This Tandoori Chicken Pizza is the perfect blend of east and west. We’re talking a perfectly chewy crust made from scratch, tandoori chicken chunks, and lots of cheese of course!
I’m so excited to be sharing this Tandoori Chicken Pizza with you today, because it’s the first pizza recipe I’m sharing on my blog. The internet is full of pizza recipes, I know, so I wanted to go for a little something that’s unique in taste.
So what are we going to be doing today?
We’re going to learn how to make the perfect dough recipe for pizza…it’s a no fail recipe.
We’re going to be making tandoori flavoured chicken chunks, which are super easy btw.
And then we’re going to make a yummy pizza topped with tandoori chicken, assorted veggies and two types of cheese! Of course there’s pizza sauce too, but let’s make our lives a little easier and just use some store bought pizza sauce.
How to Make Pizza Dough from Scratch
Making pizza dough isn’t as scary as it seems, honestly.
You’ll need:
- Instant or Active Dry Yeast (both are fine)
- Sugar
- Warm water
- Flour
- Oil
- Salt
The most important part of getting any dough right is to make sure you’re blooming the yeast correctly.
You can bloom the yeast by adding it to the warm water with a little bit of sugar. The water needs to be warm (between 105 F and 110 F). Too hot or cold, the yeast will be mostly likely killed.
A lot of recipes using instant yeast, recommend adding the yeast and warm water directly to the dough ingredients and mixing right away. I don’t recommend this, especially if you’re a beginner. The reason being that if you follow this method, you won’t know if the yeast was activated properly or not. So, even though I’m pretty comfortable with using yeast, I always bloom it separately.
Once the yeast has been properly activated, add it to the rest of the ingredients in a stand mixer with a dough hook, or just use your hands to knead the dough.
The dough needs to be kneaded for about 7-8 minutes, until when pressed with a finger, it slowly bounces back. Properly kneading the dough is important because it helps form the gluten, which in turn makes your pizza dough chewy and crusty when baked.
Once the dough is ready, it’s time to let it rest and rise. Place it in a greased bowl, and put it in a warm place. I like to preheat my oven to about 150 F (66 C) and then turn it off once preheated. Then I place the dough covered in a bowl, in the oven and leave the oven door a little open. This is the ideal temperature for letting your dough rise. Rising of dough will take anywhere between 60-90 minutes. Mine took about 90 minutes.
Once the dough has risen, punch out the air and divide it into two dough balls. Each dough ball will make a 12 inch pizza. If you only need one pizza, then you can freeze it or even keep the remainder dough covered in the fridge for up to 1 day.
For the Tandoori Chicken Chunks
Tandoori chicken is easy to make. It’s yummy and delicious, and adds just the right amount of spice to the pizza.
You only need:
- Boneless chicken cut into small pieces
- Tandoori masala (I use Shan Masala)
- Yogurt
- Freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Mix all the ingredients together, and marinate for at least an hour or overnight in the fridge.
- Cook on medium high heat in a little bit of oil, until the chicken is cooked and water is evaporated.
Toppings for the Chicken Tandoori Pizza
You can use any sort of topping you like for your tandoori chicken pizza, but here are the ones I used.
- Pizza Sauce (I use store bought)
- Green and Red Bell Peppers
- Black olives
- Slice onions
- Tandoori chicken chunks
- Cheese (I use shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese)
Some other topping suggestions
- Jalapeños
- Sliced mushrooms
- Green chillies if you like it really spicy!
- Sweet corn
Hope you enjoy this pizza recipe…if you do, please let me know in the comments below!
Enjoy 🙂
More Yummy Recipes to Try:
Tandoori Chicken Pizza Recipe
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 1 1/3 cups warm water between 100-110F, 38-43C
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast dry active yeast is fine too
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or any neutral flavour oil is fine
- 3/4 teaspoon oil
- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
For the Tandoori Chicken
- 450 grams chicken breast cut into small pieces
- 2 tablespoons yogurt
- 1 tablespoon Shan Tandoori Masala powder
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons oil for cooking
For the Pizza
- Prepared crust
- 1/2 cup pizza sauce I use storebought
- Prepared tandoori chicken
- 2 cups cheese
- Additional toppings I used green & red bell peppers, sliced onions, and olives
Instructions
For the Pizza Dough
- Whisk the warm water, yeast and granulated sugar together in a bowl. Cover and let stand for about 5 minutes. Properly activated yeast looks foamy, and has completely dissolved in the water. Also preheat the oven to 150 F (66 C) and turn it off once fully preheated.
- Add olive oil, salt, and flour to the bowl of a stand mixer (or any bowl if using hands to knead the dough). Now add the yeast, and beat on low for about 2 minutes or so. Continue kneading the dough on medium speed for at least 7-8 minutes until l a cohesive dough ball has formed. If the dough looks too sticky, add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time. But don’t add too much extra flour at a time. Poke your dough with a finger, if it bounces back slowly, your dough is ready to rise.
- Light grease a large bowl, and transfer the dough to it. Roll it around with your hands, so the dough is covered with oil all around. Cover and place into the preheated oven (but turned off now) and leave the oven door open a little bit. The dough will take about 60-90 minutes to rise.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, punch out the air and divide into two equal dough balls. If using both, roll out into 12 inch discs. If you want to use them for later you can place them covered in the fridge for up to 1 day or freeze for later use. The dough can be frozen up to 2 months.
- Let the shaped dough rise for a few minutes before adding the toppings.
For the Tandoori Chicken
- Mix all the ingredients (except for oil) together and marinate for at least 30 minutes or overnight in the fridge.
- Add oil, and cook on medium high heat until the chicken is cooked through and the excess water has dried up.
- Let cool slightly before adding to the pizza crust.
For the Tandoori Chicken Pizza
- Preheat oven to 475 F (246 C) and lightly grease a baking sheet or a pizza pan.
- Spread sauce on the pizza crust.
- Now add a little bit of cheese.
- Add the tandoori chicken and other toppings.
- Add more cheese and finish with a little more of the toppings.
- Place into the preheated oven and bake for about 12-15 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the cheesy has melted and is bubbly. Remove from oven, cut into slices and serve immediately.
Omg! Such an amazing recipe. That’s a lovely pizza just like pizza house. I’m also thinking to share pizza recipes on my blog. Thanks for being an inspiration Wajeeha.