Duel of the Buffalo Chicken Pizzas

This past weekend, the man and I had a hankering for buffalo chicken pizza but we didn't know what to do really. When we get it from our local pizzeria, it has actual pizza sauce on it; all the recipes online use some manner of bleu cheese dressing as the pizza sauce. Well, since we were trying our hand at something new, we decided on a duel of buffalo chicken pizzas, one of each. This is such a simple and easy (not to mention affordable) meal to make and we both love love loved both versions.

There are so many different ways to make buffalo chicken sauce or buffalo chicken tenders but I like the simplest of those versions, butter and Frank's Red Hot. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. I started by cooking my chicken on the stovetop, with a touch of olive oil, salt, pepper and while it's in the pan, drizzling the hot sauce. When each side of the chicken had a nice sear, I popped the whole pan into the oven (once preheated). Be sure you are using an oven safe pan before placing in the oven.

Once the chicken has been cooked entirely through (mine took about another 10-15 minutes), I took it out of the oven and increased the oven temperature to 450 so it can preheat for the baking of the actual pizza. I choose to shred my chicken (just pull apart with two forks) but you can separate yours however you would like. Shredding makes it easier to cover in hot sauce and spread that yum flavor around. Also, the shredded chicken covers more ground on the pizza if that is what you desire. I shredded all the chicken and set it aside as it waits for the buffalo hot sauce.

I make buffalo sauce in a super easy way. Half a stick of butter melted in a pan and about 3/4 of a bottle of Frank's Red Hot. You can put the whole bottle in if you want to melt your face off but I like my face right where it is. On low heat combine the two until they have mixed nicely.

Take your new buffalos sauce mixture and coat your shredded chicken thoroughly with the sauce. I pour mine evenly letting it soak though all the layers of chicken. You can either immediately start creating your pizzas or you can slap some plastic wrap on your bowl and save the chicken for later in the day.

I head right into preparing the pizzas. For the sake of this exercise, I am making two different types of pizzas using one pan. For dough, I always use Betty Crocker Pizzas Dough Mix. #1 it requires only water #2 it's super affordable and #3 it's yummy. I always grab a couple of these at a time for homemade pizzas and has saved me time and energy in the kitchen many a time. So in any event, I spread my dough across a cookie sheet, because this is a square pie. On half of the dough, I spread the traditional pizza sauce across. On the other half, I spread my choice of blue cheese dressing. Get what I did there? Dueling Buffalo Chicken Pizzas. Note: Don't overdue it on the blue cheese as it can overflow and will burn in your oven. (You live you learn)

Spread your buffalo chicken mixture over both sides of the pie and then cover with cheese. Easy as pizza pie, am I right? Your oven should be good and preheated by now so go ahead and pop your pizza in. I baked mine for about 16 minutes at 450 degrees. Since all ovens are different just keep an eye on it and cook to your like, soft or crispy.

I personally, loved the blue cheese version but the man preferred the pizza sauce side. Have you ever made your own version of this? I would love to get others opinions and suggestions! Our pizza was messy but oh so delicious with that kick of buffalo chicken!

Price Breakdown:
Betty Crocker Pizza Dough Mix: .99 x 2 = $1.98
Ragu Pizza Sauce, Traditional: $1.69
1 Bottle of Frank's Red Hot: $3.39
Half a Stick of Butter: Less than $1.00
1 Bottle of Bleu Cheese Dressing: Dependent on Brand $4.00
One Bag of Mozzarella Cheese (for both pizzas): $3.99
Around 1lb Chicken Tenders (for both pizzas), $5.00
Total: $20.80, feeds at least 4 (we had leftovers)

*Tip for potlucks. Do everything but bake the pizza, notify your host ahead of time to preheat the oven and pop this bad larry in the oven the moment you walk in. You'll have piping hot pizzas in 15-20 minutes.