Grilled Pizza

Grilled Pizza couldn’t be easier to make during the hot months. Fire up your grill (gas or charcoal work), then grill the pizza dough directly on the grates before adding toppings. Learn how to grill pizza, as well as all my tips and tricks to the best homemade pizza.

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 8

Total Time 18

Servings pizza

Calories 263kcal

Ingredients

8 oz. pizza dough 1 round
¼ - ½ cup marinara sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Additional toppings of your choice
Olive oil for drizzling

Instructions

Prep the Ingredients

Shred mozzarella cheese for the pizza. Make pizza sauce or measure it out. Grab other pizza toppings, and put them onto a sheet pan or a tray.
Roll out the pizza dough on a lightly floured countertop with a rolling pin. (This process will be easier if your dough is not cold because it will be more malleable.)
Transfer the dough to a sheet of parchment paper.
Brush the top of the dough lightly with olive oil.

Preheat the Grill

Light the grill, and close the lid. We want it to reach 450°F. (This process will take 10ish minutes on a gas grill and significantly longer on a charcoal grill. Plan accordingly.)
When the grill is hot, use a grill brush to give the grates a good cleaning before starting the pizza.

Grill the Pizza

Set up an ingredient station beside the grill.
When the grill is at temperature, open it up.
Place the lightly oiled side of the pizza dough directly onto the grates. Pull away the parchment paper and brush the top with a little olive oil.
Close the grill. Let cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the side of the crust in contact with the grates has turned golden brown.
Flip the crust using tongs.
Layer on your toppings, then cover the grill again.
Cook for another 3-5 minutes, or until the toppings have melted/warmed through. The bottom of the crust should be golden brown, too, and have noticeable grill marks.
Use tongs and a metal spatula to slide your pizza off the grill and onto a sheet pan.
Give the pizza a few minutes to cool, then slice and enjoy warm.

Notes

The cook time of this grilled pizza is dependent on the crust and its thickness, as well as how much heat the grill loses whenever you open it. Our crust was about 1/4" thick.

This recipe makes a singular pizza, but it can easily be doubled, tripled or quadrupled for a crowd. Just be sure to give the grill 5-10 minutes between each pizza to come back up to temperature.

The best flavor combinations for pizza:

For an 8 oz. pizza dough round, I typically recommend using ¼ cup pizza sauce and about a cup of shredded mozzarella. After that, though, the world is your oyster.

Here are some thoughts for different variations of toppings you can add:

Margherita—classic tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil
Four cheese (quattro formaggi)—use your four favorites or do it like the Italians and use mozzarella, gorgonzola, Parmigiano Reggiano and fontina. You can use whichever four cheeses are your favorite!
Pepperoni—red sauce, mozzarella and your favorite pepperoni or other hard smoked meat
Hawaiian—top the marinara sauce and mozzarella with 4 oz. Canadian bacon and ½ cup sliced pineapple
Bacon—add crumbled, cooked bacon to the top of a cheese pizza for extra deliciousness
Pesto Chicken—homemade basil pesto (or spinach pesto) serves as the base. Top with mozzarella and sliced, cooked chicken breast or thighs.
BBQ chicken or pulled pork—make sure you drizzle a little bit of BBQ sauce onto the pizza dough with the tomato sauce
Prosciutto and arugula—olive oil, parmesan and mozzarella. Top the cooked pizza with the prosciutto and arugula with additional shaved parm once it’s off the heat.

Nutrition