General Tso's Chicken Pizza [Recipe Idea for Your Leftovers] (2024)

After making General Tso’s Chicken with fried rice the day before, I found myself with some delicious leftovers. Since it’s been a long time since my last pizza, the decision was clear: I will make General Tso’s chicken pizza! Don’t worry, I will also explain how to make General Tso’s chicken if you are not stuck with the leftovers like I was.

I decided to turn to my sister, the best pizzaiolo I know, for her incredible pizza dough recipe. I must admit that I still have a long way to go to reach her level of expertise, but I tried my best to replicate her masterpieces. Now, let’s see how things are done!

What to Know Before Making General Tso’s Chicken Pizza?

Time is key. If you are making everything from scratch, be prepared to invest some time in the process. Having General Tso’s leftovers sped up my cooking process significantly.

You need to have patience with the pizza dough. The dough needs time to rise and is best when made a day in advance.

Finding hoisin sauce was not easy for me. This proved to be the most challenging ingredient to find in supermarkets, so I had to make it from scratch. You can refer to my other recipe article for instructions on how to make hoisin sauce.

Customize your pizza! Feel free to adjust the recipe to your taste. Experiment with different toppings and find the perfect combination for you.

How to Make General Tso’s Chicken Pizza?

Like with any other recipe, make sure you have all the necessary ingredients. And please, don’t make this long list discourage you. After tasting this pizza, you will see it was worth it! 🙂

For General Tso’s chicken:

• Chicken breast
• Soy sauce
• Hoisin sauce
• Rice vinegar
• Sugar
• Chili sauce or chili paste
• Chicken broth
• Cornstarch
• Grated ginger
• Chili flakes
• Grated garlic
• Black pepper
• Oil for frying

For the pizza dough:

• Flour
• Yeast
• Salt
• Sugar
• Warm water

Tip: Use store-bought pizza dough to make the process faster.

For the topping:

• Tomato passata
• Olive oil
• Dry oregano
• Spring onions
• Gouda cheese (or some of its substitutes)

Step 1: Making the pizza dough

Pizza dough needs some time to rise. I like to make it the day before, but if you don’t have that much time, one to two hours will do the trick.

Place pizza flour (type 0 or type 00) into a bowl for raising the dough. Add salt to the flour and mix. Create a crater in the middle, and add sugar, half of a cube of fresh yeast (about 15 grams), and warm water into it. Let the yeast rise for 10-15 minutes.

Water is the best liquid for pizza dough, but be careful not to make it too hot. It should be slightly warmer than the human body temperature. If it’s too hot, the yeast won’t rise.

Now take a mixer with dough hooks and mix everything until you get a nice smooth dough. The dough shouldn’t be too firm and stable. It’s fine if it’s a little sticky.

You can now cover the bowl and let the dough rise for at least an hour.

Step 2: Preparing the chicken

Now, I will roughly explain how to make General Tso’s Chicken. I won’t write the exact ingredient quantities here, as I will list them at the bottom of the article in a printable recipe. One thing I want to mention is that you will not use all of the cornstarch immediately. Part of it goes into the marinade, and we will use the rest for coating the chicken before frying. Also, chili flakes are not added to the sauce/marinade but are fried in a little oil before cooking the sauce.

We will start with making the sauce because we will use part of it as a chicken marinade.

Cut the chicken breast into bite-sized pieces and use the rest of the ingredients for the sauce. Simply combine all the listed ingredients together (except oil which will be used for frying and chili flakes).

Separate one-third of the sauce and mix it with the chicken. Leave the chicken in the marinade for about half an hour.

Take a deep frying container and pour frying oil (vegetable oil or sunflower oil) into it to be about 2 fingers deep. Heat over medium heat.

While the oil is heating, take the chicken and sprinkle about half of the cup of cornstarch on it. Mix well so that all the chicken is covered.

When the oil is ready, carefully add the chicken pieces, making sure they don’t stick together. Fry for about 3 minutes on each side, then remove and place them on paper towels to absorb excess oil.

Once you have fried all the chicken, remove the oil. Leave just enough oil to fry some chili flakes. Then add the remaining sauce and cook until thickened. Turn off the heat and add the fried chicken to the sauce. Let it sit until you roll out the dough.

Step 3: Assembling the pizza

Prepare a pizza pan and preheat the oven to 450 °F (210 °C). Dust a sheet of parchment paper with flour (I used corn flour because it’s a bit coarser) and use your fingers to stretch the dough into a circular shape. The dough should be thin, as it will rise further in the oven.

Make the pizza sauce by mixing all the necessary ingredients. The sugar is there to neutralize the acidity of the tomato passata. Of course, you can use store-bought pizza sauce or chopped canned tomatoes instead of tomato passata, but this recipe here is the most delicious pizza sauce I’ve ever tasted!

Spread the prepared sauce on the dough and sprinkle with grated Gouda cheese. Add the chicken pieces on top and place the pizza in the oven. As you can see, the pizza is not overly loaded. Too many toppings can simply result in a soggy pizza, which we don’t want. The key is moderation and balance.

Ingredients that you can potentially add and are proven to be tasty include pieces of bell pepper and yellow onion cut into strips. However, I also want to emphasize that we don’t want a salad, but a delicious thin pizza. So, don’t go overboard!

After 15 minutes, the pizza should be cooked. Let it cool down slightly and sprinkle with spring onions before serving.