Jerk Chicken Pizza and Elvis

Hello and welcome to Pizza and a Movie on Djalali Cooks. Monday we had an easy recipe for grilled Jerk Chicken with Mango Cucumber Salad. Let’s say you have leftover chicken from that dish and want to do something different with it. There are a lot of options: tacos, salad, frittata, egg scramble… my go to for making leftovers into something new is pizza. With mozzarella, onions and topped with cilantro, it’s a great new take on chicken pizza. If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you know that getting creative with leftovers is one of my favorite challenges, so let’s do this Jerk Chicken Pizza!

This is a recipe all about re-imagining leftovers, but of course you can make the Jerk Chicken just for this pizza of you like. Please check out my Jerk Chicken post to get the recipe for the jerk seasoning and grilling the chicken. Because I am going to top this pizza with a substantial amount of chicken (two cutlets), I opted to make this a pan pizza. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Building the Jerk Chicken Pizza

I have generously oiled my quarter sheet pan with olive oil. I am letting my store bought pizza dough come up to room temperature in the oiled pan. Turn the dough over once to coat it in olive oil. When the dough will let you pat it out to the pan edges without springing back too much, use your finger tips to push and press the dough out to the edges. Much like shaping a focaccia.

Sprinkle some of the leftover Jerk Seasoning over the whole dough. Then top with about 2/3 of the mozzarella cheese.

Scatter the sliced Jerk chicken breasts over the cheese. The scatter the onion slices and top with the remaining cheese.

And we are ready for the oven!

Bake the pizza for 10-15 minutes, until the dough is puffed and golden and the cheese is melted and has begun to brown in spots.

Place the hot pan pizza on a wire rack to cool slightly. Then use a fish spatula to gently ease the pan pizza out onto the wire rack to cool a little more. Meanwhile, pick some cilantro leaves and finish the pizza off with the cilantro leaves as garnish.

Slide the pizza onto a cutting board, slice into squares and enjoy! This pizza is a delicious way to enjoy Jerk Chicken leftovers. I love chicken pizzas, but I am not always in the mood for a barbecue chicken pizza, so this is a great alternative. The warming spices of the Jerk Seasoning go beautifully with dough and mozzarella cheese; we have the bite from the red onion slices and the fresh flavor of cilantro. Seasoning the dough with the Jerk seasoning carries the Jerk flavor though the pizza to the very last bite of crust!

Movie Night: Elvis

We have our Jerk Chicken Pizza ready so let’s get to the movie! I love a good biopic, so I was excited to see Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. I quite enjoyed his inventive, over-the-top Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet and Gatsby films. Luhrmann is known for his heightened reality style, with gorgeous color, lavish set and costume designs. Elvis Presley seems like a good fit for Luhrmann’s style of moviemaking. And he is.

Austin Butler does an amazing job in his portrayal of Elvis. Even more than his looks and his trademark “wiggle”, Butler’s capture of Elvis’s speaking voice is incredible and a little uncanny.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. So entertaining. Elvis’s story is told from Colonel Parker’s perspective which is an interesting choice, but very effective in framing the story in a new way. It gives the latitude for dramatizing certain moments and events because the story isn’t hinged on first person narrative. While that is often the case in biopics, Luhrmann’s choice to have the story reflected by a character who is ultimately the antagonist is bold and compelling. There are a ton of reasons to watch this film, so go out and see it in theaters – it is definitely a big screen experience. Elvis is available to rent on Apple TV, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.

Thank you so much for joining me today for Pizza and a Movie! Remember, you can find the recipe for the Jerk Chicken used in this “leftovers” pizza here: Jerk Chicken with Mango Cucumber Salad. Take care and be well! xo Kelly

Key Equipment

Print Recipe

Jerk Chicken Pizza

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Dinner, Main Course – American/Italian/Caribbean

By Kelly Djalali – Serves: 2-4

Prep Time: 10 Minutes – Cooking Time: 10-18 Minutes – Total Time: ~20 Minutes

Jerk-seasoned chicken finds its way to a pan pizza with mozzarella, red onion slices, finished with cilantro. A perfect chicken pizza!

Ingredients

• 1 Prepared Pizza Dough
• Olive Oil
• Jerk Seasoning
• 1 cup Grated Mozzarella Cheese
• 1-2 Jerk Chicken Breast Cutlets, sliced into strips
• 1/4 Small/Medium Red Onion, sliced into thin wedges
• Fresh Cilantro, for garnish

Instructions

1

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

2

Generously oil a quarter sheet pan with olive oil.

3

Place the prepared dough ball on the pan and turn the dough over once to coat it in olive oil. Let the dough sit for about 15 minutes.

4

When the dough will let you pat it out to the pan edges without springing back too much, use your finger tips to push and press the dough out to the edges. Much like shaping a focaccia.

5

Sprinkle some of the leftover Jerk Seasoning over the whole dough. Then top with about 2/3 of the mozzarella cheese.

6

Scatter the sliced Jerk chicken breasts over the cheese. The scatter the onion slices and top with the remaining cheese.

7

Bake the pizza for 10-15 minutes, until the dough is puffed and golden and the cheese is melted and has begun to brown in spots.

8

Place the hot pan pizza on a wire rack to cool slightly. Then use a fish spatula to gently ease the pan pizza out onto the wire rack to cool a little more. Meanwhile, pick some cilantro leaves and finish the pizza off with the cilantro leaves as garnish.

9

Slice into squares.

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