Beyond Pizza: 12 Unexpected Foods You Can Cook in Your Outdoor Pizza Oven

Your pizza oven is one of the most versatile cooking tools in your backyard — but most people never use it for anything besides pizza. The truth is, a quality outdoor pizza oven reaches temperatures between 700°F and 900°F, which makes it capable of doing things a conventional indoor oven simply cannot.

Whether you own a Gozney pizza oven like the Arc XL or Dome, or an Alfa pizza oven, you're sitting on a multi-purpose outdoor cooking powerhouse. Here's what else you can cook in it.

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What Else Can You Cook in a Pizza Oven? More Than You Think.

The secret advantage of a pizza oven is retained radiant heat — heat that surrounds and penetrates food from all sides simultaneously. This produces results that are impossible to replicate with a standard oven or gas grill: blistered crusts, deeply caramelized surfaces, and incredibly juicy interiors.

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12 Outdoor Pizza Oven Recipes That Aren't Pizza

1. Can You Cook Steak in a Pizza Oven? Yes — and It's Incredible

A pizza oven creates a perfect sear on steak. Place a cast iron skillet inside and let it preheat for 10–15 minutes. Add your steak and it will be perfectly seared in 2–4 minutes per side at high heat, with a crust that rivals any steakhouse.

2. How to Roast a Whole Chicken in a Pizza Oven

Use residual heat after pizza cooking (around 450–500°F) to roast a whole chicken. A spatchcocked chicken cooks in 35–45 minutes and develops beautifully crispy skin from the intense radiant heat surrounding it.

3. Baking Bread in an Outdoor Pizza Oven: Focaccia, Sourdough & More

Bread thrives in a pizza oven. Focaccia, sourdough loaves, dinner rolls, and flatbreads all benefit from the high-heat bake environment. The dome shape creates the same conditions as a traditional baker's deck oven, giving you a crackly crust and an airy interior.

4. Cooking Vegetables in a Wood-Fired Oven: Charred Perfection

Toss peppers, zucchini, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, or corn in olive oil, place them in a cast iron skillet or directly on a baking sheet, and slide them in at 550–650°F. They char and caramelize in minutes — the smoky heat takes roasted vegetables to a completely different level.

5. Can You Cook Fish in a Pizza Oven?

Absolutely. Salmon fillets, whole sea bass, and tiger shrimp cook quickly and evenly in a pizza oven. The intense heat seals in moisture immediately, leaving fish that's charred on the outside and perfectly flaky inside in under 10 minutes.

6. Cast Iron Skillet in a Pizza Oven: Desserts, Dips & Melted Cheese

A cast iron skillet is your most versatile pizza oven tool. Use it for baked brie with honey, a deep-dish cookie, a melted cheese dip, or nachos. The skillet retains heat perfectly and allows you to cook things that can't be placed directly on the pizza stone.

7. Pizza Oven Dessert Recipes: Cookies, Crumbles & Roasted Fruit

Wait for the oven to cool to 350–400°F and you can bake cast iron skillet cookies, apple and oat crumbles, brownies, or roasted stone fruit with vanilla and cinnamon. The drop in temperature makes this ideal for dessert after a pizza dinner.

8. Chicken Wings

High-heat pizza oven cooking makes for wings with skin that crisps faster and more completely than any conventional oven or air fryer. Roast at 500–550°F for 15–20 minutes, tossing once.

9. Calzones & Stromboli

A natural extension of your pizza cooking session. Both cook in 4–6 minutes at full temperature, giving you the same blistered, chewy exterior as a great Neapolitan pie.

10. Pulled Pork (Low & Slow Using Residual Heat)

After a cooking session, let the oven cool to 250–275°F and slow-roast a pork shoulder in a covered Dutch oven for 4–6 hours. The retained radiant heat cooks it low and slow without you managing a fire.

11. Tandoori-Style Chicken Skewers

Marinate chicken pieces in yogurt, lemon, garlic, and spices. Thread onto skewers and cook at 650–700°F for 8–10 minutes. The intense heat mimics the effect of a traditional clay tandoor oven.

12. Flatbreads and International Breads

Naan, pita, lavash, and Turkish pide all cook in 90 seconds to 3 minutes in a hot pizza oven. These are faster and more flavorful than anything you can produce indoors.

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Can You Use a Pizza Oven as a Regular Oven?

Yes — a pizza oven can function as a full outdoor oven for meats, fish, bread, vegetables, and desserts. The key is temperature management: different foods require different heat levels, and a pizza oven gives you that full range as it heats up and cools down through a cooking session.

Browse our full outdoor pizza oven collection to find the model that fits your outdoor kitchen setup.

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FAQ

Can you use a pizza oven for anything else?
Yes. Pizza ovens can roast meat, bake bread, cook seafood, char vegetables, and bake desserts. Any food that benefits from high, dry, radiant heat performs exceptionally well in a pizza oven.

What other foods can I cook in a pizza oven?
Steak, whole chicken, focaccia, salmon, shrimp, roasted vegetables, cast iron cookie, crumble, calzones, tandoori chicken, flatbreads, and slow-cooked pork are all excellent choices.

Can you cook regular food in a pizza oven?
Absolutely. As the oven cools through a session, you move from high-heat pizza cooking to roasting, baking, and then slow cooking — covering almost everything a standard oven does, with better results.

What can you make in a pizza oven that isn't pizza?
Almost anything. The key is timing — cook steaks and vegetables at peak heat, roast chicken and fish as it cools to 450–500°F, and bake desserts at 350–400°F.