Make Pizza Night out of this world this week with a BBQ Chicken Pizza with Bacon & Pineapple – so simple, good, and packed with flavor. Just be sure to make more than one.
Pizza Night is a big deal at our house. If I don’t make pizza on Friday night, or at the very least Saturday night, you might expect a mutiny around here. Or at least extreme shock. Or much pushback. Pizza Night is a near and dear weekend tradition in these here parts.
When the kids were little, I made lots of personal pizzas so each kid could decorate it however he wanted. Nowadays it’s usually only the girls (10 and 8) who are concerned with decorating.
Most of the time, I make 5 medium-ish pizzas and 2 small ones. Sometimes pepperoni plays a starring role. Sometimes with some mushrooms and black olives thrown in for good measure. But, sometimes….
I have fun with the toppings, such as in this BBQ Chicken Pizza with bacon and pineapple. So very much yum here, I’m not even sure what to say. So good.
This pizza was inhaled in a matter of seconds. The teen boys declared it a hit. I got one piece. My husband got none because he shuns pineapple on pizza. He should really rethink that rule, especially when uber-spicy BBQ sauce and bacon are involved. But, after 23 years of marriage I’m not going to win that battle.
No problem — more for me! So long as I make two or three pizzas like this next time!
Making your own pizza dough
For this bbq pizza we made a whole wheat pizza dough. To make your own pizza dough here is what you need:
- warm water – This helps to activate the yeast. You want this to be at a temperature of 105-110°F.
- agave nectar – Honey would also work well here
- active dry yeast – You want to make sure this is bubbling once it’s been sitting in the water for a few minutes to start to make sure it’s still alive and ensure your pizza dough rises.
- olive oil – This gives great flavor to your dough!
- all purpose flour – I combine this with the whole wheat flour so you get great texture in the dough.
- white whole wheat flour – this flour is a different variety wheat than regular whole wheat flour, so it provides all the nutrients but with the softer texture you look for.
- salt – You always want a little bit salt for flavor, but also helps with strengthening the dough as well. So don’t skip it!
BBQ Sauce
Normally, I make my own BBQ sauce, but on a Friday night when I’d enjoyed a full afternoon off-duty, I wasn’t in the mood for saucing. Instead, I made good use of the 2 tablespoons we had left in a bottle of Devil’s Spit. FishBoy19 really likes spicy BBQ sauce, so every once in awhile I buy him a bottle of that so as not to burn the rest of us. It’s super spicy stuff, but it was perfection on this pizza, adding just the right amount of heat, balanced by the pineapple. Yum!
Feel free to use your favorite BBQ sauce. Keep in mind you may need more than the minimum 2 tablespoons. Devil’s Spit is a very thin sauce, so it spread very easily. A thicker sauce might not spread so well.
If you do want to make your own, you might like this Naturally Sweetened Apricot BBQ Sauce
How to make this BBQ Pizza with chicken, bacon, and pineapple
Once you have your dough and bbq sauce, it’s really about assembling.
- Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Spray a 12-inch pizza pan or screen with nonstick cooking spray. Fit the pizza dough into the pan, stretching to fit.
- Spread enough BBQ sauce across the dough to cover. Sprinkle the chicken, bacon, pineapple, and sliced onion in layers over the pizza’s surface. Sprinkle the cheese over the top.
- Bake the pizza for 8 to 9 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is crisp. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro. Remove to a cutting surface to slice.
Do you have to cook the chicken for a bbq chicken pizza?
Yes you do! You could use a rotisserie chicken or cook your own chicken and shred the chicken ahead of time. But either way, it must be cooked before it goes on the pizza.
How to make this cheap:
Here are some of the strategies you can use to make this recipe more economical:
- Stock up on ingredients when they are on sale. Whether it’s chicken, pineapple, shredded cheese, bacon, BBQ sauce, or onions, I stock up when things are on sale.
- Shop Costco. Costco has the best price on shredded mozzarella. I buy the big five pound bag and divide it into smaller bags to store in the freezer.
Tools I use to make this recipe easy:
This is a pretty straight-forward dish. You don’t need any fancy equipment. However, having some good basic kitchen tools can really make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable. Over time, I’ve honed my collection so that they are perfect for my needs.
I actually have an arsenal of favorite pizza tools that make the Friday night pizza experience super quick and simple.
Here are the tools that I like to use in this recipe:
- A kitchen scale – to weigh flour quickly, much more quickly than when I use a measuring cup.
- A KitchenAid mixer – I used to use a bread machine, until the 4th — or was it the 5th? machine in 14 years broke. My KitchenAid, circa 2004, has served me well since then.
- A large plastic cutting board – I use this to work my dough.
- A bench knife – for dividing the dough easily into portions.
- Round pizza screens – I have a collection of different sizes that work really well for me.
- A pizza wheel – I have a Pampered Chef pizza wheel that has lasted me over ten years
- 1/3 batch Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
- 2 to 4 tablespoons favorite BBQ sauce
- 1/2 cup chopped cooked chicken
- 2 slices cooked and chopped bacon
- 1/4 cup chopped pineapple
- sliced red onion
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- freshly chopped cilantro for serving
- Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Spray a 12-inch pizza pan or screen with nonstick cooking spray. Fit the pizza dough into the pan, stretching to fit.
- Spread enough BBQ sauce across the dough to cover. Sprinkle the chicken, bacon, pineapple, and sliced onion in layers over the pizza’s surface. Sprinkle the cheese over the top.
- Bake the pizza for 8 to 9 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is crisp. Sprinkle with fresh cilantro. Remove to a cutting surface to slice.
Here are some of the strategies you can use to make this recipe more economical:
- Stock up on ingredients when they are on sale. Whether it’s chicken, pineapple, shredded cheese, bacon, BBQ sauce, or onions, I stock up when things are on sale.
- Shop Costco. Costco has the best price on shredded mozzarella. I buy the big five pound bag and divide it into smaller bags to store in the freezer.
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Love Pineapple on pizza! Either with chicken and bacon or just with ham. Husband LOVES Devils Spit!
I hope you love the pizza as much as we do!
Decided to make this tonight and just got home with the ingredients. Looking over the directions I now see chopped tomato… Will report back with finished product but just an FYI tomato is not in the ingredients list!
Ignore the chopped tomato. I must have copied the directions from another post to save time and missed that. Sorry!