This is my favorite pizza and I’ve made it different ways over the years. The smoked gouda really helps. I think I may actually be expanding my cheese palatte beyond cheddar, mozzerella and brie! Oh, and American cheese. But who doesn’t like American cheese? It is difficult to find it without annatto color added.
After making lots of pizzas in my oven, I do find that putting the pizza on a hot pizza stone makes for the best and crispiest crust on the bottom. Not too crispy – but like the pizza places do it. Their ovens are much hotter than mine and mine starts smoking funny at 500 degrees.
Technique for Pizza: Preheat oven to 425 degrees with the pizza stone inside for 30 minutes. Make your pizza on parchment that is sitting on a baking sheet with no lip (or pizza peel but I don’t own one of those). Slide parchment onto the stone.
BBQ Chicken Pizza
yield 1 – 10″ pizza
1/2 lb. prepared pizza dough, room temperature
1/3 cup plus 2 Tb. dark BBQ sauce (KC Masterpiece original tastes awfully close to CPK)
8 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and shredded or diced
salt and pepper
2/3 cup grated smoked gouda cheese (3 oz. so I order the deli to sell me 1/4 pound of it)
2/3 cup grated part skim mozzarella cheese (3 oz.)
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
fresh cilantro
1. Place pizza stone or inverted baking sheet on top rack of oven and preheat to 425 degrees for 30 minutes.
2. Toss the cooked chicken in 2 T. of BBQ sauce.
3. Lay out a sheet of parchment and dust with cornmeal. That is the stuff you always see on the bottom of pizzas. If you don’t have any, try brushing on some olive oil.
4. Roll out the pizza dough into a 10-12″ round. Spread 1/3 cup BBQ sauce on top leaving a 1/2″ border on the edge. Top with the chicken, gouda, mozzarella and red onion. Slide onto the hot stone. Bake 10-15 minutes or depending on your pizza dough recipe.
5. Sprinkle cilantro on top and cut.
