Grilled Pizza with Pesto and Tomatoes (5 ingredients!) Recipe - Rachel Cooks® (2024)

You’re only 5 ingredients and a hot grill away from a mouthwatering grilled pizza with pesto and tomatoes.

Hi everyone! Today I’m happy to introduce you to Katie of Healthy Seasonal Recipes. Take it away, Katie!

Hey guys! I am so happy to be here today on Rachel’s blog, and to meet you all. Earlier this month, Rachel asked me if I would be interested in guest posting, and I literally jumped at the opportunity. Okay, maybe not literally, but I was so excited I thought about jumping! Anyhoo, I am super pumped to be here today and to share this 5 ingredient grilled pesto tomato pizza recipe with you.

I have been on this minimal ingredients, minimal effort recipe kick this summer, and I am kinda in love with it. I’m thinking you probably are appreciative of this kind of recipe too. I mean there are only a few more days before the kids go back to school, and we need to maximize our summer chilling time to the fullest.

Why spend a whole ton of time in the kitchen fussing over dinner, when we can put together something as yummy as this 5-ingredient pizza in no time at all? Seriously, the longest part of this recipe is preheating the grill, and that, my friends, is not so difficult.

Have you ever grilled pizza before? I have tried it a whole ton of times, and love it. Especially when the weather is warm and I don’t want to turn on my oven. Plus, it is so dang fast.

I made this recipe with homemade crust and pesto that I had on hand from my bumper crop of basil, but using store bought dough and pesto works great, too, and make this a weeknight no-brainer.

Tips for Success

Have everything ready to go before you start grilling. You know how when you make a stir fry you have to have all your stuff next to the stove before you begin because it goes so fast? Right, well, culinerds like me call this “mise en place”.

Well, that’s what you need to do when you’re getting ready to grill a pizza. You need all your mise en place ready to go. So I like to set up a little station next to the grill so that I’m ready to go when the crust is toasty.

For this recipe you’ll need the rolled out dough, pesto with a little spatula for spreading, sliced tomato, cheddar and tongs.

Learn how to get the dough on the grill. It can be tricky to get the dough onto the grill without folding it onto itself or stretching it so thin that it burns in the middle. This is what stops a lot of people from grilling pizza, but I want to let you know that it is not hard.

I use a pizza peel, but you can also use an unrimmed baking sheet, and it works just as well. You just need to make sure that you use a lot of flour or cornmeal on the peel or baking sheet so the dough won’t stick and it will slide off easily onto the grill.

Oil the grill rack. To oil the grill, soak a clean paper towel with oil. Hold the paper towel with some tongs and then pull the towel toward you running it along the grill grate. Keeping it working toward you will help prevent flare-ups from burning your arm.

Keep in mind it is important to do this right before you put the pizza dough onto the grill. If you wait too long before putting the dough onto it, the oil will all burn off.

And that’s it. I hope you enjoy this yummy end-of-summer pizza recipe. Please leave a comment below letting me know if you try it. And I would absolutely love it if you visited me over at Healthy Seasonal Recipes too!