Grilled Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Chicken and Goat Cheese

Ingredients


1 refrigerated or home made pizza dough
Cooking spray
Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper
Three onions, sliced thinly
Organic, low sodium chicken broth (1 can should be plenty….it will be added slowly to the onions)
1/2 lb chicken breast, seasoned, grilled and sliced
1 cup shredded part skim mozzarella
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes (packed in oil), diced
3/4 cup pasta or marinara sauce
1/2 cup crumbled fresh goat cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil


Directions


1. Heat a large, straight sided skillet over medium high heat and spray with cooking spray.  Add the onions, toss to coat in the spray, season with salt and pepper, lower heat (mine was set to about level 4 out of 10) and let those onions settle in for a long ride.  Set the timer for at least an hour.  Stir about every ten minutes and as the onions begin to stick, pour in a bit of chicken broth and stir to loosen the bottom.  Taste them every now and then to see if you need to add a bit more salt.


2. Preheat your grill to medium high towards the end of the cook time for the onions.  Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and place the dough on top.  Press the dough to the edges of the pan and spray the top with cooking spray.  In fact, if you spray your hands too it makes it easier.


2. Slide the pressed dough onto the grill.  I checked mine after about 4 to 5 minutes and it looked like this….see how the bottom was beginning to brown?

3. Flip the dough back onto the pan you originally pressed it out on so the grilled side is up. Like this….

4. Top with marinara, sun dried tomatoes, grilled chicken slices, mozzarella, caramelized onions, half the fresh basil and the goat cheese. Like so… 

5. Place back on the grill for an additional 6 minutes or so. 
**Optional: I also placed mine under the broiler for about three minutes to finally get the cheese melted enough without burning the crust.  The parts of the crust that were already well done I covered with foil before putting under the broiler.


6. Remove from grill (or oven if you broiled) and garnish with fresh basil.

I served mine with a simple baby spinach salad with balsamic drizzle, coarse Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.


Notes: 
-Next time I will make my own whole wheat dough and I will also press it even thinner.  I love really thin crust pizza. 
-I would add some garlic.  What the heck was I thinking there leaving out the garlic?  It was in the sauce but I like a lot. 
-I might also leave off the grilled chicken.  The Hubs really likes it but it definitely makes this “a meal”.
-I will leave the fresh basil off the top.  It makes a nice garnish but with the basil inside as well it was a lot of basil.
-When done caramelizing the onions I might add a dash of red wine vinegar just to see what happens.


What I learned: 
1) Why people take the time to really caramelize onions because it really does taste so much richer and sweeter than just browning them.
2) Making grilled pizza is so much fun and really worth it.  (I was glad I saw Paula do it right before though so I knew exactly what to do.)