Homemade GRILLED Pizza

So YO. I have this friend Megan… we’ve been close buds for several years. Her and her husband have recently become pizza-making connoisseurs, and since they don’t live close enough for me to invite myself over to try their GRILLED PIZZA (you heard me… GRILLED!), I asked Meg for some step by step directions. Because I have GOT to try this! And she agreed to share them with me and you! Take it away Megan (and Griffin)!

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My husband, Griffin, and I frequently fantaticize about opening our own restaurant someday. We love to conduct culinary experiments. He’s an engineer, so he brings the scientific/analytic skills. I’m a writer and musician, so I contribute the artistic component. Not to brag, but we’ve concocted some pretty tasty creations.

Because of our restaurateur dream, I’m always hesitant to share our recipes. But when Beth asked me to write a tutorial for our grilled pizzas for Reality Daydream, I had to accept!

When it comes to recipes, the top three qualities I look for are cheap, relatively simple and exceptionally delicious. Grilled pizza is all three! Plus, it satisfies our pizza cravings without requiring us to heat up the oven during these summer scorchers. We make it weekly, every Friday or Saturday.

1. We whip up from-scratch dough in our bread machine. You could also knead the dough by hand if you don’t have a bread machine… and are much more ambitious than we are. You could also get a pre-made crust from a carry-out place. Heck, we’ve even grilled a frozen pizza before.

Reids’ Pizza Dough:

• ¾ c. warm water
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil (vegetable and canola oil also work)
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 ¼ c. whole wheat flour
• 1 c. white flour (you can use all white or all wheat if you prefer)
• 1 ½ tsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. yeast

2. Meanwhile, start up the grill! If you’re grilling pizza, you’re doing it for the flavor. So you’ll likely use charcoal. We like natural lump charcoal because it doesn’t have all the added chemicals, and it makes for a nice smoky flavor. If you’re particularly adventurous, you could attempt to smoke your pizza with various types of wood chips for different flavors. For example, try hickory or mesquite for a BBQ chicken pizza.

Our grill is a Big Green Egg ceramic grill/smoker, but you could use any charcoal grill with vents for temperature control. You could probably use a gas grill, but you won’t get the full flavor benefits unless you use smoking chips.

We also use an indirect heat insert. We place a pizza stone on this. A pizza pan could be used in a pinch, but don’t attempt to put a non-frozen uncooked pizza directly on the grill grate. Disaster will surely ensue.

Light the grill. Heat to 400-450 with the stone on the grill.

3. When the dough is ready, roll it out on a floured surface. Roll up the edges toward the inside. If you have extra time (i.e. the grill’s not hot yet), cover it with a clean dish towel so it will rise some more.

4. When the grill has been at 400-450 for 5-10 minutes, bring the pizza stone inside. Set it on trivets on the counter. Pick up the dough and place it on the stone. Do this quickly – the dough will stretch a bit – and carefully – the stone is HOT! Sprinkle about a teaspoon of cornmeal on the stone to prevent dough from sticking.

5. Get saucy. We just use marinara spaghetti sauce from a jar, but someday I will make my own with tomatoes in my garden. Probably around the time we open the restaurant. Pro tip: Don’t over-sauce; ½ cup is plenty. Too much sauce will result in a soggy pizza.

6. Cheese it. We use frozen shredded cheese from a bag. Maybe someday we’ll have a dairy cow and coagulate our own cheese. Probably once the restaurant is thriving and we can afford hired hands.

7. Add your favorite toppings. We’ve done more combinations than I can count. You name it; we’ve probably tried it on a pizza. But our favorite is tomato and basil – best in the summer when we can pick both ingredients straight from our garden. Pro tip: We’ve found diced tomato works better than sliced. It cooks better and is easier to eat.

8. Set stone with pizza on grill. Cook for about 10 minutes at 400-450, or until cheese is completely melted and crust is golden.

9. Slice and devour! Add honey to the crust. Not optional. Just do it.

Cost breakdown:

• Crust: About $.50 for ingredients
• Toppings: Cheese (Approx. 1 c. shredded): $1
• Sauce (Approx. 4 oz. jarred): $.30
• Other toppings will vary. Tomato/basil from garden: Almost nothing.
• Charcoal: $.50-$1.00

That’s a whole pizza for under $3, folks.

I’d love to hear what toppings you love and how your pizza turns out! Also, what else do you grill that’s not traditionally a grilled food?