Barbeque Chicken Pizza

I’ve been wanting to make this for a long time now.  But, I love my pizza sauce so much that I never want to stray away from it when I make pizza.  I came across this recipe  on AllRecipes which combines marinara sauce and barbeque sauce.  This was a great way to combine my love of pizza sauce and try the barbeque sauce, too.  I meant to buy a red onion to go with the chicken but I completely forgot it. So, I used what we had on hand and tend to put on pizza anyway- sweet red peppers on my no-cheese half and mushrooms on Scott’s half. I really liked this sauce- the flavor of the barbeque sauce was good but wasn’t too overwhelming.  Scott- who normally eats sausage, pepperoni, bacon (anything but chicken!) loved it and said he would like to try chicken again now.  I will definitely make this again!

Ingredients

• 4-5 chicken breast tenders, cut into chunks
• salt [and pepper
• italian seasoning
• 1/4 cup barbeque sauce (I used Sweet Baby Rays)
• 1/2 cup pizza sauce
• 1 pizza crust
• 1 cup pizza cheese
• desired toppings
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Cook salt and peppered chicken in a skillet with olive oil over medium heat. Sprinkle with italian seasoning. Add a couple tablespoons of barbeque sauce while cooking.
2. Mix remaining barbeque sauce and pizza sauce in a small bowl. Spread evenly over pizza crust.
3. Sprinkle pizza cheese. Arrange chicken and any other toppings on top.
4. Bake for 15 minutes in a preheated 45o degree oven or until cheese is melted. Sprinkle with cilantro while hot.

Modified from AllRecipes

Homemade Pizza

These recipes for pizza dough and sauce are very easy to make. The dough rises in 30-45 minutes. I made the sauce and prepped the toppings while the dough was rising.  I’ve been making this easy pizza sauce for years and love it.  The dough recipe was one I hadn’t tried before.  It was on the back of the Flieschmann’s Active Dry Yeast packet.  I had another recipe in mind but when I saw it, it looked so easy that I gave it a shot. I made this while my parents were in town and they loved it. Of course it’s pretty easy to pick up the phone and order a pizza but making a homemade one really isn’t that hard and it’s so worth it.

Pizza Dough

1 envelope Flieschmann’s Active Dry Yeast

1 cup warm water

2-1/2 to 3 cups all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar (my addition)

Soften yeast in warm water, in a mixing bowl.  Add 2 cups flour, salt, sugar, and oil.  Stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough.  Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth, about 4 to 6 minutes.

Place in greased bowl; cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 30 to 45 minutes.  Punch dough down.  Pat dough into a greased large pizza pan. (Make sure you use a large pan unless you want very thick dough!) Top with desired toppings. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes.

Pizza Sauce

8 ounces tomato sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/4 oregano

1/4 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

few dashes, black pepper

dash, crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Combine all ingredients and spread on pizza crust.

Note: Instead of oregano and basil, sometimes I use 1/2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning and that works very well, too.

I used mozzarella, italian sausage, pepperoni, green peppers and onions on the pizza for Scott and my parents. I made a small no cheese pizza for myself with grilled chicken, roasted red peppers, green peppers and onions. I sprinkled a little dried cilantro on both of them before baking. Yummm! 🙂