I love making French Bread Pizzas because they are so simple to make and can be on the table in 30-45 minutes.  If you have leftover meat, some cheese, a sauce and a few spices you can make a number of different French Bread Pizzas.

I chose to make a Barbecue Chicken French Bread Pizza.

Verdict:

This was delicious!  It was simple to put together and tasted amazing.  Best of all you can customize it to fit what your family likes.  Want more veggies?  Add peppers, olives, mushrooms, whatever you like.

For my mostly gluten-free son we used a Schar Baguette, which by the way is his favorite bread.  I made the pizza the exact same way.  He loved it and had the leftovers in his lunch at school the next day.

I served this with a green side salad.

Ingredients:

• 1 large loaf of French or Italian Bread
• 1 bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Barbecue Sauce
• 1 medium red onion – finely diced
• 2 1/2 cups cheese – your choice (I used a mixture of sharp cheddar and mozzarella on ours)
• 1 lb. chicken breast – cooked and cut into 1/2″ cubes (Leftovers or a rotisserie chicken work great. I boiled my chicken with garlic and peppercorns to add flavor to the chicken for about 10 minutes until cooked through)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut the loaf of bread in half lengthwise so that you have two large pieces.  Hollow out the center of the loaves a bit to make a “boat” to put your ingredients in. 
3. Place the two pieces on a rimmed baking sheet and bake in the oven for about 5-9 minutes.  Just until bread in the center of the loaf starts to toast and harden.
4. Remove bread from oven and place 1/2 of barbecue sauce in the bottom of each of the boats you made.  Spread the sauce to completely cover the bottom of the inside of the bread.
5. Add 1/2 of chicken in each boat.
6. Sprinkle both pizzas with 1/2 of the cheese. 
7. Sprinkle the onion over both pizzas.
8. Place pizzas in oven and bake until the edges are golden brown and cheese has melted and beginning to bubble.
9. Remove pizzas from oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before cutting.  Garnish with parsley if desired.