Buffalo Chicken Pizza
on Jun 12, 2022, Updated May 13, 2025
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This easy Buffalo Chicken Pizza recipe comes together in a snap thanks to a fabulous shortcut refrigerated dough!
My family loves traditional pizza (we’re New Yorkers, after all!), but we also enjoy a good pizza twist. It was my younger son, Charlie, who turned me on to Buffalo Chicken Pizza. This pizza is packed with flavor, featuring lots of chicken, onions, scallions, multiple cheeses, and a wing-inspired Buffalo sauce. A store-bought crust and a rotisserie chicken make it easy to pull together in less than half an hour!
Buffalo chicken pizza, as the name suggests, is a combination of pizza and Buffalo chicken — in this case, not chicken wings, of course, but cooked chicken, tossed with that inimitable Buffalo sauce. I was skeptical at first; it seemed like a mashup of incongruous ingredients that wouldn’t add up to something cohesive. But oh boy, was I ever wrong — Buffalo chicken pizza is the greatest.
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Serve this up with a salad. Try a Broccoli salad, spinach salad (skip the burrata and go for simple), or a crunchy wedge salad.
What's In This Post?
Ingredients
- Pizza dough – I used refrigerated pizza dough for this recipe. You can either use your own homemade pizza dough, buy pizza dough from a pizzeria or a supermarket, or use any packaged pizza dough base, frozen, refrigerated, or shelf-stable.
- Chicken – Another great shortcut is that you can use a rotisserie chicken. Dice the chicken into 1/2-inch pieces so it stays put as a topping. Or use leftover slow cooker shredded chicken.
- Buffalo sauce – Buffalo wing sauce is simply a combo of melted butter and hot sauce. Frank’s Red Hot is the traditional sauce used in “Buffalo” recipes, but you should feel free to play around with what you have on hand, tasting it to see how spicy your sauce is. Some of the Buffalo sauce is tossed with the chicken, and some is spread on the pizza dough base so you get maximum Buffalo sauce flavor in every bite.
- Mozzarella cheese – The classic pizza cheese, and perfect as a mild, melty topping in this not-so-classic pizza.
- Blue cheese – Next, add in some tangy blue cheese, which is the classic partner to Buffalo chicken wings! I love the combo of the two cheeses in this pizza.
- Red onion and scallions (green onions) – Two members of the onion family add color and snap to this pizza.
How to Make Buffalo Chicken Pizza
- Prep the kitchen: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Bring the pizza dough to room temperature.
- Make the sauce: Combine the butter, 1/4 cup hot sauce, and garlic powder.
- Sauce the chicken: Toss the chicken with half of the hot sauce mixture.
- Assemble the pizza: Unroll the pizza dough onto a rimmed baking sheet (or prepare the pizza dough for baking if you are using another type of dough). Brush the remaining butter-hot sauce mixture over the pizza dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Distribute the chicken evenly over the sauce, then sprinkle over the cheeses. Sprinkle the onions and scallions over the top.
- Bake: Bake until the cheese has melted and the bottom is firm and golden brown around the edges, about 15 to 20 minutes.
- Make the sauce: While the pizza is cooking, mix up the Creamy Buffalo Sauce for the topping, if using.
- Drizzle: After the baked pizza has rested for a minute or two, drizzle the sauce over the top of the pizza, slice, and serve hot.
Tips and Variations
- If you have a pizza stone, heat it as the oven preheats, and cook the pizza on that – this will give you a nice crispy bottom crust.
- You can drizzle the sauce over the pizza with a spoon. Or, if you have a squeeze bottle, you can make nice squiggly lines over the top of the pie after it is baked.
- You could use ranch dressing or blue cheese dressing (homemade or store-bought) instead of the creamy buffalo sauce to finish the pizza if you like.
- If you have crema, you can use that instead of the sour cream and milk.
FAQs
Buffalo sauce originated in Buffalo, New York, where chef Teressa Bellissimo invented the characteristic spicy sauce. Legend has it that the original recipe contained butter, hot sauce, and cayenne, but the cayenne has fallen by the wayside since.
You usually don’t need to pre-cook the dough to make homemade pizza. However, if you’re rolling out the dough yourself and have a thicker crust, you may want to give it a quick bake before topping the pizza to firm up the base. In that case, cook the pizza crust without any toppings on it for up to 5 minutes and then top the pizza and bake as directed to ensure that you don’t end up with raw dough in the center.
If you’re using a pre-rolled pizza dough, you only need to let the dough sit for a couple of minutes for it to thaw out from the fridge. When using store-bought dough that comes in a ball, you’re going to need to give it up to 20 minutes to get to room temperature before beginning to roll it out into a pizza shape. Let it rest between rollings, and keep going until it is thin.
What to Serve With Buffalo Chicken Pizza
More “Buffalo” Recipes
- Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
- Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower Steaks
- Buffalo Chicken and White Bean Chili
- Buffalo Turkey Burger Sliders
- Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Dip
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Buffalo Chicken Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 package (7.8-ounce) Jus-Rol Round & Thin Pizza Dough (or other prepared pizza dough)
- ¼ cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter (melted)
- ¼ cup Frank's Red Hot sauce (or other hot sauce; to taste)
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 cups diced cooked chicken breast
- 8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
- ⅓ cup crumbled blue cheese
- ½ cup small diced red onion
- 2 scallions (thinly sliced; white and green parts)
For the Creamy Buffalo Sauce (optional)
- 2 tablespoons Frank's Red Hot Sauce (or other hot sauce; to taste)
- ¼ cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 F. Let the pizza dough sit out at room temperature while you prepare the topping.
- Combine the melted butter, 1/4 cup hot sauce, and garlic powder in a small bowl. Place the chicken in a medium bowl, pour over half of the hot sauce butter mixture, and toss to coat well.
- Unroll the pizza dough onto a rimmed baking sheet so that it is on the parchment paper. Brush the remaining butter and hot sauce mixture over the pizza dough, leaving a 1/2 inch border. Distribute the chicken evenly over the sauce, then sprinkle over the mozzarella and blue cheeses. Sprinkle the onions and scallions over the top.
- Bake until the cheese has melted and the bottom is firm and golden brown around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let sit for a few minutes before slicing and serving.
- While the pizza is cooking, mix up the Creamy Buffalo Sauce for the topping, if using. In a small bowl, blend the hot sauce with sour cream and milk.
- After the baked pizza has rested for a minute or two, drizzle the sauce over the top of the pizza (use a squeeze bottle if you have one!) and serve hot.
Notes
- You can drizzle the sauce over the pizza with a spoon, or if you have a squeeze bottle, you can make nice squiggly lines over the top of the pie after it is baked.
- If you have crema, you can use that instead of the sour cream and milk.
