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Monday, July 14, 2014

Take Out at Home: Buffalo Chicken Pizza

So.
While J and I both like pizza, I don't often make it at home.  He will often order a pizza when I have a dinner meeting, so we don't go out for pizza much.  When we do, we usually order a large so there will be leftovers the next day.  The nice thing about making pizza at home is that we also have leftovers for the next day.  Sometimes when we go out, I'll order an individual pizza for myself.  I like unorthodox ingredients, and have sampled a few different Buffalo chicken pizzas, but my complaint is always the same:  restaurants use their Buffalo chicken fingers, and the breading is just too much with everything else.
While cruising Budget Bytes, I found this recipe for a Buffalo Chicken pizza.  I love Beth's recipes, I love Buffalo chicken...how could this not be a winner?  Even my suspicion of cream sauce as a base could not deter me from the ultimate objective which was a delicious dinner that J and I would both enjoy.
How do I know he enjoyed?  I've been asked to make this again, and I probably will.  For football season on a day that we're here and sitting in front of the TV for 12 hours of college football's best.  Or perhaps an afternoon of NFL.  What I do know is this:  the cream sauce sets everything else off to a T, and I can't imagine making this any other way.
I present to you now Budget Bytes' Buffalo Chicken Pizza:

Ingredients:
Dough for 1 pizza (I use the recipe that came with my bread machine, but frozen or premade would work)
For the Cream Sauce:
1 Tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
4 oz. cream cheese
1/2 c milk
1/4 tsp salt
Toppings:
2 c shredded chicken
1/3 c Buffalo Chicken sauce
1 c shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c blue cheese crumbles
2 green onions, finely sliced
Method:
1.  Make the cream sauce:  In a small saucepan, melt butter and cook with the garlic until fragrant.  Add cream cheese and milk.  Stir constantly until cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth.  Set aside to cool until the dough is finished.
2.  Preheat oven to 450F.
3.  Press dough onto a pizza stone or pan, giving a chance to rest.  Combine chicken and wing sauce, stirring well to coat.  Pour cream sauce over the dough, leaving a border of dough.  Top with chicken, spreading evenly.  Sprinkle with shredded cheddar and blue cheese.
4.  Bake for 15-20 minutes at 450F, until cheese is melted, crust is golden, and toppings are bubbly.  Remove from oven and scatter with green onions.

  From Budget Bytes

Everything in this pizza is rich.  The sauce, the chicken, the cheese...so yummy.  I used straight Frank's for the wing sauce.  A traditional wing sauce uses hot sauce and butter.  We didn't miss the butter.  I was also afraid that 1/3 of a cup wouldn't be enough, but it was - there was no liquid in the bowl when I'd spread the chicken.  It didn't need to be overly saucy.
I probably used more than 1/4 cup of blue cheese, but we like it...and I used a scant cup of cheddar to make up for it.
Isn't this pretty?  It smelled absolutely amazing, thanks to the garlic in the cream sauce.  When you're eating wings, you need a good ranch or blue cheese sauce.  The flavours could go either way on this one, seeing as J likes ranch and I'm a blue cheese girl myself.
Another Budget Bytes winner!  We need this again, and soon!

1 comment:

  1. This is very interesting. I don't think I would have paired buffalo chicken with cream sauce, but I want to try it. We make pizza at home all the time. I sometimes make crust, but Target carries awesome super thin crusts that are great and I usually just get those. We top them with tons of different ingredients and buffalo chicken is one my favorites. We usually just saute up piece of chicken breast with S&P and then toss them in Frank's buffalo sauce. We use that sauce on the pizza too and do a combo of mozzarella and bleu cheese. We also do the green onions and sometimes minced celery (my lil guy loves the stuff).

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