Grilled Pizza

Intro: Grilled Pizza

I have seen people grilling pizzas on cooking shows for ages, but it seemed pretty intimidating... until I tried it. I've been making pizza at home for years, and always just used my oven and it would turn out okay. But not great. And then I grew some balls and decided to head out to the grill.

There are a ton of benefits to doing pizza this way. 1) You can get your grill way hotter than your oven, usually. Ovens don't like being 500- 600 degrees... but a grill will do just fine. 2) It cuts back on the cooking time by a lot, since you can cook it so much hotter. 3) You will not heat up your kitchen, which this summer especially, is a pretty big deal. Even if you make pizza in the winter, having your oven so high for so long makes you feel like you're in a sauna.4) Making your pizza yourself means that you can completely customize it to you... for example, I can't eat real cheese (I know, seriously, it's the worst.) so I can just make that substitution without some teenage kid on the other end of the telephone line messing it up. And kids love putting their own toppings on, too. They are way more excited to eat their veggies if they can add it to a pizza themselves. 5) (And most important) It gives your pizza a super amazing flavor that you just can't replicate. You get nice blackened grill marks, and the edges get a bit burnt and yummy... sounds weird, I suppose, for a pizza crust, but really is ideal. Trust me!!

STEP 1: Start by Making Some Dough.

Making your dough is awesome. But it is time consuming, so if you don't have that much time, totally buy either frozen balls of pizza dough if you can find it, or I bet if you went to your local pizza place and enticed them with some $$, they would give you some. But here's what I use:


Ingredients:

• One packet of quick-rise yeast
• One cup of warm water, plus a few tablespoons as needed
• A pinch of sugar
• 3 1/3 cups of flour, either all purpose or whole wheat. Both work. (In the pictures, I used whole wheat)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 Tablespoons Olive oil.

Steps:

1. Pour your packet of yeast into the warm water. Add a pinch of sugar (the yeast feeds on this, it sounds silly, but the happier you make those little yeasty friends, the more bubbly and good your dough will be) and let it sit for about 10 minutes, until it's foamy. Make sure that your water is not too hot, usually I just get it as close to body temperature as I can.
2. In a large bowl add your flour and salt. Add in your oil and yeast/water, and mix it with a hand mixer until it's totally combined and starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and clump together into one big clump. If it seems a bit dry, add some water little by little... don't go crazy. It's easier to add a little more water than somehow take it out.
3. Roll it out onto a floured surface and knead for about 4-5 minutes. Go until it's pretty elastic and smooth.
4. Form the dough into a large ball, and place it in a bowl that has some olive oil in it. Oil the top of the dough, too, and place it in a warm spot with a towel over it. In the winter, I may turn the oven on warm and stick it in there, but since it's August, you can set it pretty much anywhere.
5. I usually let this rise for about an hour or so, and then knead it once more. When I knead it this time, though, I usually work in a ton of minced garlic. I've also put in basil and chopped up sundried tomatoes... all very good ideas.
6. Once that's kneaded and good, I divide it into two balls, and cover them in oil. Then I throw them right back in the bowl I had them rising in before (if they are both covered in oil they won't really stick to each other) and let it go for an hour in a warm spot.

STEP 2: Roll Out Your Dough

Once your dough is ready, start heating up your grill. I use a propane grill, so it just takes a few minutes to get nice and hot... but charcoal would work just as well, but you may want to get it started and hot a bit earlier.

To roll out your dough, take one of the risen balls of dough, and place it on a floured surface. I usually start by rolling it with a rolling pin, and then pick it up and toss it around on my hands a bit to stretch it out. I am, I will admit, pretty darn terrible at this... I don't think I've ever made a circular pizza in my life, and if I get through this step with no giant holes I'm pretty darn lucky. But, all in all, as long as you don't have holes and it's a consistent thickness, you're good. Sometimes tasty food looks funny. :)

STEP 3: Getting Your Crust Onto the Grill

I use a wooden pizza peel to put it on the grill, but you could also use the back of a backing sheet. I sprinkle some cornmeal on the peel so that the dough won't stick to the wood... just enough to help it get off, though, I don't really want that much left on the dough when it cooks.

To actually get it in the grill is sort of tricky, and I've certainly gotten better with practice. I tend to do it as fast as possible mainly because the grill is SO hot by now, and it seems the slower I go about it, the more room for error. I pretty much use my pizza peel to just smack it on the grill... just try to keep your hands out of the heat as much as you can.

Once you get it actually on the grill, I poke my dough a bunch of times with a fork so that it doesn't form huge gas bubbles as it cooks... that makes things difficult when you go to put on toppings.

Close the lid to the grill and let it cook for just a few minutes... it doesn't take long. You pretty much want to cook just the side on the grill, not all the way through... that will come later. When it has a good char on it, pull it off, and flip it cooked side up on your pizza peel, because it's topping time!

STEP 4: Topping Time

Now it's topping time. You want to put all of your toppings on the cooked side... you'll put this all back onto the grill to cook the bottom and melt the cheese.

An important thing to remember is that this is going to be on the grill for a lot less time than in the oven, so the toppings you put on aren't going to get super cooked. Like if you put raw onions on, they are still going to be pretty darn raw when you pull it out, not soft and cooked like when you order a pizza from a restaurant. So if you want something cooked, it may be a good idea to cook it separate.

