Pizza Night at our house means something special. Our Green Mountain Pizza Oven transformed the experience—beautiful, hot, bubbly BBQ chicken pizza in about three minutes, topped with our own smoked mozzarella. Since getting the oven, we rarely order pizza. It’s so easy to use that we set up a pizza bar and invited friends over. Everyone built their own personal pizzas, and it turned into a relaxed, fun evening with good food and company.
Patti and I reserve one night each week as our date night. Usually we cook on our Green Mountain Wood Pellet Grill/Smoker, though sometimes we cook indoors. We always eat on the patio amid a comfortable rainforest-themed setting—pellet patio heater, string lights, candles and lanterns, and surround sound. We enjoy wine or strawberry margaritas made with frozen strawberries, good food, music, and occasionally a dance or two.
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Pizza Night — A Wood Pellet Grill Recipe
Prep Time: About an hour to set up the pizza bar; each pizza cooks in roughly 3 minutes.
Cook Time: 3 minutes per pizza.
Grill: Green Mountain Pizza Oven.
Pellets: We use Green Mountain Gold Blend BBQ Pellets.
Ingredients: Pizza Night
Make your pizza however you like. Here are the toppings and items we used for our pizza bar:
- Store-bought or fresh pizza dough (about ½ pound for a 12-inch pizza per person)
- Smoked mozzarella (or your preferred cheeses)
- Pepperoni
- Ham
- Sausage
- Chicken breast, cubed and sauced for BBQ chicken
- Bacon
- Raider Red green chili-cheese smoked sausage (optional)
- Roasted garlic
- Roasted red peppers
- Sliced jalapeños
- Sautéed sweet onions
- Sliced green onion
- Mushrooms
- Fresh or sun-dried tomatoes
- Pineapple
- Cashews
- Pizza sauce or any pasta sauce
- Cornmeal for the peel
Link for smoked cheese recipe included in original source.
Cooking Directions: Pizza Night
We’ve done several test cooks and learned a few helpful tips. Premade pizza rounds are convenient, but fresh dough makes a vastly better crust. Our local store sells pizza dough affordably and it produces a fantastic crust. For a 12-inch personal pizza we use about a pound of dough and let it rise before stretching or rolling out to size.
Do not fully assemble pizzas far in advance—the toppings and sauce will make the dough soggy and the pizza won’t slide smoothly off the peel. Build each pizza just before cooking and put it straight into the GMG Pizza Oven.
For the BBQ chicken pizza we use a bourbon-bacon BBQ sauce; other pizzas get a classic pizza or pasta sauce. I don’t measure cheese precisely—use as much as you like for a hot, creamy, smoky finish.
Temperature control is important. Set the oven grill control to around 275°F (135°C) and you’ll reach roughly 600°F on the pizza stone, which produces a nice golden-brown crust. Bake the pizza about 1½ minutes, rotate, then another 1½ minutes—most pizzas finish in roughly three minutes. Watch the crust; some wet toppings like pineapple can add a little extra time.
Sprinkle cornmeal on the pizza peel to help the dough slide. When lifting the pizza, push a bit of cornmeal toward the front of the peel so the dough releases onto the stone. You’ll be surprised how easily a properly prepared pizza slides.
Note: A recipe is a guideline. For many dishes you can experiment with pellet flavors and ingredient combinations until you find what you like. Keep in mind that smoking happens at lower temperatures (under 250°F / 122°C); higher temps are primarily cooking, with less smoke influence.
Pizza Night — A Wood Pellet Grill Recipe
About our Recipes
We develop our recipes on the patio, where we keep a lineup of grills and smokers. Our collection includes pellet grills, wood-fired ovens, and more. We aim for healthy, low-fat grilling that works across pellet, gas, wood, and charcoal setups—most of our recipes can be adapted to any good BBQ.
The two most important variables are time and temperature. You can adapt many recipes for an oven or slow cooker, but outdoor cooking delivers flavors you can’t replicate indoors. Remember that recipes are outlines, not rules—feel free to tweak them to suit your taste.
Live your passion and do what you love,
Ken & Patti
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