Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Um. Buffalo Chicken Pizza. I'm kind of speechless. This is all of your favorite buffalo wing flavors - on top of pizza dough... It's as good as it sounds, and I think I'm just going to leave it at that!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Makes 1 large pizza or 2 medium pizzas (about 4 servings)

Total time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

Pizza dough

1 chicken breast, cooked

1 celery stalk

1/4 onion

3 Tbsp ranch dressing

2 Tbsp hot sauce (give or take a Tbsp depending on your spicy tolerance)

4 oz part-skim mozzarella cheese

4 oz low fat crumbled blue cheese

Garlic powder to taste

1. Chop celery stalk and onion.

2. Chop chicken and mix in half the hot sauce.

3. Roll out pizza dough to desired crust thickness. Layer ranch dressing evenly on the dough, then add chicken, celery, onion, mozzarella cheese, and blue cheese. Drizzle remaining hot sauce over the pizza. Sprinkle on garlic powder to taste.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes or until cheeses are melted and dough is cooked. Drizzle with more hot sauce if desired, and enjoy!

Chop celery stalk and 1/4 onion. It's nice to have a little bit of crunch along with all of the creamy cheese!

Chop cooked chicken breast and smother in half of the hot sauce. Trust your instincts here with the amount of hot sauce. Everyone has a different spiciness tolerance, so add hot sauce accordingly!

Roll out the pizza dough and add the ranch dressing as you would normally add tomato sauce. You could use blue cheese dressing here instead if you prefer!

 Add chicken, celery, and onion...

And mozzarella and blue cheese. MMMMM!

Drizzle extra hot sauce on top and sprinkle with garlic powder. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes and let the bubbly goodness begin...

 I don't know why it took me so long to make this pizza! I've had it at a few different restaurants, and I have an unhealthy obsession with buffalo chicken wing dip, so this pizza makes PERFECT sense. So easy, and just a party in your mouth. As I said before, it's every bit as scrumptious as it looks!

Italian Sausage, Spinach, and Heirloom Tomato Pizza

I'm VERY excited to share this recipe! I think it's the perfect balance of meat and veggies. I usually go for pepperoni and some veggies for pizza toppings, but I had a hankering for spinach pizza. And Italian sausage! And I was given MORE organic produce (I know, lucky lucky lucky) and tried heirloom tomatoes for the first time and they rocked my world! They taste like a flavor-concentrated version of regular tomatoes. Not only are they brighter in color, but I thought they tasted brighter in flavor too. I know they are expensive, but for certain dishes like this where tomatoes are one of the stars, I will definitely shell out a little extra cash for the heirlooms in the future. There is no sauce on this pizza! The diced heirloom tomatoes are the first layer of the pizza so you get a little burst of tomato with each chunk. And it's absolutely delightful! 

Italian Sausage, Spinach, and Heirloom Tomato Pizza

Makes 1 large pizza (4 servings)

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

Pizza dough for large pizza

1 2/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

2 Italian sausage links

3 heirloom tomatoes

10 oz frozen spinach (1 box), thawed

1/4 tsp garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Remove sausage from casing and cook over medium heat, breaking into small pieces. Cook until no longer pink, about 5-7 minutes. Place cooked sausage on a plate lined with paper towels to drain the excess grease.

2. Remove stems from tomatoes and dice. Wrap thawed spinach in 3-4 paper towels and squeeze as much liquid out as possible.

3. Roll out pizza dough. Top with the heirloom tomatoes. Sprinkle with garlic powder and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle 2/3 cup mozzarella cheese over the tomatoes. Top with spinach, Italian sausage, and remaining cheese, all evenly spread in layers.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Enjoy!

I thoroughly enjoy sausage on pizza! Remove the Italian sausage from the casing and cook over medium heat, breaking up into pieces. Cook until not longer pink. This picture shows it's close to done.

Place the cooked sausage on a plate lined with paper towels to drain some grease.

Look at these beauties! I loved the colors of the heirlooms. I even had a few that were kind of magenta and purple looking! Remove the stems and dice the heirloom tomatoes.

Wrap the thawed spinach in paper towels and squeeze as much of the liquid out as possible!

Roll out the pizza dough and top with the heirloom tomatoes. Sprinkle the garlic powder and salt and pepper to taste. These chunks will be little tomato flavor explosions when you eat the pizza!

