Hot Honey Pizza: The Right Way to Do It

Hot honey on pizza is not a novelty. It is the single pairing that built the entire category, ever since a Brooklyn pizzeria started drizzling chilli honey over a spicy soppressata pie in 2010 and could not keep bottles in stock. You can read the full story of where hot honey came from here.

But most people do it wrong in one of two ways. They bake it in, or they use so much that the pizza turns into a dessert. Here is how to get it right, plus the hot honey BBQ chicken pizza we make on repeat.

Rule one: after the oven, always

This is the non-negotiable bit. Honey is mostly fructose and glucose, and those sugars caramelise and then burn well below the temperature a pizza needs. Bake it in and you get dark patches, a faintly bitter edge and none of the floral sweetness you paid for.

So: pizza comes out, cheese is still molten, drizzle immediately. The heat does two useful things. It loosens the honey so it flows properly, and it lifts the aroma the second it hits.

One exception. If you are glazing chicken or salmon to go on the pizza, mixing hot honey into that in advance is fine, because it is protected by the meat and the sauce. That is exactly what we do in the recipe below.

Rule two: it needs fat and salt to fight

Hot honey does not work on everything equally. It works on pizza because pizza is salty and fatty, and sweetness plus heat cuts straight through both. Take away the fat and you are just eating sweet bread.

Which is why cured meat is the classic partner. The chilli catches the richness of the pepperoni, the honey softens the salt, and the whole thing balances in a way that neither ingredient manages alone.

Pizzas that were made for hot honey

• Pepperoni or salami piccante. The original and the benchmark. If you only ever do one, do this one.
• 'Nduja. Spreadable, fatty, already spicy. Hot honey turns it into something genuinely special.
• Sausage and fennel. The aniseed note and the honey are quietly perfect together.
• Gorgonzola, blue cheese or taleggio. Funky, salty cheese and sweet heat is an old pairing for good reason.
• Margherita. Sounds too plain, is not. Good mozzarella, a lot of black pepper, a light drizzle.
• Fried chicken or BBQ chicken pizza. See below. This is our house version.
• Mushroom and ricotta white pizza. No tomato, all earthiness, hot honey as the top note.
• Pineapple. Yes, really. If you are already in the sweet camp, commit.

Where it struggles

Very sweet toppings without much salt, anything already drenched in a sugary BBQ sauce, and delicate seafood pizzas. Sweet on sweet gets cloying by the second slice.

Rule three: less than you think

Roughly one teaspoon per slice, or about two tablespoons across a large pizza. Move fast in a zigzag from one edge to the other rather than pooling it in the middle, and get some on the crust, because a plain outer edge dipped in hot honey is the best bite of the whole thing.

Then leave the jar on the table. Half the fun is everyone topping up their own slice, and it means the person who does not do spicy is not held hostage.

One more thing worth knowing: a crispy hot honey behaves differently from a smooth infused one. Because ours has roasted garlic, sesame and real chilli suspended in it, you get crunch as well as heat, and it sits on top of the cheese instead of soaking straight in. Stir the jar before you pour so you are getting the solids, not just the runny top layer.

Our Hot Honey BBQ Chicken Pizza

This is the one we actually make. The base is a two ingredient dough, self raising flour and Greek yoghurt, which needs no yeast, no proving and no planning ahead. It comes out somewhere between a pizza base and a flatbread, it is high in protein thanks to the yoghurt and the chicken, and it goes from cupboard to table in about forty minutes.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 500 g self raising flour, plus extra for rolling
• 500 g thick Greek yoghurt

For the chicken

• 2 chicken breasts
• 2 tbsp BBQ sauce
• 2 tsp Chilli Chan's Crispy Hot Honey
• Jerk seasoning, or any spice blend you like
• Salt and black pepper
• A splash of oil for the pan

To assemble

• Tomato, pizza or pasta sauce
• 250 g shredded cheese, mozzarella or a mozzarella and cheddar mix
• More hot honey and BBQ sauce, for finishing

