The first time I heard of making pizza on a grill all I could think of was, why would anyone want to do that?
Now that I’ve done it more than a few times I can think of several reasons, the first being who wants to heat up an oven to 450°F or higher on a hot summer day?
If you use a grill to make pizza, you can keep the heat outside where it belongs. Grills also better mimic a wood fired oven than your conventional indoor oven.
Whether using charcoal or gas, the smoke from the grill will help give your pizza great flavor that you simply cannot get from a regular oven.
It’s also easy! No, the pizza dough does not fall through the grill grates. Assuming you’ve properly heated the grill, your dough will form a lovely lightly browned crust.
The trick is that you cook the plain dough first, on one side, on the grill. Then remove it, flip it, brush the grilled side with sauce and toppings, and return the pizza to the grill for final cooking.
This is a quick how-to on the grilling steps. I’m assuming that you already have pizza dough ready to go, but if not, we have a great recipe here on our homemade pizza post.
Here’s a suggestion. Make a double batch of the dough, then divide it, wrap it in plastic and freeze it.
Then, when you want pizza for dinner, take the dough out of the freezer and put it into the fridge before you go to work, and when you come home take it out of the fridge and put the dough on the counter to warm while you heat up the grill..
Now that I’ve done it more than a few times I can think of several reasons, the first being who wants to heat up an oven to 450°F or higher on a hot summer day?
If you use a grill to make pizza, you can keep the heat outside where it belongs. Grills also better mimic a wood fired oven than your conventional indoor oven.
Whether using charcoal or gas, the smoke from the grill will help give your pizza great flavor that you simply cannot get from a regular oven.
It’s also easy! No, the pizza dough does not fall through the grill grates. Assuming you’ve properly heated the grill, your dough will form a lovely lightly browned crust.
The trick is that you cook the plain dough first, on one side, on the grill. Then remove it, flip it, brush the grilled side with sauce and toppings, and return the pizza to the grill for final cooking.
This is a quick how-to on the grilling steps. I’m assuming that you already have pizza dough ready to go, but if not, we have a great recipe here on our homemade pizza post.
Here’s a suggestion. Make a double batch of the dough, then divide it, wrap it in plastic and freeze it.
Then, when you want pizza for dinner, take the dough out of the freezer and put it into the fridge before you go to work, and when you come home take it out of the fridge and put the dough on the counter to warm while you heat up the grill..
How to Grill Pizza
Make pizza dough from scratch using our pizza dough recipe. Alternatively, you may be able to find prepared pizza dough, in the frozen foods section, at your local supermarket.
Ingredients
- Pizza dough (if using our pizza dough recipe note that it makes enough dough for 2 pizzas)
- Olive oil
- Standard toppings of tomato sauce, herbs, cheese (mozzarella is the best), and maybe some thinly sliced onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, or pepperoni
- Some flour or corn meal for dusting the cookie sheet or pizza peel
How to Grill Pizza
