BBQ Chicken Pizza

Hey, welcome back to How to Barbecue Right. I'm Malcolm Reed. Today, I got another football food for you. This one's my easy barbecue chicken pizza. First, I'm gonna season up some boneless, skinless thighs and get them on the grill. Then we're gonna build this cheesy pizza. It's gonna be delicious, y'all. Let's get to cooking. So I picked up a pack of these boneless, skinless thighs from a grocery store. Just about six of them, that's plenty for these pizzas. I'm gonna hit them with a little bit of my hot barbecue rub. Notice I left a little of that fat on here. I like the way it chars down. We're gonna grill them hot and fast. You could use any kind of rub you want on this. If you got a favorite barbecue seasoning, it'll work just fine. I'm gonna let these hang out just for a little while. We're gonna fire up the Weber. Today, I'm creating a two-zone fire. I've got a chimney full of Royal Oak briquettes going, couple tumbleweeds to get it good and hot. When those coals are ready, after about 15 minutes, we're gonna pour them all to one side of the grill, put the cooking grate on, and it's gonna create a hot side and a cool side. That way, if these chicken thighs get ahead of me, I can move them over to the cool side and not burn them up. So once our Weber's good and hot, it's time to grill off these chicken thighs. I'm just gonna place them right over the hot coals at first. They're gonna cook fast, so you wanna stay with them and move them as needed. You don't want them to burn. Remember, we got this cool side to move them over to if you need to. After a few minutes, we're just gonna give them a flip. They're supposed to get char, y'all. That's what we wanna see. Looking good. These boneless, skinless thighs cook quick. At this point, I got them grilled off really good. They're probably about 175 internal. I'm not really worried about it because they're going on the pizza. I just wanted to get some flavor on these chicken thighs. Got a little char action going. Let's get them off. So now I'm just taking these chicken thighs, cutting them into little bite-sized strips. Perfect for a pizza. You could chop it if you wanted to. I like the strips. It's a nice bite of chicken. You can use these on tacos. You can use them on a sandwich, whatever you want. If you got leftovers, don't get rid of them. Hey, now let's build this quick and easy pizza. I'm cheating a little. I'm using one of these pre-bought Pillsbury pizza crusts. Super simple. If you wanna take the time, make dough and all that, nothing wrong with it. But for game day, I wanna watch football. I wanna make these quick. Let's blow it up. Oh, look at that. It unrolls just like a pack of crescent dough. There's a seam on it, right in the pan. Perfect size. I just like to take it, spread it around a little. Use your fingertips. You want it to stretch out. Kind of give it a little upturn in the pan. It's little holes in it. That's okay. That's gonna help it come out, help it cook even. Now we're ready for our pizza sauce. For this one, I'm using my white barbecue sauce. Making barbecue chicken pizza makes a good foundation. Just drizzle some of that right over the crust and get a spoon and just spread it out. It's gonna give us some of those barbecue flavors going. A little bit of that vinegary tang. You get the creaminess from the mayo in it. Of course, the seasonings from the pepper. Dynamite chicken sauce for pizza. Now it's time to get cheesy. I like to put a bottom layer of cheese on first. Just got some shredded mozzarella, nothing fancy. Just spread it around even on the bottom crust. Now, star of the show, that grilled chicken thigh. We're just gonna spread these chicken thigh strips right out. Now, if you wanted to cheat on this one, smoke a whole chicken and pull it. Use a rotisserie chicken or simply grill these thighs up. Either one will work for this pizza. Now I wanna spice it up a little bit. I've got some sliced jalapenos. Just gonna spread out. Jalapeno goes great with this barbecue chicken. Little bit of heat, little bit of tang, whole lot of flavor. Then I got some chopped red onion. This part's optional, but I like the red onion on my pizza. It's gonna cook down, give it some flavor, a little crunch. Use whatever toppings you'd like. Now let's top it with some more cheese. First, I'm gonna add a little bit of triple cheddar blend right over the top. Then we're gonna hit it with a little more of this mozz. Melts really well. Brings that cheese home. What's a pizza without a lot of cheese? Just might as well be eating bread. So I've got my Traeger pellet grill fired up today. You could use whatever pellet you want. Cook it about 425. It's gonna brown the edges of that pizza crust, make it nice and crispy, and it's gonna melt the cheese over the top. All right, check it out. Our pizza's been cooking for about 30 minutes. It's nice and brown. That's what I wanna see, brown around the edges. Cheese is melted on top, starting to brown up. I don't want it to go anymore. It's done. I know that's gonna be crispy. I know it's gonna be cheesy. Check that out. That crust looks good underneath. Ooh, a little crispy. That's what I'm talking about. Now I'm gonna finish this pizza off with a little drizzle of the barbecue sauce. You could use your favorite barbecue sauce here. You don't wanna put a lot. Let's just drizzle it right over the top. Give it a little pop of flavor. Drive that barbecue note home. Now let's cut it up. I just got a pizza cutter here. I'm gonna half it. I'm gonna come back, do the same thing. Go right in half. Then you cut small pieces if you wanna share it. If you don't, leave them large. Check it out. Now that's grilled barbecue chicken pizza. That easy. All right, now y'all know it's cooled off a little bit. It's still hot, but I got to give it a try. See how we did. Could I eat this on a game day? Ooh, oh, that's a touchdown right there. You get the white sauce coming through on the bottom. The grilled chicken's got a little spice to it from the hot rub. Jalapeno, onion, and all that cheese. You know it can't be bad. Hey, thanks for hanging out with us today at How to Barbecue Right. If you like what we're doing, subscribe to the channel. Y'all know you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. And Chell and I will be talking about this football food on our weekly podcast. Y'all tune in and give that a listen too. We'll see you next time. Going back in. Hmm.