You don’t need a fancy pizza oven to make amazing brick oven-style pizza at home! All you need is a grill (propane preferred). The first time I had ever heard of grilled pizza must have been 2014? 2015? when I was invited over to a friend's house for a BBQ and I’ve been hooked on this cooking method ever since.
If you have never grilled your pizza, prepare to be amazed. As a pizza lover, I've tried every way to make it at home, but even with a pizza stone and pre-baking the dough before adding toppings, I end up with a soggy or half-baked dough. Sound too familiar? When you grill a pizza, you're left with a full-cooked dough just like you would find at a high quality pizza restaurant, and dare I say, similar to the quality of pizza you would find in Italy. Once I learned about this magical cooking method, I had not been able to make a pizza in the oven since. And trust me, you won't, either.
This post is going to be less of a recipe and more of a how-to on grilling pizza, with some topping suggestions at the end.
Step 1: make or buy pizza dough
Step 2: heat grill to medium-high heat, or 450-500 degrees
Step 3: roll out dough to desired shape and size on a floured surface
Step 4: optional, dust one side of dough with cornmeal
Step 5: with a brush, lightly oil the other non-cornmeal side of the dough with oil
Step 6: place oiled dough directly onto grill and cook for 2-3 minutes with the cover down until the dough is golden (not burned) and almost fully cooked - see picture
Step 7: lightly oil the cornmeal dusted side of the pizza and flip the dough onto the other side
Step 8: cook the cornmeal side for about 1 minute with the cover down. You don’t want this side to be fully cooked as it will be going back on the grill
Step 9: remove dough from grill, add desired toppings to the non-cornmeal dusted side
Step 10: turn grill to
medium-low and place pizza back on grill, cook until dough is cooked through and toppings melt
Step 11: eat!
Topping suggestions:
- Margherita: tomato sauce, heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, olive oil
- Greek (a family favorite): tomato sauce, mozzarella, spinach, cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, red onion, feta cheese, olive oil
- Prosciutto and arugula, which you can find here
- Potato and sausage white pizza: thinly sliced (like chips) and par-cooked potatoes, pre-cooked Italian sausage, shredded mozzarella, scallions, garlic infused olive oil
- BBQ chicken: BBQ sauce (replaces tomato sauce), shredded mozzarella, cooked chicken, red onion and whatever else you want to add