Grilled Pizza

Grill Week

Day 2

Grilled Pizza

Making Pizza on a grill was something new for our family, but I have to say we really enjoyed it. The kids had a great time "decorating" their pizzas and Grandma was even here to help us out. I highly recommend trying this!

There are three components to this recipe: the dough, the pizza sauce, and the toppings. I chose to make my dough and sauce from scratch. However, if you would rather, you can purchase the "just add water" dough mix and the bottled pizza sauce. Your choice.

This post will be divided into three sections to help keep thing clear and concise.

The Pizza Sauce

I start this post with the sauce first, since it needs to be prepared in advance. You could make it while your dough is rising...but if you're like me, you would be stressed trying to fit it all in. I just made mine in the morning and stuck it in the fridge...hence the not so great picture and the ugly container. Sorry.

Ingredients:

1/8 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 28-ounce can crushed red tomatoes

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

Put the oil into a sauce pan. Saute the garlic for 30 seconds on medium to high heat. Then add the remaining ingredients. Simmer on low for 15 minutes.

The Dough

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees)

2 Tb yeast

1 tsp sugar

3 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tb oil

Mix together the water, sugar and yeast. Once the yeast is foaming (approximately 5 minutes) add 3 cups of flour, the salt and the oil. Mix on low speed until a soft dough forms and the sides of the bowl come clean. Add additional flour if needed.

Place dough in a greased bowl and allow it to rise until double in size - about 1 hour.

Before you go any further - go turn on that grill. You want to heat it up.

Remove dough and cut into 6 equal pieces (or 8 if you want smaller pizzas). Stretch and form dough into a circle (or oblong, or square, or any shape your little helpers can make).

Place the dough on a floured cookie sheet, and then take them out to the grill - we grilled three pizza crusts at a time.

You want your grill to be nice and hot, but you don't want the flames to burn your pizza. The best option is to leave half of your grill on high and the other half on low. Place the pizza crusts on the low side of the grill.

The easiest way to get the pizza off is by using a spatula - believe me, I tried other things as well. A spatula is your best bet!

Once your pizza crusts are on the grill, cover that baby and let them cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Check them occasionally, but remember that every time you open the lid you loose heat and your grill is acting as your oven.

Once the bottom side of your crust is done, take it out and flip it over on to a cookie sheet. You will be putting your toppings on the side you just cooked.

Now on to the good stuff.....

The Toppings

You can use whatever you want. These are just some of the things we like in our family.

Ingredients:

Sauteed Onions and Peppers

Pepperoni Slices

Ham Chunks

Spinach

Shredded Mozzarella Cheese (Part Skim)

Whole Milk Mozzarella (sliced)

Start by placing some pizza sauce on each crust - not too much or it will be soggy. Then add all the other good stuff.

We did discover that the whole milk mozzarella melted a lot better - and tasted better- than the part skim kind.

Once your pizzas are decorated, take them back out to the grill. Again, put them on the low side and close that lid.

They need to cook for 5 to 7 more minutes (I think ours took 10 - perhaps I was checking them too often).

Once they're done, pull them out and get ready to eat!

Here are some of our crazy concoctions:

Pepperoni & Mozzarella

Peppers, Onions & Spinach with Mozzarella

Ham & Mozzarella