Grilling pizza at home is my favorite way to make pizza. A charcoal fire can get much hotter than our home ovens, which makes for a crispy crust and a pizza that cooks very quickly. The grilled flavor on the crust makes it taste like an authentic wood-burning pizza oven. It's even better when you can grill all your toppings to go with it, and that's what we did for this Grilled Spring Onion and Eggplant Pizza with Goat Cheese.
I expected the pizza to turn out really good, but the first bite surpassed my expectations. The combination of the onions, eggplant and goat cheese is absolutely delicious.
These spring onions are actually red spring onions and are available all year, but their peak season is from February through June. They are harvested young, and the stems have scallion flavor while the bulbs have a sweet red onion like flavor.
I sliced these in half lengthwise, but if your spring onions are small, you can leave them whole.
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Grill the veggies on both sides directly over the heat source to get beautiful grill marks and great flavor.
I have to confess that I don't often make my own pizza dough. I know it's wonderful and all that, but it does take a little extra time. Our freezer is always stocked with a few Trader Joe's Par Baked Pizza Crusts. They are barely par baked and feel like dough. The flavor is excellent and are ready to go for a weeknight meal. If you want to make your own dough, that's even better. You'll spread out and grill one side of the dough before building your pizza.
Once you have the ingredients and dough are all grilled up, layer the toppings on the crust with mozzarella and bits of goat cheese, and grill it until perfect!
Ingredients
- 1 bunch spring onions roots cut off and sliced lengthwise if onions are larger
- 1 eggplant sliced crosswise into ½" pieces
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
- 2 10 " pizza crusts
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella
- goat cheese
Instructions
- Heat your grill on high. Brush the eggplant slices with a generous amount of olive oil on each side and drizzle olive oil on the spring onions. Grill the veggies directly over the flame until they are cooked through.
- Coarsely chop the grilled spring onions and slice the eggplant into strips.
- Shape the pizza dough into the size you want, and place the dough on a pizza paddle dusted with corn meal. You can place the pizza dough on a corn-meal-dusted piece of parchment paper first so it is easier to pick up and place on the grill. Brush one side of the pizza dough with olive oil, then place that side directly on the grill. Cover and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the crust is cooked through on that side.
- Using tongs, carefully move the crust from the grill back onto the corn-meal-dusted pizza paddle with the grilled side facing up. Layer mozzarella cheese, grilled spring onions, eggplant, dabs of goat cheese, and season with salt & pepper.
- Slide back onto the grill and cook for about 5 more minutes, or until the dough is cooked through and the cheese is melted.
- Remove from the grill, season to taste, slice and serve.
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