Buffalo Chicken Pizza — Bringing Miss Doris’s Super Bowl Flavors Home

Super Bowl week. I do not have a team in the game — the Lions have not been to the Super Bowl in my lifetime, or my father's lifetime, or possibly in recorded human history — but I watch because it is a national event and because Jerome hosts a party at his grandmother's house every year. Miss Doris makes wings. Specifically: Miss Doris makes the best chicken wings I have ever eaten in my life, and I include every restaurant, every cookout, and every Super Bowl party in that comparison. Her wings are fried, not baked, in a cast-iron Dutch oven filled with peanut oil heated to exactly 375 degrees (she has a thermometer and she uses it with the precision of a chemist). They go in the oil in batches — never overcrowding — and cook for twelve minutes until the skin is golden and shatteringly crispy. Then she tosses them in one of three sauces: Buffalo (Frank's RedHot mixed with melted butter), honey garlic (honey, soy sauce, garlic, ginger), or lemon pepper (her own blend, dry-rubbed after frying). I ate twenty-seven wings. I counted. I am not proud of the number. I am proud that I stopped at twenty-seven. Brianna stayed home with Aiden. She does not like football and does not pretend to, which I respect. She used the evening to practice braids on the mannequin head and FaceTime with Tameka. When I came home, slightly buzzed and very full, she was asleep on the couch with the mannequin head next to her. It was deeply unsettling and weirdly tender. Valentine's Day is next week, and I need to plan something. Our first Valentine's together, I took her to a nice restaurant downtown and bought her flowers and a teddy bear. Last year, we were broke and she was pregnant with Aiden (she was not pregnant — Aiden was born in 2015, and last year Valentine's he was a baby, so I'm misremembering — we did takeout and a movie at home). This year, I want to do something that shows I am trying, that shows I see the distance growing between us and I am walking toward her, not away. I do not know what that something is yet. I have six days to figure it out. The plant ran double production this week. Overtime every day. My check will be fat and my body will be sore and the tradeoff is the same one it has always been: time for money, health for security. The assembly line is honest in that way. It does not pretend the exchange is equal. It just runs, and you run with it, until the whistle blows and you walk to your car and drive home to whatever is waiting.

That week, running double shifts and carrying all the weight of what I still hadn’t figured out, I needed something that felt like relief — fast, familiar, a little heat to cut through the noise. Buffalo chicken pizza has been my go-to since before Jade, before Aiden, back when feeding myself was the only math I had to do, and there is something about the smell of hot sauce and melted butter coming out of the oven that still tells my body the whistle has blown. Here’s how I made it.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 18 min | Total Time: 38 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb store-bought or homemade pizza dough, room temperature
• 2 cups cooked chicken breast, shredded or chopped
• 1/2 cup Frank’s RedHot Original sauce
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/3 cup ranch or blue cheese dressing (plus more for drizzling)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded whole-milk mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese (optional)
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced celery
• 2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Crushed red pepper flakes, to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Place a pizza stone or heavy baking sheet on the center rack and preheat oven to 475°F. Let the stone heat for at least 30 minutes while you prep.
2. Make the Buffalo sauce. Whisk together Frank’s RedHot and melted butter in a small bowl until fully combined. Taste and adjust heat by adding more hot sauce if you want it closer to Miss Doris’s level.
3. Toss the chicken. Combine shredded chicken with 1/4 cup of the Buffalo sauce mixture, garlic powder, and black pepper. Toss to coat evenly. Set aside the remaining sauce for the pizza base.
4. Stretch the dough. On a lightly floured surface, stretch or roll dough into a 12-inch round. Transfer to a piece of parchment paper. Brush the edge of the crust with olive oil.
5. Build the pizza. Spread ranch or blue cheese dressing evenly over the dough, leaving a 3/4-inch border. Drizzle the remaining Buffalo sauce over the dressing. Scatter mozzarella evenly across the top, then distribute the Buffalo chicken. Add crumbled blue cheese if using.
6. Bake. Carefully slide the pizza (on parchment) onto the hot stone or baking sheet. Bake 15–18 minutes until the crust is golden and deeply crisp on the bottom and the cheese is bubbling with browned spots.
7. Finish and serve. Remove from oven and immediately top with sliced celery and green onions. Drizzle with a little extra ranch or blue cheese dressing. Sprinkle red pepper flakes to taste. Slice and serve hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 540 | Protein: 36g | Fat: 24g | Carbs: 44g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 1240mg