Making Pizza on the Grill

A friend of mine always made his pizza on the grill, so I had to try it out myself. There are several different ways to make pizza on the grill, I’m sharing the method that I love best. I even prefer it on the grill over the oven baked version. No need to miss out on pizza all summer!

Before you even get started though, make sure your grill is clean. At the beginning of summer I always clean my gas grill to get it ready for the season.

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Making Pizza on the Grill

It’s been ten years since I made pizza on the grill for the first time. I remember how much fun the kids had that day, discovering something new right along side me. Pizza is one of their favorite things to eat, even now as adults.

During the summer months, grilling my pizza is a much better option than cranking the oven up over 400 degrees. Like with any homemade pizza, it does require a little planning ahead. Chopping the toppings, making the pizza dough, pizza sauce, and if you’re like me, the pizza sausage all should be done ahead of time.

What you need to make pizza on the grill

• Pizza dough from the store is totally fine, but I know you’ll love my homemade pizza dough if you try it!
• Store bought pizza sauce is okay, I like to make my own easy pizza sauce.
• Chop up whatever toppings you like. We always have Mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, homemade pizza sausage, Bell peppers, onion, mushrooms, and olives.
• While you won’t be eating it as an ingredients, you will need some olive oil.
• Be sure you have some cornmeal, these are the little “ball bearings” that help slide the pizza dough.

You want to have everything chopped and the cheese shredded before you begin. This is a lot like making stir fry – the cooking part actually goes very quickly so you need to have everything chopped, measured, and sitting at the ready.

Tools you need to grill a pizza

• Grill – gas or charcoal
• Silicone basting brush
• Aluminum foil
• Tongs
• Metal spatula
• Pizza stone or cutting board

How to Cook a Pizza on the Grill

I have a gas grill with four burners. If you have charcoal, you will need to adjust these instructions for indirect cooking. If you are familiar with making your charcoal grill very hot on one side and using indirect heat, then you should be able to follow the instructions below and adjust for your grill.

Getting Ready

1. First, turn your grill to medium-high and close the lid. Allow it to heat up and get good and hot, about 15 minutes.
2. Pull out 4 sheets of aluminum foil, large enough to cover a cookie sheet. Brush one side of each piece of foil with olive oil.

1. Cut your dough into 3 or 4 pieces. You want to make individual pizzas instead of trying to make one great big one. Use the heel of your hand to press the dough flat and stretch it out, or if you prefer you can roll it, pressing it give it a more rustic look though. I make mine about 7-8″ in diameter and get 4 pizzas from one dough recipe.

1. Place one dough onto an oiled sheet of foil. Use brush or your fingers to oil the top of the dough.

1. Place next piece of foil, oiled side facing up, on top of that dough. Continue stacking by placing the next dough on top of that foil, then oil the dough. Repeat until all four pieces of foil have dough on them and they are all oiled. Set aside.
2. Sprinkle a thin layer of cornmeal onto your pizza stone or cutting board.

NOTE: The olive oil keeps the dough from sticking to the grill grates and adds great flavor as well. It also keeps the dough from sticking to the foil. The foil works as a handy way to slap the dough onto the grill.

Grilling the Pizza

1. Be sure all your toppings and your sauce are at the ready. Have your pizza stone or cutting board, tongs and spatula ready.
2. Grab one piece of foil with dough. Turn all four burners down to medium, open grill and invert the dough onto the grill, peel off the piece of foil.

1. Close the lid and LEAVE IT CLOSED for 2 1/2 minutes. After 2 minutes you can check and see how the dough is doing, it should be getting puffy and developing grill marks on the bottom. Check by lifting the corner with your tongs. If you have nice brown grill marks move on to the next step. If not, close the grill and let them cook a little longer, but generally 2-3 minutes does the trick.
2. Next, open the grill, use the tongs and metal spatula to remove your dough and place it on the stone or cutting board, grill marks up.
3. Close the grill to keep the temperature up.

1. Now, add your sauce and toppings to your dough, again the grill marks should be facing up.
2. Turn the two middle burners OFF and turn the outer left and right burners up to high. This creates a hot environment, but allows you to cook on indirect heat so that the bottom of your crust does not burn.

1. Open the grill and carefully slide your pizza back onto the grill (the cornmeal acts as ball bearings and lets the dough slide off the stone or cutting board easily) on the center rack, where the burners should be off. Close the lid and let cook for 5-7 minutes, or until cheese is melted and toppings are done. Mine generally took 6 to 6.5 minutes.
2. Use spatula and tongs to remove pizza.

To continue making more pizzas, after removing finished pizza turn the middle burner back to high and close the lid. Repeat steps above.

NOTE: I was able to cook two pizzas at a time this way, sliding both pizzas onto the middle burners together.

More pizza and grill ideas:

• French Bread Pizza
• Cauliflower Pizza Crust
• Pizza Lasagna
• Grilled Chicken
• Grilled Chicken Tacos
• Grilled Watermelon & Pineapple
• Perfect Grilled Pork Chops
• Cedar Plank Salmon
• Shrimp Kabobs

This post was originally published here on June 25, 2009.