Buffalo Shrimp Pizza Recipe

Shake up pizza night with this weeknight-easy Buffalo Shrimp Pizza recipe! Full of flavors the whole family will love, like popcorn shrimp tossed with buffalo sauce, celery, tomatoes, two kinds of cheese and ranch dressing.

Do you have “clean out the fridge” meals once in awhile, or even weekly?

Pizza is frequently on our menu for that type of meal, because pizza (and even a crostini pizza bar) is great as a vehicle to use up extra odds and ends hanging out in the fridge (like rotisserie chicken for chicken pizza or cheeseburger pizza made with leftover ground beef).

Often, these leftover ingredients are from two or three recipes I’ve made for work, resulting in one big Frankenpizza (which is honestly how the crab rangoon pizza came about).

Celery, grape tomatoes and odds and ends of cheese often need to be used up. And we always have shrimp of some kind in the freezer, because it’s one of my daughter’s favorite foods.

While shrimp is great for an appetizer or a seafood pasta salad, you might not generally think of it for pizza. I’m hoping I can change your mind with this buffalo shrimp pizza recipe.

What you’ll need for buffalo shrimp pizza:

• popcorn shrimp – you’ll need one box (about 14 ounces) popcorn shrimp.
• buffalo sauce – I usually use Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce, but Moore’s brand is really good (on this pizza and in healthy buffalo chicken dip), too.
• pizza dough – I generally use my homemade pizza dough recipe, but store-bought dough is also totally fine.
• pizza sauce – you can make your own, but I just buy a jar of Rao’s brand sauce.
• mozzarella cheese – a chunk of the low-moisture kind (NOT a ball of fresh mozzarella). Shred it yourself for the best melting.
• onion – I like red onion, but white onion or even thinly sliced green onions work for this shrimp pizza, too.
• celery – such a natural pairing for anything buffalo-sauced! Extra celery can be thrown into meat sauce rigatoni.
• grape tomatoes – I think these add a touch of freshness to the shrimp pizza recipe.
• blue cheese – crumbled blue cheese works so well with the buffalo sauce (and also blue cheese mashed potatoes and steak lettuce wraps).
• ranch dressing – for drizzling over the top of the pizza, dipping, or both!

How to make shrimp pizza:

First, you’ll need to preheat the oven, and bake the popcorn shrimp. I’ll talk more about your shrimp options for this shrimp pizza recipe below.

Now, it’s time to start the pizza. I highly recommend hunting up a pizza stone if you have one (more on that later).

Stretch the pizza dough out and get it onto your pizza stone or pan. You’ll be “blind baking” the crust, meaning you’ll be baking it without any toppings on it for awhile.

Once the dough is most of the way cooked through, spread it with a little bit of pizza sauce, a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese, and some chopped red onion, then return the pizza to the oven until the cheese melts.

Just before serving, I toss the shrimp with buffalo sauce, then finish this buffalo shrimp pizza with some crunchy chopped celery, crumbled blue cheese, juicy grape tomatoes, the buffalo-sauced shrimp, and a side of ranch dressing for dipping or drizzling.

Shrimp on pizza?!? What kind should I use?

Look, I’m not getting fancy here. I’m using a box of frozen popcorn shrimp! They’re easy and delicious, and perfectly bite sized for this shrimp pizza recipe.

If you’d like to make homemade popcorn shrimp, you can absolutely do that.

Alternatively, you don’t have to bread the shrimp at all. You can simply use plain cooked shrimp for this recipe. Either use small shrimp, or cut larger shrimp into bite-sized pieces.

Whatever type of shrimp you decide to use, toss the shrimp with buffalo sauce right before adding them to the pizza. You don’t want to do it any earlier, or the shrimp will get soggy sitting in the sauce.

If you can, use a pizza stone for this buffalo shrimp pizza recipe.

Pizza stones are a wonderful tool to have if you’re a pizza lover because they help to achieve a crispy crust on this buffalo shrimp pizza recipe without shelling out a few thousand dollars for an actual pizza oven.

You simply throw the pizza stone in the oven as it preheats and once the oven comes up to temp you put the freshly stretched dough down on the stone and stick the stone back in the oven to crisp up the crust.

P.S. Make sure you brush up on how to clean a pizza stone to ensure it lasts a long time!

What to serve on the side:

If you want to serve a simple salad alongside this buffalo shrimp pizza idea, mixed greens with either citrus salad dressing or feta dressing would be ideal.

Whip up a round of brandy old fashioneds or White Claw cocktails if you’d like a drink to go along with your pizza. Or, try an agave lemonade for a zero-proof option.