Everyday Classic Pepperoni Pizza on the Grill

Everyday Classic Pepperoni, Cooked Over Fire

Pepperoni is the pizza everybody actually orders, which makes it the honest test of a backyard setup. There's nowhere to hide behind clever toppings. You either got the crust right or you didn't. This one comes together with the Outdoor Grilling Pizza Dough, Pizza Sauce!, Red Pizza Mojo Seasoning, and Spicy Cupping Pepperoni from Urban Slicer Pizza Worx — four things built to work together, and all four are in the Pitmaster's Grilled Pizza Kit.

The dough packet makes two 13–14" pies. Mix it with exactly one cup of warm water, knead until it's smooth and elastic, then let it rise two to four hours at room temperature. That rise is not optional and it's not a suggestion — it's where the chew comes from. While it's working, get your fire going and hold 450–500 °F.

Stone or Grates? Both Work. One Works Better.

Urban Slicer's grilling dough is formulated tough enough to go straight onto the bars — that's what separates it from ordinary pizza dough, and plenty of people cook it exactly that way. But grates give you flame contact in stripes. You get char where the metal touches and pale dough everywhere else, and if your grill runs hot on one side, a section scorches before the rest of the pie is finished. Add a lid you have to keep opening, and the temperature you carefully built collapses between pizzas.

A preheated stone fixes all of it at once. It puts an even, saturated 500-degree surface under the entire crust so the whole bottom crisps at the same rate, and cast iron in particular holds heat instead of dumping it every time you lift the lid — which means you can run pie after pie without waiting for the grill to recover. The Cast Iron Pizza Stone: 18" Pizza Plate by Outset is the one we reach for. Set it on the grates while the grill comes up to temperature and give it a full 15–20 minutes before the first pizza goes on. That preheat is the step people skip, and it's the difference between a crust that snaps and one that sags.

If pizza night at your house means five people who all want something different, the Outset Cordierite Pizza Stone Tiles are the better call. You get four personal 7.5" stones, so instead of dividing the dough into two big pies you divide it into four small ones and everybody builds their own. Cordierite handles the thermal shock of a hot grill without cracking, and the tiles work just as well in the oven come January when nobody wants to stand outside. Personal pies cook faster — five to seven minutes instead of eight to ten — so keep an eye on them.

Building and Baking

Dust a peel generously with semolina and lay the rolled dough on it. Sauce lightly — about four ounces, and resist the urge to go heavier — then cheese, then the cupping pepperoni, then a sprinkle of Red Pizza Mojo across the top. Work fast, because dough that sits on a peel starts to stick, and give the peel a small shake to confirm the pizza is moving freely before you commit to the launch. Slide it onto the stone in one motion, close the lid, and give it eight to ten minutes with a single rotation halfway through.

You'll know it's done when the cheese is bubbling and the pepperoni edges have curled up into crisp little cups with a bead of rendered fat in each one. That's what the cupping pepperoni is bred to do, and it's worth waiting the extra thirty seconds for. Pull it, top it with fresh basil, and finish with a drizzle of Hot Honey Drizzler — the sweet-heat against the spice in that pepperoni is the whole reason this pie beats delivery.