California Pizza Kitchen Original BBQ Chicken Pizza
Introduced in our first restaurant in 1985 with barbecued chicken, sliced red onion, cilantro, and smoked Gouda cheese.California Pizza Kitchen offers dozens of unique pizza creations that reflect the current trends in dining. When Cajun food was in style, the Cajun chicken pizza was a top seller; today that item has been replaced with Southwestern and Thai pizza varieties. As the menu explains, the Barbecued Chicken Pizza was one of the first pizzas served at California Pizza Kitchen. Decades later it remains one of the top-selling pizza creations.You can use this CPK BBQ chicken pizza recipe to make your pizza with pre-made or packaged dough, but I highly recommend taking the time to make the dough yourself. You'll find that it's well worth the little bit of extra work.
Ingredients
For The Crust
- 1 pound prepared pizza dough or homemade
For The Topping
- 1 boneless skinless chicken breast half
- ½ cup Bullseye Original barbecue sauce
- 1½ teaspoons olive oil
- 1 cup mozzarella shredded
- ½ cup grated Gouda cheese smoked, if you can find it
- ½ cup sliced red onion
- 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.
Prepare the chicken:
- Cut the chicken breast into bite-size cubes and coat them in 1/4 cup of the barbecue sauce.
- Heat a small frying pan on your stove with about 1 1/2 teaspoons of olive oil in it.
- Saute the chicken in the pan for about 3 to 4 minutes or until done.
Top the pizza:
- On a floured surface shape the dough into a 10-inch pizza pie pan.
- Coat the pizza with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
- Spread the remaining 1/4 cup of barbecue sauce evenly over the pizza crust.
- Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the mozzarella and all of the Gouda cheese over the sauce.
- Distribute the cooked chicken evenly over the cheese.
- Spread the remaining 1/2 cup of mozzarella over the pizza.
- Finally, top the the pizza with a sprinkling of cilantro.
Bake and serve:
- Bake the pizza for 10 to 12 minutes or until the crust is light brown.
- When the pizza is done, remove it from the oven and make 4 even cuts across the pie for 8 slices.
- Serve with garlic butter dipping sauce if desired.
Notes
An alternative method for preparing the chicken:
- Season the chicken with salt, and heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Toss the chicken into hot oil, and cook for about 5 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until you no longer see any pink.
- Add 2 tablespoons of barbecue sauce, and stir well, then set aside off the heat.