BBQ Chicken Pizza

Now, if you've never made pizza from scratch, you don't know what you're missing. I finally found a great recipe for pizza crust, and I decided to be adventurous and try making barbecue chicken pizza! Be forewarned-- If you make everything the same day, this will take some time, but it's SO worth it. If you're short on time, use bottled barbecue sauce or pre-made dough or precooked chicken to speed things up. But the way I'm showing you is all from scratch!


Pizza dough:
o 3 and 3/4 cups flour
o 1 packet of yeast
o 1 tablespoon sugar
o 1 and ½ tsp salt
o 1 and 1/3 cups warm water
o 3 tbsp olive oil
o 2 cloves minced garlic
First, put the garlic and the oil together in small bowl and let it sit to really infuse the oil. Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Add the yeast and sugar to the warm water in a measuring cup and mix to dissolve the sugar and moisten the yeast. Add the water to the flour and incorporate all the flour. Then add the garlic oil and knead the dough for about 5 minutes. Add a little extra oil to the bowl to prevent sticking, cover the bowl and let the dough rise for 1.5 hours (it should double in size). This makes enough dough for two 12” round pizzas. When the dough is ready, stretch it out into a 12” circle, use a fork and dock the dough all over to prevent bubbles. Before topping the pizza dough, prebake it at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Barbecue chicken:
o 2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
o 14 oz can of tomato sauce
o ½ cup water
o ¼ cup tomato paste (one of those little cans)
o ½ cup brown sugar (the darker the better)
o 1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
o 2 tbsp cider vinegar
o ½ tsp smoked hickory salt or liquid smoke
o ¼ tsp ground chipotle pepper
o 1 clove minced garlic
o 2 tsp olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat and then add the onion. After a few minutes, add the garlic and turn the heat to low. Cooking the onions slowly will caramelize them and give incredible flavor to the sauce. When the onions are a deep golden brown, add the other ingredients except the chicken. Bring to a simmer and taste the sauce for flavor. You can always add more seasoning to your liking. Remove some of the sauce from the pan and save it for another time (you’ll only need about 1 cup of it for the pizza). With one cup sauce remaining, add the shredded cooked chicken into the saucepan. Let it simmer in the sauce for 5 to 10 minutes so it can soak up all the smoky wonderfulness.
Onto your prebaked pizza crust: spread the chicken and sauce mixture all over, sprinkle about ½ cup of shredded cheddar or Colby cheese and then add some THINLY sliced red onion on top. Bake for another 12-15 minutes at 375 degrees until the crust and cheese is golden brown. My mouth is watering just thinking about this pizza. . . .Enjoy!!