You Should Absolutely Be Making Pizza In Your Smoker

For avid home cooks, there's something endlessly satisfying about tinkering with pizza. Sure, you could simply order in a delicious pie, but there's an immense pride in assembling the dish from scratch. Plus, there's lots of fun in tinkering with new techniques. A central challenge to home-cooked pizza is temperature, as restaurant pizza ovens simply get way hotter. It's the reason many use the oven's broiler to make restaurant-style pizza at home or go so far as to hack the oven's cleaning cycle to achieve perfect dough (not recommended). Instead, try another home cooking device surprisingly well poised for pizza: the smoker.

The cooking equipment gets to a toasty 500 degrees Fahrenheit, which is still lower than a commercial pizza oven but on par with the upper range of a domestic oven. Yet, in addition to achieving a delightful, browned pie, the smoker naturally imbues a nice smoky flavor. Such notes are most prominent in the cheese but also slightly in the crust, adding a complex dimension that's not overpowering. As opposed to typical baking, the pie packs a tantalizing flavor reminiscent of a wood-fired oven, picking up a nice char and perhaps even lightly earthy and fruity notes depending on the employed wood. Plus, the warm environment cooks the pizza speedily and thoroughly, letting you cook several rounds. It's precisely the kind of technique that makes home pizza tinkering so fun.

When using a smoker, most aspects of the pizza-making process remain the same. You'll still want to craft your own dough, perhaps using discarded sourdough for a tasty crust, although any dough composition works well — there's no shame in using a store-bought base for ease. Concerning the sauce and toppings, the options are as limitless. Consider what flavors you'd like to see turn smoky: candidates like pepperoni, hard cheeses, and peppers will turn out especially well.

Just remember to not add too many ingredients (especially sauce) and settle for a thin or medium crust to let the smoky flavors really infuse. It's also hugely helpful to cook on a pizza stone — an expert tip for crispy pizza crust — as the tool will also stop dough from falling through the grates. At the very least, use parchment paper since cooking straight on the grill won't be possible.

Finally, a good wood smoker is preferred for flavor, but an electric model works too. Keep the lid on during cooking, and maintain temperatures at a warm 450 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Judge readiness visually. The pizza should be golden brown, and the cheese fully melted. Once you have the technique down, the method opens to many tantalizing possibilities. You can smoke cold cuts and cheeses prior for an all-out pizza night or even cook a store-bought frozen pizza in such a manner.