BBQ Chicken Pizza Recipe

Dear California Pizza Kitchen, I remember the day so many ears ago when I first sat down at a booth in your restaurant and marveled over the idea of a pizza made with BBQ sauce instead of marinara. I remember thinking “Chicken? On pizza! That’s just…weird!”

Of course all these years later, everyone’s doing it and no one thinks anything of it. I just had to let you know, you were first in my heart when it came to BBQ chicken pizza and my family and friends love you for it.

My fondest foodie love,

Jen

So yeah…I LOVE BBQ chicken pizza. I love it for it’s taste, but I also love it for how insanely easy is to make. In fact, pizza night in our house is often sparked by the realization that I have leftover grilled or diced chicken to use up.

That’s exactly what happened a few weekends back on my birthday. We had a friend in from out of town for the weekend and we’d been working hard on getting the new playground set up. When Sunday rolled around, we were all ready for a break. I didn’t really feel like doing any major cooking, and we had a lot of leftovers to use up. Some diced chicken breast, some meatballs, lots of veggies and no shortage of cheese.

So I fired up a quadruple batch of “Fail-Proof Pizza Dough” from Lauren’s Latest and went to town. I made up some cheesy garlic breadsticks, some regular pepperoni pizza, some black olive and mushroom with pepperoni pizza, some meatball and pepperoni and bacon pizza…you name it.

After all, the best part of making your own pizza dough is that you can make the pizzas whatever size you want and with as many combinations of toppings as you want. Generally, each of the kids gets their own pizza with their choice of toppings and I make a few larger ones for the adults to share.

The BBQ Chicken pizza is pretty simple. Spread the dough with BBQ Sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray’s) then sprinkle with diced chicken breast, red onion slices, bacon pieces and cheddar cheese. The guys absolutely tackled this one.

Of course I made a more girly pizza for myself. I simply slathered the dough with a little olive oil and fresh garlic then piled on diced brussels sprouts, sliced asparagus, bacon pieces, red onion and some honeyed goat cheese. It went absolutely great with a Raspberry Lambec.