Equipment: oven, large baking tray, baking paper, two bowls, a wooden spoon, a clean tea towel, a frying pan, two forks.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 220°C and slide your baking tray in to heat up with it. A hot tray is the closest you will get to a pizza stone, and it is the difference between a crisp base and a pale one.
2. Make the dough. Tip the self raising flour and Greek yoghurt into a bowl and bring them together with a wooden spoon until roughly combined, then finish by hand. Knead for two or three minutes. It does not need to be smooth or beautiful, just cohesive and no longer sticky. Add a little more flour if it clings to your hands.
3. Rest it under a tea towel for 10 minutes. Use the time for the chicken. Resting relaxes the gluten so the dough stops springing back when you roll it.
4. Cook the chicken. Season generously with salt, pepper and jerk seasoning, then pan fry in a little oil over medium high heat until cooked through, around 6 to 8 minutes a side depending on thickness. Let it rest for a couple of minutes.
5. Shred and dress it. Pull the chicken apart with two forks, then toss with the BBQ sauce and 2 teaspoons of hot honey while it is still warm, so it soaks the glaze up properly.
6. Roll out the base. On a floured sheet of baking paper, roll the dough to the size of your tray, roughly half a centimetre thick. Thinner than you think. It puffs.
7. Par-bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Slide the paper and dough onto the hot tray, naked, no toppings. This is the step most people skip and it is why yoghurt dough pizzas end up soggy in the middle. Bake until it is set, dry to the touch and just starting to colour.
8. Top it. Sauce first, thin layer, leaving a border. Then half the cheese, then the hot honey BBQ chicken spread evenly, then the rest of the cheese over the top.
9. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes more, until the cheese is bubbling and there are proper browned patches. Colour is flavour, so do not pull it too early.
10. Rest for two minutes, then drizzle. Hot honey in a zigzag, a little more BBQ sauce if you like, straight over the top while everything is still molten. Slice and eat.

Tips and swaps

• No self raising flour? Use plain flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder per 250 g, and a pinch of salt.
• Use thick yoghurt. Full fat Greek or strained. Runny yoghurt means a wet dough and a lot more flour, which makes the base tough.
• The jerk seasoning is optional. Cajun, smoked paprika, garlic powder or plain salt and pepper all work. The hot honey is doing the interesting part.
• Want more heat? Add a spoon of Crispy Chilli Oil to the chicken alongside the hot honey, or scatter fresh chilli before baking.
• Adjust freely. More BBQ, more honey, more cheese. The measurements above are a starting point, not a contract.

Three shortcuts when you cannot be bothered with dough

• Flatbread or naan pizza. Top a shop-bought flatbread, bake at 220°C for 8 to 10 minutes, drizzle. Ready in fifteen minutes flat.
• Air fryer tortilla pizza. A tortilla, sauce, cheese, 5 minutes at 180°C. Weirdly excellent, extremely crisp.
• Reviving a leftover slice. Reheat in a dry pan with a lid until the cheese loosens, then hit it with hot honey. Better than the original, we will die on this hill.

Mistakes to avoid

• Baking the honey in. Covered above, still the number one error.
• Drizzling cold honey. Straight from the fridge it will not flow and you will get three thick blobs. Sit the jar in warm water for a few minutes first.
• Flooding it. Sweetness should be an accent. If your last bite tastes like pudding, you overdid it.
• Only pouring the top layer. With a crispy hot honey, the garlic and chilli sink. Stir first.
• Putting it on an already sweet pizza. A heavily sugared BBQ base plus hot honey is sweet on sweet. Pick one.

FAQs

Do you put hot honey on pizza before or after baking?

After, always. Honey's sugars burn at pizza temperatures and turn bitter. Drizzle the moment the pizza leaves the oven, while the cheese is still bubbling, so the heat thins the honey and helps it spread.

What pizza goes best with hot honey?

Anything salty and fatty. Pepperoni and salami piccante are the classics, and 'nduja, sausage and fennel, blue cheese, BBQ chicken and plain margherita all work brilliantly. Avoid pizzas that are already sweet.

How much hot honey should I put on a pizza?

About a teaspoon per slice, or two tablespoons across a large pizza. Zigzag it rather than pooling it, get some on the crust, and leave the jar on the table for people to top up.

Is hot honey pizza spicy?

Mildly. Chilli Chan's Crispy Hot Honey is a gentle 2 out of 5, so sweetness lands first and the warmth follows a second later. It is the version most kids and spice-avoiders happily eat.

Can I use regular honey and chilli flakes instead?

You can, and it is a decent stopgap. Warm the honey gently, steep chilli flakes in it for ten minutes, add a splash of vinegar. What you will not get is the crunch, since the roasted garlic and sesame in a crispy hot honey take a specific frying process to keep crisp in honey.

Does hot honey pizza work in an air fryer?

Yes. Cook the pizza as normal, then drizzle after it comes out. Never drizzle before, because an air fryer's circulating heat will scorch the honey even faster than an oven.

Where can I buy hot honey in the Netherlands or Germany?

Order directly from us with free shipping over 50 euros to NL, DE and BE, or find us in Jumbo, Picnic and Stach in the Netherlands and selected EDEKA stores in Germany. Our store locator has the closest one.

Keep going

• What is hot honey? The full guide, plus 15 other ways to use it.
• Our recipe library, including hot honey cheesy eggs and air fryer enoki.
• All our sauces, if the jar is looking empty.

Made it? Tag us. We're excited to look at every single one.