Grilled Pizza

Sorry I didn't post on Saturday. I was in St. George getting a sunburn bad enough to cause my face to swell. Lovely.

Anyway, even though the resemblance between an Avatar and me right now is uncanny, I still have a delicious recipe for you. Last night we grilled 3 pizzas. They. were. awesome. Way better than cooking them in the oven. Unless you have a fancy pants brick oven. Then it might be debatable. But probably not even then.

So there are some essential things for this pizza. The first is the dough. Here is the recipe for the best pizza dough:

1 1/4 cups warm water

2 teaspoons instant yeast

2 tablespoons sugar


1 tablespoon honey


1 tablespoon olive oil


2 teaspoons salt


1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

*****makes 2 medium pizzas or one extra large pizza

Make the dough the night before or early the morning on the day you want to make the pizza. In a large mixing bowl (or in the bowl of a stand mixer), mix the water, yeast, sugar, honey and oil. (If using active dry yeast, increase the amount of yeast to 2 3/4 teaspoons and proof the yeast in the water until foamy before mixing in the sugar, honey and oil.) Then mix in 1 cup flour and the salt. Continue mixing in all the remaining flour until you get a nice, soft dough. Knead until dough is soft and smooth, about 10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes with a stand mixer.

Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly greased bowl and cover tightly (with a lid or plastic wrap). Place the dough in the refrigerator to slowly rise until three hours before baking. Three hours before baking, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature, keeping it lightly covered.

The next thing you need is great toppings. We did 3 pizzas: one pepperoni, one BBQ chicken(use barbecue sauce on the bottom and top with bite size pieces of chicken coated with barbecue sauce, finely sliced red onions, slices of fresh mozz and cilantro) and one margherita (tomato sauce, slices of fresh mozz and fresh basil). The fresh mozzarella is so important. Totally worth the extra money. Even though it's convenient to buy pre shredded cheese, there is a huge difference between it and fresh cheese that you shred yourself. Also worth the extra effort. The pre shredded stuff doesn't melt as well or as quickly, plus it doesn't taste as good. Last night I was cramming for time so I ended up using some store bought tomato sauce and adding some oregano, basil and crushed red pepper flakes, but next time I will definitely make my own tomato sauce. Cheaper and tastier. 

Alright, now I'm going to link you to the blog that I got this recipe from. It gives a great tutorial on the actual grilling of the pizzas. Plus it has lots of pictures and helpful hints. I'd follow all of the instructions diligently. Grill on.