Grilled Pizza {Recipe}

We grill a lot in Summer, and one of our family favorites is grilled pizzas! The boys love playing around with different toppings, and Mitch and I like to use whatever is fresh from our garden to top ours. We make our pizza dough from scratch (and it's sooooo yummy!), but if you want to save time the store bought pizza dough works just as well.

When your dough is ready {recipe below}, divide it up and roll it out on to a lightly floured surface. It doesn't need to be a perfect circle...the natural shape just adds to its rustic appeal! 

Toss it on to a lightly oiled grill and be ready to keep an eye on it - they cook quickly! It takes about 4 minutes on a medium high heated grill to get nice light grill marks. If you don't want it to bubble up like this, use a fork to poke a few holes in it before you toss it on the grill to allow steam to escape. My kids love picking apart "pizza bubbles," so we keep ours as-is. You will only want to grill it one side for now. The other side will get cooked after we add our toppings and put it back on the grill.

Perfect! Now it's time to top it! Keeping the semi-raw part on the bottom, put your sauce and toppings on to the side with the grill marks.

Let the kids be in charge of their own pizzas - they'll {LOVE} it!

This is how I roll...fresh zucchini, a few onions, grilled chicken and bacon bits. If you want to use a strong topping like onions, I would suggest grilling them ahead of time to cut down on the harsh flavor since they won't be on the grill for very long, just long enough to melt the cheese and grill the underside of the pizza dough.

Toss them back on the grill until the cheese melts (ours took about 5 minutes).

YUM! Nothing says Summer like dinner from the grill!

HOMEMADE PIZZA CRUST RECIPE  

Yields: (1) 14-inch thick crust pizza or (2) 12-inch thin crusts or (6) individual thin crust pizzas  

Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, (more as needed)
• 1 envelope Active Dry Yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water (100 degrees F to 110 degrees F)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
• 1 tablespoon Garlic Powder

Directions

·         Place 1/4 cup of the warm water in large warm bowl. Sprinkle with yeast; stir until mostly dissolved and let sit for 5 minutes (it will be kind of foamy looking). In another bowl, mix together the flour, salt, garlic and Italian seasoning. Add remaining water and flour mixture to the yeast/water bowl; stir well. Stir in enough additional flour to make soft dough (mine was kind of sticky at first, so I think I added about ½ cup more).

·         Knead until smooth. Place dough in greased bowl and cover with a dry dish towel; let rise in warm place until doubled in size, about 40 minutes. Punch dough down. Remove dough to lightly floured surface. Shape pizza crusts, add toppings and bake as desired.

Posted in: Grilling, Kids Cook, Outdoors, Recipe