Chicken Caesar Salad Pizza

I love Chicken Caesar Salad. It is one of my favorites. I found this recipe in a Pampered Chef cookbook and modified it to work for my family. I make my own crust and try to make it easy to assemble. And it is a great way to sneak veggies in for my kids who do not realize that there are red peppers all through it. I think you could sneak others in too, I just have not tried.

Chicken Caesar Salad Pizza

Crust:

1 c. hot water
1 T. sugar
1 T. dry active yeast
2 T. olive oil
1 c. flour
1 T. Italian seasoning
1/2 t. salt
3-4 c. flour or 1 cup wheat flour and 2 c. white flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Pour hot water into mixing bowl. Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Sprinkle yeast on top. Let soak and start to grow. Add olive oil and flour. Mix with dough hook for 1 minute. Add seasoning and salt and 1 cup flour. Start mixer and gradually add remaining flour until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and no longer sticks to the bottom. Let knead with mixer for 2 minutes. Remove from bowl. Sprinkle pizza pan, or stone with cornmeal. Roll dough out to large circle. Pierce crust with fork a lot to keep crust from bubbling up. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

Topping :

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1-2 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
3/4 c. Caesar Dressing
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese
1 red bell pepper
Romaine lettuce, torn

Cook chicken breasts until done. You can grill or bake in oven. Let cool slightly. Put cream cheese in mixing bowl. Chop bell pepper finely and add to cheese. Chop chicken finely as well and add to cheese and pepper. Add dressing and Parmesan cheese. Mix until well blended. Spread evenly on crust. Top with lettuce. Cut and serve. You can sprinkle with more Parmesan cheese and top with additional chicken and Caesar dressing if desired.

Tips

-My kids make a mess if I put too many things on top, they just fall off. So I opted to put it all in the spread. To make it more fancy for adults you can certainly put more chicken and peppers on top.
-For the crust I use hot tap water. I let it run to the hottest it gets and pour immediately into my Kitchen aid mixer. The cool bowl and the stirring in of the sugar help the water to cool slightly making it the perfect temperature for the yeast.
-We talked about it and are thinking of adding bacon next time we try this to jazz it up. Bacon makes everything better right?
-Often I will not top the entire pizza. I will cut the crust and top each piece individually, so then my left over crust can be used the next day for lunch and will not be soggy. And my kids then get to top it themselves and food always tastes better if they get to do it themselves! You could also make smaller pizzas.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. It is a great summer recipe! Nice and cool and not too hard to assemble. You will not be stuck in the kitchen for hours instead of playing in the yard with the kids!