Pita Pocket Pizzas
Pita halves stuffed with sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, then heated in coals or a dutch oven.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 87
- protein
- 22 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Lunch
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- Foil packet
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Pita bread | 6 rounds | pocket style, not flatbread |
|---|---|---|
| Pizza sauce | 1 14 oz can | |
| Grated cheese | 12 oz | low-moisture mozzarella or a mozzarella-provolone mix |
| Sliced pepperoni | 1 7 oz package | |
| Sliced black olives, mushrooms, diced peppers, or pineapple | to taste | optional |
Method
- Get a bed of coals going. You want steady heat, not flames.
- Cut each pita in half. Twelve pockets total.
- Spoon sauce into each pocket and work it toward the corners with the back of the spoon.
- Add four or five pepperoni slices, about an ounce of cheese, and any extras. Stop before the pocket bulges. Overfilled pitas split along the seam.
- Dutch oven: stand the pockets upright so the filling stays put, lid on, 350°F for 20 minutes. That is roughly 17 coals on the lid and 8 underneath for a 12-inch oven.
- Coals directly: wrap each pocket in foil, set it on the coals, two minutes, flip with tongs, two more minutes.
- Open one and check that the cheese has gone liquid before pulling the rest.
Toppings inside the bread instead of on top is the whole idea. Nothing slides off into the coals, nothing needs a pan, and each pocket is its own sealed container that heats from both sides at once. Foil turns it into a packet you can throw straight on the fire.
Use low-moisture cheese and precooked meat. Fresh mozzarella releases water that turns the pita to paste, and four minutes on coals will not take raw sausage anywhere safe. The other failure is greed: pack a pocket full and the seam tears, and then you have a sauce fire.
Packing
Cheese and pepperoni ride in the cooler. Pita stays out of it, in a hard container, or it arrives crushed. Decant the sauce into a screw-top jar at home so you are not opening a can and carrying the sharp lid out.
Variations
- Any precooked meat works: salami, diced ham, leftover sausage. Raw meat will not cook through in four minutes.
- Swap sauce for pesto and the pockets stop leaking, since there is less water to run out.
- Cold-weather version: assemble at home, freeze flat, and they thaw in the cooler by dinner.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/pocket_pizza-189.asp