Grilled pizza is perfect for warm days when it's too hot to use the oven. And it will take a plain old pizza from good to amazing! You can top a grilled pizza as you would any oven-baked pizza, but I like to go a little lighter on the toppings because it makes the transfer to the hot grill a little easier. Here's one of my favorite ways to prepare grilled pizza: top it with just a little oil and cheese and then throw on some fresh toppings like bruschetta. The sodium comes from whatever cheese you use (fresh mozzarella, ricotta, and Swiss are great low sodium options) and the trace amounts in the vegetables and vinegar.
Servings: 1 ten-inch pizza
Sodium: About 100 mg per pizza but this will vary depending on the type of cheese used
Time: 45 minutes plus time for making the dough
Ingredients:
Pizza dough for 1 ten-inch pizza (use my low sodium pizza dough recipe or any other dough that fits into your diet)
2 ounces fresh mozzarella (or any other cheese of your choice)
Olive oil for brushing the crust
Bruschetta ingredients:
1/2 pound tomatoes, diced small
1 small shallot, diced small
3 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1) Prepare the bruschetta: combine all bruschetta ingredients in a small bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.
2) Grill the pizza: place a pizza stone on your grill and heat it for 30 minutes on high with the cover down. It's going to get really hot so be very careful. Prepare your pizza dough according to whatever recipe you're using and place the dough on a floured peel. I don't have a real peel, I just use this thin bamboo cutting board and it's worked fine. The trick is to make sure the dough doesn't stick to the peel (or whatever you're using to transfer the dough to the grill) so that it slides off quickly and easily. I've found that it really helps to flour the surface evenly and get the dough on and off quickly. So stretch out your dough, brush it with a little bit of oil, top it and get it on the grill quickly. Baking times will vary depending on how hot the grill is, so don't go far once you throw the dough on the grill. My grill probably hits about 600°F and it takes about 5-6 minutes for the pizza to finish. Top the hot pizza with bruschetta and serve immediately!
TIPS:
-Scrape off any extra flour on the pizza stone between pizzas.
-I've made a lot of pizzas on the grill and I've found that by the 5th or 6th pizza, the pizza stone gets so hot that the pizza can burn on the bottom before the top is where I want it to be. If you find this happening, adjust the heat and/or open the lid for a bit and let it cool down. Grills are tricky, it doesn't hurt to open the cover and check so don't be afraid to check frequently. You'll figure out what works best with your grill after a few tries.