How To Make Grilled Pizza

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Like everyone else, I’m a huge sucker for pizza. Good pizza, bad pizza, thin pizza, thick pizza…I’m really not that picky! We enjoy making individual pizzas in the oven for Movie Night most Fridays but now that the warmer weather has rolled in (hello desert heat!), I have zero interest in cranking up the temperature in my kitchen by turning on the oven. Here’s where our table top grill comes in handy! Less mess, less heat, and you end up with delicious Grilled Pizza!

Tip 1. The Setup 

We have some friends who have this awesome outdoor pizza oven that they fire up every so often and invite tons of people over to enjoy good times over good pizza. We, unfortunately, do not have a fire stone oven so we just make due with either our gas or charcoal grills. Lately, we’ve been loving a portable charcoal grill

that is small enough to fit right on the serving table! It creates a great assembly line where people start by adding pizza sauce and toppings on their personal pizza and end right at the same table where it’s cooking.

Tip 2. The Heat

It took us a while to figure out just how hot we had to let the charcoals get in order to cook the pizza in a reasonable time. Optimally, the pizza would cook in under 5 minutes but we found it more likely to take closer to 7 minutes. Still not too shabby! Another friend highly recommended using a pizza stone to evenly disperse the heat and cut back even more on the cooking time. She was totally right!

Another way we cut back on the prep time before the party was to use HomeRight’s new ElectroLight Fire Starter. With temperatures as high as high 1300°F, it got the charcoal going in about 3 minutes and all without any lighter fluid or other nasty chemicals. It was seriously pretty amazing to watch!

Tip 3. The Dough

There are tons of dough recipes out there but my favorite comes recommended by Minimalist Baker and can be found on the Food Republic’s site under Best Basic Pizza Dough Recipe. It’s a super easy recipe that grills perfectly. The only hiccup is that they forgot to add that you’ll need 3 tbsp of sugar in the ingredients list. Oops!

The same friend that recommended the pizza stone also recommended baking the individual pizzas slightly before setting them out for your guests who will then place the pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings on the baked side. The unbaked side of the pizza will go on the heated pizza stone and you won’t have to worry about it not cooking all the way through! Do I have brilliant friends or what?!

Tip 4. The Toppings

I’m of the opinion that the more pizza topping options the better! You sit there long enough and most people are going to want to make a second pizza so make sure to have plenty of all topping in stock. My absolute favorite variety of pizza is feta cheese and fresh jalapenos but the sky’s the limit! You could even have some cooked apples, cinnamon, and butter on stand-by to make a yummy dessert pizza. Perfect end to a perfect night!

Tip 5. The Guests

All that’s left to do is invite some of your closest friends and family members for a super fun night of delicious grilled pizza making. With a little bit of prep, it really is so easy and nobody has to sweat in the kitchen. Hope you have a great time!