What we usually do is take some olive oil, put in some minced garlic, and nuke it for about 30 seconds... this makes the oil super garlicy and yummy. This we'll brush on first, and then add the sauce. I usually make my own, and you can find instructions to that here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Garden-Pizza-Sauce/ 

From there it's sort of whatever you want. We usually let the kids do a pizza, and then have a grown up pizza... so I'll chop up some green peppers pretty thin, some tomatoes, and some turkey pepperoni, and I'll just put them in bowls for the kids to put on themselves. The grownups had pretty much the same thing, but with a LOT of carmalized vidalia onions. We've also put sauteed zucchini and squash on, too, and it was awesome.

Once you've got your toppings on, add your cheese. Now you're ready to go back out to the grill!

STEP 5: Back to the Grill

Very carefull put it back on the grill.. it usually isn't as hard now, since the crust is more solid. Close the lid, and give it just a few minutes... it doesn't take long. Go pretty much until you've charred the bottom crust, and the cheese is good and melty.

Enjoy your pizza!

Comments

[grillmaster]

I used to make my pizza this way, years ago and don't really know why I stopped. But I have started again. Managed to get some Caputo "00" flour which is way better than all purpose flour for making pizza, the crust is absolutely amazing.. Other than the flour my recipe is exactly identical to yours, cheers. Thanks for sharing.

[chrisj55432]

We've been doing pizza on the grill for many years - I've mostly used Pillsbury Pizza Dough in the refrigerated tube. It's easy and you can keep it on hand to use at the drop of a hat, and it tastes really great! It is a little tricky to get on the grill, though. If you put it onto a sheet of parchment, then you can flip it along with the parchment sheet upside down onto the grill and simply peel the parchment off the dough. I oil the top surface of the dough first so it doesn't stick to the grill. I also usually spray the preheated grill with Pam Grilling Spray just before placing any food on it.

I never use sauces - grilled pizza is outstanding with only chopped veggies, grated cheeses (or globs of cheese), and herbs! I've used various combinations of chopped/sliced tomato, onion, garlic, zucchini, radish (crunchy and really good!), fresh mushrooms, peppers, artichoke, scallions, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese (fantastic!), fresh basil, fresh rosemary, etc.

The smoky flavor from the grill is imparted to the crust rapidly, and adds so much flavor that you don't need very many toppings to produce a wonderful meal, so unlike run-of -the-mill pizza.

Make sure you have everything chopped and ready to go - I mix toppings together to minimize the time needed to load the crust (I load my crust immediately after flipping it while it's still on the grill, then close the cover for only a few minutes).

[walmatic]

Nice. Just tried this last weekend. Turned out awesome.

[abbyholverson]

Yum!

[Sam Cook]

EVERYTHING tastes better cooked on the grill!

[quadracer]

Last night I made chilli pizza, I used a thin layer of chili for sauce, cheese and "steak-ums" with a layer of salsa chips on top, I diddent think it would turn out well but it was pretty good. Does anyone know about a grilled cake or brownies? And I aim for the 450-500 range,Ill have to try higher temps next time.

[abbyholverson]

I would bet that baking on the grill wouldn't be hard at all... make sure you have an accurate thermometer and probably watch the temp like a hawk. I'd watch what sort of cookware you use on a grill, though, so you don't ruin your nice stuff... maybe cast iron (there are tons of dutch oven cake recipes out there) or even just cheapo aluminum would work. I know that I bake meatloaf on the grill in a pyrex pie plate, over indirect heat, and it cleans up fine afterward.

[quadracer]

Our oven broke, and we use our grill foreverything. You are right grilled pizza is leaps and bounds better then any oven pie. Plus we allways get that grilled steak flavor in the pie from the grill. Sometime try grilling everything you put on it, grilled ham and grilled pineapple on a grilled pizza is a fav around here.

[abbyholverson]

I barely use my oven, the grill is so much easier. (I even cook meatloaf on the grill, believe it or not). I've been toying with the idea of making a mexican pizza on the grill... more of a roasted salsa instead of a normal basil/garlic sauce, with grilled fajita and grilled pineapple toppings, heck you could even work some chipolte peppers into the dough, I bet... god, now I'm hungry again.

[mdeblasi1]

I might try (if I were not a kid) merely opening the grill and quickly putting on the toppings, to prevent the pizza from loosing temperature while I fussed with it off the heat. Jeffery Seingarten (sp?) of Vogue magazine et al, suggests about 700 deg. F. for a pizza, so if using a charcoal or wood fire I would wait for the fire to burn down before I started the pizza. What to do with all those BTU's before the fire is ready? I don"t know, it's a conundrum. Cook tomorrows dinner?

[abbyholverson]

The gage on my grill usually reads at about 600 when I do this... but I'm sure it could get higher. I know that I roasted the tomatoes for the sauce on the grill as it warmed up, and you could certainly cook toppings on it while it was warming up. I don't know about topping it while actually on the grill, since the crust cooks SO fast... really, even with taking it off for a few minutes to load up, the crust finishes cooking in the same time it takes to melt the cheese. Any extra time on the grill I think your crust would get a little too crusty, or your cheese wouldn't be gooey.