How To Grill Pizza.

Grilling pizza is something we do a lot over the summer since there is no need to heat up the oven.  I’ve covered using pre-cooked crust and popping it directly onto the grill grates and a yummy barbeque chicken pizza before.  Today I’m going to share with you a fun tip on how we grill homemade pizza dough.

While you can use the direct grill method, the crust tends to burn a bit on the bottom when you use a dough.  We’ve also used the indirect method, where you turn on two burners at high and leave two off, putting the pizza on the ‘off’ side and using the grill like an oven.  That one is good too, but it kind of defeats the purpose of grilling if you’re doing it like an oven.  Now, I want to introduce you to the elevated method.

The what?

The elevated method.  It consists of building an elevated cooking rack and putting the pizza dough on that to cook.  It gets it just enough away from the heat that it doesn’t burn, but close enough that it still gets that great crunchy crust.  We use a veggie grill basket that has a removable handle with a metal cooling rack on top.  {Those are Amazon Affiliate links to the two specific things we use.}  You can also use a couple empty tin cans or fire bricks in lieu of the veggie basket if you have those available to you.  Just make sure it’s stable so your pizza doesn’t end up falling all over the grill.

After you build your rack, preheat the grill to 500 degrees.  You will want to cook the pizza around 450 degrees but as you open the lid the temp will go down.

Get all of your toppings ready to go and roll out your dough.  {I don’t care one bit if you get the pre-done dough in the refrigerator section or buy it at your local store or Trader Joes.}  We use a recipe from a bread book that Dave has had for years.  There are tons and tons of recipes out there if you like to make your own.  

 

Put the dough on the elevated rack and grill for a minute or two, then flip it and top it with anything you like.  We don’t have a pizza peel, we just use a giant spatula to flip ours.

 

Close the lid and let it cook for 8 – 12 minutes depending on how done you like it and how much stuff you put on it.  To pull it off the grill, you can just slide it onto a cookie sheet.  We’ve been stacking ours with mozzarella, pepperoni, and sliced Roma tomatoes right out of the garden sprinkled with some Italian seasoning.Then right before serving we top it with loads of fresh basil from the garden.

I’m totally going to miss summer when it’s gone.