I consider myself above-average around the grill. For a girl. But given the right balance of margarita and scatterbrained-ness, I can also turn dinner into a pile of ashes in two minutes flat.

I had been looking forward to pizza on the grill for days. I’ve been slaving in the office for the last several weeks so, rather than cutting out early one afternoon and making homemade pizza dough, I just picked up a pack of ready-made pizza dough from the store. And then I burned it terribly, completely beyond recognition.

So learning from my mistakes, here are a few tips to grill your pizza successfully:

1. Don’t drink when you’re grilling. Scratch that – that’s no fun.


1. Don’t drink when you’re grilling alone. Have a “Quick! Hand-me-that” helper around.

2. Use non-stick spray or olive oil to coat the rack – before lighting the grill because your pizza crust will hang on for dear life if you do not.

3. Have everything ready to go and have it in prep bowls or on plates right next to your grill – you will have no time to run in and shred cheese or pick and wash fresh basil.

4. Do not walk away, do not turn your back – the crust will cook pretty quickly and need to be flipped and topped.

I was able to save a few bites of one pizza and darn, was it good! I ended up scraping the toppings off of the pizzas and eating a pile of veggies and cheese for dinner followed by a dessert of a handful of peanut M&Ms and homemade spicy strawberry ice cream. Not bad for a disaster 🙂