I love a thin, chewy, crispy pizza crust but this pan pizza is more popular with my kids because it's very soft and doughy. It uses the same low sodium pizza dough recipe so it's easy to use half the dough for a pan pizza for them, and the other half for 2 thinner, hand stretched pizza for me. The dough has nearly no sodium so you can easily tailor this to your specific dietary needs.
Servings: One10-inch pizza
Sodium: 21 mg per slice (1/8 of the pizza) Time: The dough needs to rise overnight, and then it needs to rest for another 2 hours before topping. But after that, topping and baking takes just 20 minutes.
Ingredients:
3 ounces cooked low sodium chicken
2 tablespoons low sodium barbecue sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 cup red onions, sliced thin
2 ounces Swiss cheese
1/2 jalapeño pepper, sliced thin
olive oil for drizzling
handful of cilantro leaves, chopped
1) Start with any pizza dough, or use half of my low sodium pizza dough. After the dough has finished its overnight rise, divide it in half and shape each half into a ball. This recipe uses one half, so you can use the other half to make a sheet pan pizza or two round pies.
2) Coat a 10 inch cast iron skillet with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Place one ball of dough in the skillet, flatten it lightly and drizzle additional olive oil on top. Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours. After two hours, gently press on the dough so that it's evenly spread across the pan, all the way to the edges.
Here's the dough at the beginning of the 2 hour rise, after 2 hours, and then pressed lightly into the pan.
3) Preheat oven to 500°F.
4) Add your toppings. I start with a drizzle of olive oil, then garlic, then sauce, cheese, chicken, and finally onions and jalapeños. Some people prefer to put the cheese first and that can help to keep the crust from getting soggy. We're not using a lot of sauce or cheese here so that's not a big concern for me.
5) Bake in a 500°F oven for 10-13 minutes. Top with chopped cilantro, and drizzle with additional olive oil or barbecue sauce if desired.
TIPS:
-After taking the pizza out of the oven, you can cook it on the stove over high heat for an extra minute or two to make the crust a little browner. Be careful, though, it can go from light from to burned very quickly because the skillet is very hot.
-Use whatever low sodium chicken you like, or substitute for any other protein or none at all. I like to use about 3 ounces of chicken breast sautéed in about 1/2 teaspoon each of garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and dried oregano.
-If you find yourself making a lot of pizza like we do, make the dough in advance (maybe over the weekend if that's when you have more time) and refrigerate or freeze it and this can be an easy weeknight dinner. See my TIPS on the pizza dough recipe on how to freeze pizza dough.