just a revamped site.

Our murdered out $30 cheapo grill

By the time we found out we hadn’t made it to the next round, we had already planned out our entry for Challenge #5, which was to put our own spin on pizza. I had an elaborate steak and pesto recipe worked up (Neil has been craving steak since he never gets it), but when we found out we didn’t make it, I decided to use some of our frozen organic chicken for a simple Fall BBQ Chicken Pizza on the grill, something we’ve been meaning to try forever!

Ingredients:

For the Crust:
Two batches of our dough from La Pizza Margherita Kohler

For the Pizza:
2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup spicy barbecue sauce, divided
1/2 cup slivered red onion
1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded (we added a little leftover Colby Jack)

Directions:

1. First, we grilled the chicken. Cook 3-5 min each side, or to 160 degrees with a meat thermometer.

2. We then sliced the chicken into thin strips.

We grabbed our favorite sauce…YUM!

Artistic shot. Look how it glistens in the setting sun…

3. Drizzle some of the sauce over the chicken and stir to coat. You’ll need the remainder of the sauce for a thin layer on your crust.

Meanwhile you can shred your cheese and slice your red onion. Check out our leaning tower of cheese!

This dough is ready to roll!

4. Punch and roll out your dough and create a dipped edge to hold your toppings. We chose to use a pizza stone, but you can also grill the dough right on the grill grate. Here’s a great tutorial via

5. Grilled the crust plain for five minutes, then start with your toppings. We started with a thin layer of BBQ sauce:

then we added a layer of red onion…

…then a thin layer of cheese…

then our BBQ chicken and a little more cheese.

6. Grill pizza for 10 minutes. Depending on the temperature of the grill this may vary, so it’s best to keep an eye on it. When it’s finished, carefully remove from grill by transferring it to another surface/dish. Do NOT attempt to remove it on the stone, it will be very HOT.

7. Allow the pizza to cool for several minutes. Add additional seasonings of your choice and slice and eat!

We’d been meaning to try pizza on the grill all summer, and I’m happy we finally got around to it, as it’s just another cool thing for us to eat, albeit when the temperatures are warm enough and we have enough time to grill. I know for most it’s not groundbreaking, but it’s new to us, and now that we’ve tried it we of course have tons of ideas of toppings and crust flavors to try. So many of these techniques used to be so intimidating, but the possibilities really are endless and with each one you master, the floodgates seem to open up with even more things to try. Our time spent in the kitchen is starting to become like episodes of Mythbusters. Can these newbs grill pizza? YES! Will the new flavor of spring rolls we try tonight be delicious? Find out tomorrow!