From Our Kitchen to Yours: Buffalo Chicken Pizza

My mom makes AMAZING buffalo chicken dip. 

It's always a big hit at gatherings, and goes pretty quickly. One of the biggest fans of my mom's buffalo chicken dip is my future hubby.

I'm always trying to find new recipes for dinner, and hopefully get Cody out of his hot dog and mac&cheese routine. I've been seeing a lot of different recipes for buffalo chicken pizza, but during my trip to the grocery store the other day, I didn't have direct access to one of those delicious recipes. Craving something spicy, I decided to try out buffalo chicken pizza with my own ingredients and cross my fingers that it turned out edible.

I saw this cute little link-up that Whitney over at The Observant Turtle is hosting, and decided I had to share the cheesy goodness with y'all!  

Here are the ingredients I chose for the dish:

1) My mom always uses the canned Premium Chicken Breast chunks to make her buffalo chicken dip, and it turns out amazing. Honestly, the idea of any kind of meat in a can creeps me out, but in this case, it works out perfectly.

2) Pillsbury makes delicious pizza crust in the refrigerated section at the grocery store, normally by the biscuits and cookies. When I saw the Artisan Whole Grain Pizza Crust, I had to try it.

3) The toppings I picked out were pretty basic. Store brand Ranch dressing, Frank's Red Hot Thick, Colby Jack Shredded Cheese, and store brand Real Bacon Bits. 

The first thing I did was set the oven to 400 degrees, as per the Pillsbury pizza crust cooking directions.

On a well-greased baking sheet, unroll the pizza dough and spread out to desired length and shape. Side note: The Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Crust smells amazing! Try your best not to eat the raw dough - cause you'll want to. :)

Once the oven is preheated, place your raw pizza dough in the oven for 8 minutes. (I just followed the directions on the dough wrapper.)

While the pizza dough was cooking for the first 8 minutes, I began to put together the chicken breasts and hot sauce. I used two of the large 10 oz. cans of chicken breasts, which turned out to be the perfect amount. In a medium mixing bowl, pour the DRAINED chicken chunks into the bowl.  

(The chicken breasts are soaked in water in the cans, so it's very important to drain the water out of the cans before using the chicken.)  

With a fork, shred the chicken breasts. Once the chunks are shredded, pour three tablespoons of the Frank's Red Hot onto the chicken. Mix up the chicken and hot sauce until the chicken is evenly coated. 

I probably added a little more than three tablespoons to my chicken, as well as some salt and pepper. You can certainly add more or less of the Frank's Red Hot to satisfy your spicy taste bud needs.

Once your pizza dough has baked for 8 minutes, take the pan out of the oven and prepare to decorate your pizza to your liking.

For the pizza sauce, I chose to use store brand Ranch dressing. I thought about using Blue Cheese dressing, but Blue Cheese is more of an acquired taste.

I really just eye-balled the amount of ranch dressing I drizzled on the pizza crust. If I had to guess, I would say it was about 1/4 of a cup to start. I noticed some areas of the crust weren't covered properly once I spread it out, so I added a little more. I wanted to put enough so it was evenly coated, but not too much to make the dough soggy.

Once the ranch was spread across the dough, leaving some of the sides uncovered for the crust, I began to pour the chicken mixture over the dough, spreading it out evenly.

Once the buffalo chicken mixture was spread across the pizza, I added the remaining ingredients. 

I chose to use Colby Jack cheese on this pizza, simply because I wanted to pick a cheese that would work with taco's later in the week. But you could choose any cheese that you like. I thought mozzarella and blue cheese crumbles would be delicious too!

To add some texture to the pizza, I sprinkled (more like poured) real bacon bits across the top. I was so glad I did, because it gave a crunchy texture to the soft buffalo chicken. I used the entire bag of Real Bacon Bits to the pizza because frankly, you can never have too much bacon. EVER.

*Chopped green onions would be delicious as well, but Cody has a strong HATE towards onions so I left them off. :)

Before placing the pizza in the oven, I drizzled ranch and hot sauce over the top of the pizza to add some extra flavor. The Pillsbury Pizza Crust directions say to put the pizza back in the oven for 10 minutes or so. 

Once the cheese was melted, I pulled the pizza out and it was ready to go!

It's not the prettiest pizza looking pizza in the world, but it tasted pretty darn good!

I paired the pizza with a Caesar salad right out of a bag to add a little bit of health factor.

We liked the Buffalo Chicken Pizza a lot, and plan on making it again sometime soon!