Tammy's Recipes

Homemade pizza crust topped with flavorful grilled chicken, shredded cheese, veggies, and pizza sauce with some extra kick!

For the crust:

1 cup warm water (115 degrees)
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons instant active dry yeast

For the grilled chicken:

4-6 chicken breast tenders
black pepper
lemon pepper seasoning
garlic salt

For the sauce:

1 cup pizza sauce
2-3 tablespoons BBQ sauce (we use a hot kind!)

Toppings:

12 ounces (3 cups) shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup chopped bell peppers (we use a variety of colors!)
1/4 to 1/2 cup sliced or diced onions (we like the purple ones!)
Sliced black olives, optional
Pineapple chunks (drained), optional
4 ounces (1 cup) shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the water and salt for the pizza crust. Add 2 1/2 cups flour and the yeast and stir. Add additional flour if needed to form a dough. Knead for 5-6 minutes. Set dough aside and cover.

If you have a bread machine, it's even easier to make the crust. Place crust ingredients in bread machine in the order listed (use 2 3/4 cups of flour rather than 3). Start machine on dough cycle. You can take the dough out of your machine whenever it's done kneading -- my machine takes about 25-30 minutes.

2. Spray or brush chicken tenders with oil. Sprinkle with pepper, lemon pepper, and garlic salt. Grill according to grill instructions (our Weber Q grill takes about 6 minutes). Allow cooked chicken to cool and then cut into half-inch chunks.

3. Liberally butter a 16-inch round pizza pan. Use your buttery hands to spread/press the pizza dough onto the pan.

4. Mix the pizza sauce with the BBQ sauce. Spread evenly over the crust. Top with shredded mozzarella cheese.

5. Sprinkle chicken pieces over the mozzarella cheese. Add the veggie toppings, and finish with the cheddar cheese.

6. Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Bake pizza for 11-15 minutes, or until done.

I use a non-stick pan with holes in the bottom, and it takes 11 minutes on the top rack of my electric oven.

If I'm using my steel pizza pan (no holes in the bottom), I put the pan on the bottom rack of the oven, which helps the crust get browned/cooked enough before the top is too dark. The thicker/heavier your pan, the more likely that you will need to bake it on a low rack (close to the heating element) to avoid soggy crust. :)

If I'm baking two pizzas at once, the baking time is more like 18-20 minutes (I rotate the pizzas to ensure even baking).

If you like a fluffier crust, allow pizza to rest for 15-30 minutes before baking. We usually don't wait the extra time though! :)

Homemade pizzas:
Pepperoni pizza (foreground) and grilled chicken pizza (background)

This is such a delicious pizza combination! A couple of days after the birth of our third child, some friends ordered pizza for our family, and it was a yummy chicken pizza from Marco's. This recipe was our attempt to imitate that pizza -- and we actually like our homemade version even better! :)

I like the extra flavor in the pizza sauce -- we use a hot BBQ sauce ("Flamin'", I think they call it ;D) and it's perfect. The onions, peppers, and cheese... yum!!

My rating: 10/10