Grilling Pizza over Natural Charcoal or Hardwood Embers

The thought of making pizza typically conjures up the image of a large brick oven, but grilling pizza is an alternative method that is just as delicious and more accessible than the traditional cooking method!
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Equipment

  • kettle grill or a large grill grate propped on bricks
  • Rolling Pin
  • tongs as soft-edged as possible
  • wooden cutting boards
  • pastry brush

Ingredients
  

  • handful all-purpose flour
  • dough
  • 2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • toppings

Instructions
 

  • Fire up the grill with natural charcoal or dry hardwood chunks. Let the fire burn down to very hot coals, then set up the grill grate to heat thoroughly, ideally about 3 inches above the coals. If the grill is large enough, it’s very helpful to have a hot side and a lower-temp side to shift the pizza to.
  • Dust a surface with flour and roll out a dough blob to a 10- inch circle (or oblong).
  • With gentle fingers, carefully place stretched dough on hot grill. Watch carefully; as soon as it releases from grill, gingerly flip with tongs, and brush the lightly baked surface with oil and scatter evenly with toppings.
  • Attentively shift and spin the pizza around on the grill, moving it to a cooler spot if you need to while the cheese melts and the toppings coalesce. (Briefly using a lid, vents open, can help with melting, especially as your fire is getting cooler toward the end of the process.)
  • Slide pizza onto cutting board, slice, and serve.

Notes

Complete How-To for Summer Flatbread Pizza 
These recipes originally appeared in print within our summer 2021 edition as part of a featured article: Lawn to Lettuce: transform your lawn into a mixed-use vegetable garden by Pam Denholm.