Since a lot of people spend a good deal of money ordering pizza, I thought it would be good to do a series of posts on how to make pizza at home. I’m hoping to write some picture filled tutorials on how to make regular pizza and deep dish pizza with yeast dough, but I’m going to start things off with a very easy pizza recipe. This one uses french bread as the crust, so you can make this even if you are categorically opposed to working with yeast. 
I bake these on my pizza stone, which helps the bottom of the bread become crispy. If you don’t have a pizza stone, you can bake the pizzas on a wire rack which has been set on top of a baking sheet/pan.
As with most pizzas, this is a handy thing to make if you want to use up small bits of vegetables, meats, or cheeses. And, it’s a good way to use up dry French bread(or day old French bread from the reduced rack at the grocery store).
French Bread Pizza
You will need:
French bread loaves
prepared tomato sauce
shredded mozzarella cheese
whatever toppings you like
Cut the French bread loaves in half lengthwise. In order to fit these onto my baking stone, I have to cut them in half again, but if you’re just using a baking sheet, you can skip that step.
Spread them with tomato sauce. It’s good to be a little stingy here, because you’re putting tomato sauce onto a very porous surface, and if you are heavy-handed with the sauce, your pizza will be on the soggy end of things. I was a little too liberal with the tomato sauce on this particular night, so skimp more than I did in this picture:
Sprinkle the pizzas with mozzarella cheese.
And add whatever toppings you like(I did bacon and pepperoni this time).
Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the crust is crispy and the cheese is melted.
If you like a browner topping, you can put these under the broiler for a minute or two. However, if you’re using a pizza stone, you’ll want to transfer the pizzas to a baking sheet before broiling, as a pizza stone will crack under a broiler.
Enjoy!
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Look at that!! YUM!
H loves his pizza, and usually wants to order it weekly, but this looks SO good. I’ve done this on regular crust, but never thought about doing so on french bread!
I’ll definitely have to try this. Thanks!
I’m a friend of your cousin Bethany and a friend of enthusiastic frugality, which together have lead me to follow your blog fairly regularly.
Thanks for your post today on pizza. I like to make my own pizza too, but I’ve found the better results cooking pizzas even hotter – more like 500 degrees. I’ve only done it with fresh yeast dough, though, so perhaps 400 is better with french bread.
FG, I hope you like it!
Steve, I often bake my yeast dough pizzas at 450 or so, on a preheated baking stone, but I kind of think that 500 degrees would overcook the French bread. Yeast dough has a fair amount of moisture, which is why I think it can handle the high temperatures. French bread, being already cooked, is drier, and so I think the top or bottom of the bread would get burnt before the middle got heated up.
If you try it at 500 degrees with great success, though, let us know!
Whenever we do this, it’s a big hit!! Unfortunately, we don’t do it often enough…
Great pics!
Hello, dinner tonight. What a great idea!
I make pizza at home quite often but usually use salsa instead of pizza sauce and I use whole wheat pitas for the crust.
I love french bread pizza. I’d totally forgotten until just now.
I use whole wheat pitas like BnJJ for the crust, too. I split the pita in half to make a thinner crust, then bake the pizzas on a pizza screen so the bottom gets crispy.
I was wondering what you put in the tomato sauce.