Add 2/3 cup of the shredded mozzarella cheese.

Layer on the spinach, sausage, and the remaining cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

You get just enough of each ingredient in every bite. The fruity heirlooms act as your sauce and give you little bursts of tomato flavor each bite, there is enough spinach to make it still feel like a spinach pizza, and the Italian sausage is the perfect meaty addition. And of course all of this is layered in mozzarella. Mmm!!! Some of my best work. YOU WILL LOVE THIS PIZZA I promise.

Pizza Dough

This is my go-to pizza dough recipe. There's some wait time but the final product is DELICIOUS! My boyfriend and I love making this recipe and having a pizza night. We each get to make our own pizza with whatever toppings we like! This recipe makes enough dough for two medium pizzas that usually is two servings for each of us (unless we're REALLY hungry). Or you could make one large Calzone! This is a great recipe to make with family and friends for some fun in the kitchen!

Pizza Dough

Makes 2 medium pizza crusts (or 1 large) (about 4 servings)

Hands-on time: 25 minutes

Wait time: 1 hour

Cook time: 20 minutes

Total time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

1 package active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups wheat flour

1 1/2 cups all purpose white flour

1 cup warm water

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 Tbsp salt

1 tsp sugar

Also 1/2 cup white flour for kneading process and 1 Tbsp olive oil to grease dough

1. Mix dry yeast, sugar, and warm water in a large mixing bowl. Let rest until the yeast starts to 

foam, about 5 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl combine wheat and white flour.

3. Mix olive oil and salt into yeast mixture. Add half of the flour mixture to yeast mixture and stir. Add remaining flour mixture to yeast mixture and continue stirring until the dough starts to separate from the edge of the bowl (you'll probably need to use your hands at this point).

4. Sprinkle extra flour onto a large surface. Knead ball of dough on floured surface, adding flour to the surface as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the surface or your hands. Knead for about 5 minutes.

5. Set oven to warm. Grease glass baking pan and ball of dough with extra olive oil. Place dough in baking pan and cover with aluminum foil in a tent shape so there is room for the dough to rise. Place dough in oven and let rise for an hour.

6. Remove dough from oven and split into two parts (for medium sized pizzas). Knead the dough again on the floured surface for 5 minutes.

7. Roll out dough to desired thickness and fold over edges to make a crust. Top with your favorite pizza fixings and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F. Enjoy!

One package of dry yeast and sugar.

Mix yeast, sugar, and warm water (in a bigger bowl than this. I wasted a clean dish) and let it sit for 5 minutes.

The yeast will get all fluffy and frothy like this after 5 minutes!

Mix yeast mixture with olive oil and salt. I think the 2 tablespoons of olive oil is the key to keeping the final product nice and soft!

I like mixing white flour and wheat flour! I've done the recipe with all white but never with all wheat. From what I read online it seems that the texture changes too much if you use all wheat flour.

Stir half the flour mixture into the yeast mixture.

Stir in the rest of the flour! It will start to pull away from the edges of the bowl. Add another tablespoon of flour if the dough sticks to your fingers too much.

 Flour your counter top!

Now comes the fun part. Knead the dough on the floured counter top for about 5 minutes. You might need to add more water or flour a tablespoon at a time if the dough is crumbling ( add water) or sticking to your hands too much (add flour). *Shout out to my boyfriend for handling the camera while my hands were messy!

The dough will come together and be very elastic after about 5 minutes of kneading.

Done with round 1!

Grease baking pan and ball of dough so it is easy for the dough to rise and expand. Set your oven to warm and cover dough with a tent of aluminum foil. Place dough in the over and let rise for about an hour! It's definitely hard to be patient but you'll thank yourself later.

It expands quite a bit! Separate the dough into two equal parts. Dough balls this size make medium pizzas, enough for two meals each if you're a little hungry and one meal if you're super hungry!

Roll out (or just use your hands) the dough out until it reaches your desired thickness. Personally I'm a thick crust kind of girl.

Fold the edges over and press to make the crust.

Add your favorite pizza toppings! Here I went with spaghetti sauce, garlic powder, oregano, basil, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and Parmesan cheese. I love adding bell peppers and onions and black olives too!  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

It puffs up quite nicely. Sometimes I like to sprinkle parmesan cheese directly onto the crust. It kind of turns your crust into bread sticks! This homemade dough is definitely worth the wait time to make it!