Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza Recipe
How to Make BBQ Chicken Pizza
This homemade BBQ chicken pizza is SO yummy! Best of all, you can make it your way – whether that’s with homemade crust and sauce or store-bought ingredients for an easy dinner! Plus, you can make a couple of extra pizzas and freeze them for later if you so desire.
It honestly doesn’t get much better so read on and enjoy!
BBQ Chicken Pizza Ingredients
The key ingredients in this homemade BBQ chicken pizza are pretty obvious – the chicken and the BBQ sauce. For the chicken, cook it however you like: slow cooker, Instant Pot, skillet, grill, whatever works! You can even go the easy route and buy a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken and use some of it for your pizza.
Tip #1: Learn How to Shred Chicken with a KitchenAid Mixer
If you’ve never had BBQ sauce on a pizza before and you’re a bit afraid (don’t worry, it’s amazing), you can always mix half BBQ sauce with your favorite pizza sauce for a more mild BBQ flavor.
Tip #2: Have some extra time? Try out this homemade Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce for your BBQ pizza.
Homemade Crust or Store Bought Works!
I’ll be honest with you, I love a good homemade pizza crust but sometimes store-bought wins just because it’s easier! You can find a lot of cheap already made pizza dough in various grocery stores.
That being said, if you want to go homemade, I highly recommend trying this easy homemade pizza crust recipe or this tasty zucchini pizza crust recipe.
Topping Ideas
Starting with the cheese, we simply use shredded mozzarella and then we like to top our BBQ chicken pizza with a bit of parmesan at the end. Feel free to use your favorite cheese though! One of our readers used gouda cheese for their pizza and said it was delicious 🙂
For the rest of the toppings, once again, feel free to go with what you like! We used red onion, crumbled bacon, and cilantro along with the chicken. You could try adding pineapple if you’d like – just add it before baking the pizza.
Comment your favorite pizza topping ideas below!
Kitchen Tool Tip + Freezing Tips
It’s not necessary, but if you enjoy making homemade pizza, I highly recommend purchasing a pizza stone (check out these ones on Amazon). This awesome little kitchen accessory is really affordable, will last a long time, and helps cook your pizza more evenly.
If you want to make a few of these pizzas at a time to freeze, it’s super easy. Just wrap your topped pizzas with plastic wrap, cover with foil, and freeze. Way better than grocery store frozen pizzas!
Learn More About Freezer Meal Cooking:
- Why you NEED Freezer Meal Cooking in your life!
- How to start a Freezer Meal Group (Should you?)
- 24 Freezer Meal Hacks you need to learn
- Foods That Don’t Freeze Well
- Freezer Meal Connected eBook
More Freezer Meal Recipes:
- Easy BBQ Chicken & Black Bean Burritos
- Crockpot Beef Enchilada Soup
- Cheese Stuffed Shells
- Ham and Scalloped Potatoes
- Crockpot Beef Enchilada Soup
Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza Recipe
Fabulessly Frugal
Ingredients
- 1 pizza dough for 14” to 16” pizza
- ½ cup BBQ sauce (or mix half pizza sauce and half BBQ sauce)
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1 cup cooked sliced or shredded chicken
- 2 tablespoons diced red onion
- 2 tablespoons cooked crumbled bacon
- 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
- Italian seasoning and Parmesan
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 475° F, along with pizza stone, if using.
- Prepare pizza dough and roll/press out into a 14”-16” circle onto pizza pan or parchment paper. Tuck the edge of the dough under to create more of a crust, if desired. Lightly prick the surface of the dough with a fork, to help prevent bubbles while baking.
- Spread 1/2 cup of sauce evenly over dough. I use the backside of a spoon in light circle motions to spread sauce evenly. Sprinkle 1 ½ cups of the mozzarella cheese evenly over the sauce. (Reserve ½ cup for after other toppings.)
- Top with chicken, red onion, bacon, and cilantro. Sprinkle remaining ½ cup of mozzarella evenly over all. As a finishing touch, lightly sprinkle Italian seasoning and grated Parmesan over the pizza.
- For best results, bake pizza on a preheated pizza stone, by sliding the pan or parchment on top of the stone. Bake at 475° for 8-10 minutes. Rotate pizza halfway through baking time.
Preparing for the freezer:
- Before baking, wrap the topped pizza with plastic wrap, then cover with foil. Freeze.
Prepare after freezing:
- Preheat oven and pizza stone, if using, to 475° F. Unwrap the pizza and bake on pizza stone for about 15 minutes, rotating halfway through.
This was so tasty. We used Gouda cheese instead, and omitted the red onions- hubby does not like them. I used chives instead of the onion. SO TASTY! Made it on the grill outside.
What a keeper- great for entertaining.
I have a similar recipe! My family loves when I add pineapple and red or green peppers to this pizza. I have also added crumbled bacon. Yum!
How are you guys cooking your chicken?
Usually crock pot it to shred. But it can be done anyway you like. If you crock pot it too long it can be dry. So try to avoid that.
Do you make your own dough? I am also wondering how you freeze with out the BBQ sticking to the wrap?
You can make your own dough, or in this case we bought a loaf of Rhodes frozen bread dough and thawed it out. Here is a yummy and easy pizza dough recipe too: https://fabulesslyfrugal.com/2012/07/easy-peasy-homemade-pizza-crust-recipe.html
yum! can’t wait to try this 🙂
Enjoy it!
That seems like way too much bbq sauce. Two to three cups for one pizza?
I was also wondering the same thing Jen asked…. about wouldn’t the plastic wrap stick to the bbq sauce. Maybe set the pizza in the freezer for a short time to flash freeze it and then wrap in the plastic and then foil?
I agree. That must have been a typo on the sauce. Since you have chicken and cheese on top of the sauce that plastic wrap does not stick too much. Enjoy! You are going to love it!
Is it possible to cook this without a pizza stone? Maybe if I cooked the pizza under the grill first and then turned the oven on to cook through the dough fully or the other way around? Any suggestions?
I pizza stone is not required, but some kind of pizza pan is needed at least to originally cook the dough. You could bake your dough on a pan for 10-15 minutes at 350 and then top it and freeze it. You would be able to bake it right on the rack after that.
Just be sure to put butter or oil or Pam on your pan and a little cornmeal so it does not stick.