BBQ Chicken Pizza

It used to be hard for me to understand BBQ Chicken Pizza people. Why in the world would one choose to order that over your standard, delicious, amazing, traditional tomato sauce pizza? You know the old saying - if it ain't broke don't fix it. I think whoever came up with that had pizza in mind.

Well, I've turned a new leaf. I moved into a new neighborhood, started going to new restaurants, and started doing new things. Marriage being one of them, BBQ pizza being the other. One of our favorite neighborhood restaurants has BBQ chicken pizza on the menu - and I don't know if it was newlywed bliss, severe starvation, or one too many glasses of wine - but I ordered it a few months ago. And I loved it. And I've been eating it nearly every weekend since.

And, to get to the point, I wanted to make it at home. The key(s) to good BBQ chicken pizza - crispy crust, tender pulled chicken, good BBQ sauce.

Recipe

Pizza Dough

1 cup warm water

1 package yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 cup bread flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon olive oil

Pizza

2 skinless chicken breasts, bone-in

1/2 onion, sliced

BBQ sauce

corn

Fresh Mozzarella

Start by mixing the pizza dough. In a liquid measuring cup, mix one cup of warm water, yeast, and sugar. Let it stand there for a few minutes to get all foamy. 

In a mixing bowl, combine the flours and salt. Pour in the warm water and mix. Add the honey and oil. Knead together until combined. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour. Cover the bowl and let rise for about an hour and a half. 

Now, cook the chicken. There is a lot of flexibility here - you can use leftover chicken, grilled chicken, plain baked boneless skinless chicken...but I recommend this method if you have the time.

Preheat the oven to 300. Heat 1-2 tablespoons olive oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the chicken breasts, browning all sides.

Throw in the sliced onions.

Drizzle with some BBQ sauce (a cup or so) and a little more olive oil.

Cover the pot and place in the oven. Bake for an hour and a half, and remove from the oven.

Now it should be time to roll out the dough. Increase the oven temp to 450. My wonderful and thoughtful husband surprised me with a really great pizza stone - which works wonders on a pizza crust. I highly recommend you get one. If you don't have one, a baking sheet will be fine. Place the pizza stone/baking sheet in the hot oven to heat it up.

Roll out the dough to your desired thickness. We like really thin, crispy, crust - I rolled out to about 1/4 inch thickness. Brush the top with olive oil and sprinkles with a little salt.

Take the pizza stone from the oven, and drizzle with olive oil and flour. Use a brush to spread out evenly over the stone. This is a little hard to do without burning your hands, but you'll find a way.

Place the pizza dough in the oven and bake for 8 minutes. Meanwhile, pull apart the chicken. It should just fall off the bone.

Remove the pizza crust from the oven....

Spread with BBQ sauce....

Add the chicken...

And plenty of fresh sliced mozzarella.  On half of the pizza I threw on some corn. Sadly, it was canned. Texas has bad corn. This is a great addition though and highly recommended.

Bake the pizza at 450 for about 10-12 minutes, until the crust looks crisp and the cheese is slightly browned.  And that's all, folks!