Grilling can be intimidating for most of us but we are always up for a grilling challenge! Steak and ribs are what we grill the most so we decided to give pizza a try. I’ve always wanted grilled pizza and anything we can do to keep the house cool from these hot Texas temps, we’ll do!
One of the great things about making your own pizza, is getting to choose exactly what toppings you want. Because we eat beef regularly, we opted to keep it off this pizza. Instead, we chose some fresh produce like red and green bell peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes. We bought a can of black olives and sliced them in half and used Mexican cheese and Mozzarella cheese. You can buy your crust if you want but it takes no time to make it. I use a simple pizza dough recipe that has been a favorite in our family for many years.
Our Grilling Challenge
Really, the only challenge to grilling pizza, is to keep the grill at a much lower temp than what you’d cook anything else. If you’re cooking other food, I’d save the pizza for last. It takes less time on the grill than it does in the oven. The first crust we grilled was a big fat fail. It was charred badly. You’re gonna have a charred spot or two anyways but clearly this (below) is not what you want!
Don’t let that scare you!!! All it meant is our grill needed to be a little less hot. Luckily, I had made extra dough just in case this did happen.
The biggest tip I have for you, is to cook one side of the dough for just a 2-5 minutes, then remove from grill and top with all your pizza toppings or you can do it while it’s still on the grill. I removed ours from the grill because I didn’t want any flare-ups while I was doing it. Another tip – it helps to roll out several crusts in advance, stack them with wax paper between, then throw them in the freezer for a few minutes. Keeps them from stretching and sticking when you put them on the grill. You would also increase the cook time if you do this, since they are frozen.
I HIGHLY recommend a pizza peel. I did not have one but ended up having to use another pan to replicate the same action that this will do. I’ll be being this Bamboo pizza peel asap! Well worth the cost!
Have you grilled pizza before? And what are you biggest grilling challenges?
I have grilled pizza on the grill, mostly because the stove was broke! I like it, they were frozen ones too, I bet a homemade one would be real tasty on it. Yours looks real good!
Great post Lori! I love that you included the burnt crust pic too – I find it helpful to see mistakes.
We grill pizza all the time! We find that if you put it off the direct heat on your grill, that it will be less black on the bottom. Fresh basil torn up on top of the veggies (we like the peppers and mushrooms and olives too) is the bomb! The basil gets all smokey and something happens to it on the grill (when you close the lid for a bit). It is heavenly!
Thanks for posting about this. I’ve been wanting to grill pizza all summer, but feel intimidated by it. Your post helped inspire me to do it! Thanks for all the pointers too.