Pizza night is the best. A round of crispy dough topped with melting cheese and salty meats and fresh, just-cooked vegetables? It never fails to bring a smile to my face. I went through a period a few years ago when I might have been a tad bit obsessed with making the perfect pizza. I was obsessed enough to crank our oven up to 550 degrees in the middle of a Boston summer, making our apartment basically uninhabitable. I did not care. It was all in the service of pizza.

We might not be dealing with record temperatures and humidity here in the Bay, but I’m still wary of forcing the oven to its highest limits in the summer. But pizza on the grill? Totally do-able. I’ve been wanting to try making grilled pizza for ages, but…gah, it seemed so finicky. Pizza dough can be insufferably sticky, and visions of grill grate disasters plagued me. I was worried for no reason. Pizza on the grill is way easier than you might imagine. And fun, besides.

The key to pizza on the grill is speed and preparation. Dough cooks quickly over an open flame. Grilled pizza can be made over gas or charcoal; charcoal will probably cook a little faster. We used a gas grill, and each pizza cooked in about six or seven minutes. The trick is to lay out all of your toppings ahead of time, next to the grill, and be prepared with a cookie sheet or cutting board to put the finished pizzas on as they come out. You don’t want to be rushing back and forth from kitchen to patio while your dough is cooking. No one needs that kind of anxiety, it’s summer.

We topped our pizzas with freshly made pesto, grilled eggplant, juicy red tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. Sean would not stop talking about how good it was, and the man has never been a big fan of eggplant before. The eggplant turns smooth and just a little charred on the grill, and when its earthiness pairs with bright, acidic tomatoes and basil pesto, you cannot go wrong. The mozzarella just barely has time to melt, so it stays creamy and soft and so fresh tasting. There’s a reason this is a classic combination.

You can use any pizza dough recipe you like for this, or pick up a ball of uncooked dough from the market or your local pizzeria. I tried a new recipe, from Bon Appetit, for this experiment. It was quite tasty, but a little finicky, so if you’re not comfortable working with doughs, you might want to turn to a simpler option. I love this pizza dough recipe from Deb at Smitten Kitchen. Just be sure to brush a little oil on whatever dough you’re using before it hits the grill, to prevent stickage. And don’t worry about getting a perfect round shape. It likely wouldn’t transfer well to the grill.

Likewise, I made a very simple pesto for this pizza (we are overloaded with basil right now), but you can use any recipe you like, or just pick up a tub from the store. There’s no pressure here. It’s just pizza.