I adore my Ooni pizza oven. Over the past year, I have cooked many delicious Neapolitan and Neapolitan-style pizzas on my wood-fired Ooni Fyra.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to prepare food in my Ooni. Then this post is for you if you have ever wondered what else you could make with your Ooni pizza oven besides pizza!
Let’s start by talking about the tools you’ll need to cook these dishes in your Ooni. Depending on what you are making, you will need a cast-iron pan or a metal cake pan. Tongs and a few other tools are also necessary. The following tools will help you with each type of dish.
Salmon Filet
With an Ooni pizza oven, you can easily cook salmon on a cast iron skillet since salmon does well with high heat.
Wait until the temperature of your Ooni stone reaches at least 500°F/260°C on an infrared thermometer. On the pizza stone, place a small skillet filled with olive oil. Ooni Cast Iron Grizzler Pans or any cast iron skillet will fit the Ooni.
Put one salmon filet (of any size) skin side down in the pan when the oil is sizzling, and the pan is heated to 350°F. Add a few pinches of salt, half of a lemon’s juice, 3-5 pats of butter, and 3-5 slices of lemon to the salmon.
Once the salmon reaches an internal temperature of 145°F, slide the skillet back onto the hot pizza stone.
When cooking this dish, you should keep the flames gently moving. Be more concerned about the heat than the flame, so don’t worry about it. You can remove your cooked salmon from the oven once it has finished baking, let it rest, then enjoy!
Steak
Due to their ability to cook well at high temperatures, steaks are a great meat to cook in an Ooni pizza oven. In fact, you can cook up to two small steaks at a time with the Ooni Cast Iron Grizzler Pan.
Prepare thick-cut steaks with a generous amount of salt and pepper on both sides when they are at room temperature. Bring the Ooni pizza oven up to a high temperature with a rolling flame – about 900°F/482°C for the stone temperature.
The cast iron skillet needs to be greased with a little vegetable oil and placed on the preheat stone for 5-10 minutes.
Depending on how many steaks you can fit in the pan, remove the pan carefully once the oil has sizzled and place one or two steaks into it. Then, place the pan back in the oven.
You will need about 90 seconds to two minutes to cook each side of the steak. When the steaks are cooked to your liking, set them on a cutting board. When you are ready to serve, let them rest for a few minutes.
The Marinated Chicken Thighs
Unlike chicken breasts, which are hard to overcook, chicken thighs are forgiving and delicious when cooked in an Ooni oven. My Ooni Fyra always produces succulent and juicy marinated chicken thighs.
Choose a marinade of your choice (I like a chicken tikka marinade) and marinate five to six bone-in or boneless chicken thighs. When the chicken has marinated, please put it in a cast-iron skillet that’s been greased, and fire up the Ooni until it’s very hot. I shoot for 900°F/482°C for the stone temperature.
Launch the cast iron skillet onto the stone when the flame begins to roll. Keep the flame going and cook for about 2-3 minutes on the first side.
Cook the chicken thighs for another two minutes on the other side by flipping them over with a pair of tongs. When the chicken is cooked, it should be at about 170°F/77°C internal temperature. It may need to cook longer if necessary.
Marinated Shrimp
In an Ooni pizza oven, shrimp cook very well in a cast-iron skillet. A pound of raw shrimp can be marinated in your favorite seasonings and cooked on medium-high heat for a few minutes per side for perfect flame-broiled shrimp.
The Honey Cajun Grilled Shrimp Marinade from Rasa Malaysia is my favorite marinade for one pound of raw shrimp. Preheat your Ooni to 900°F/482°C while your shrimp is marinating.
As soon as the oven is heated and the shrimp are ready, place the cast iron pan on the hot pizza stone for five minutes to raise the temperature. Once the cast iron pan has been heated, add the shrimp.
For about two minutes, cook the shrimp on a rolling flame on high heat. Once the shrimp have steamed for two minutes, rotate them with tongs and steam them again for a minute or two on the other side. Remove the shrimp when they are cooked to your liking and serve them while still sizzling.
Dinner Rolls
The residual heat left in a pizza oven after you’ve finished baking the pizza is perfect for cooking dinner rolls in an Ooni pizza oven.
Follow the recipe directions for making the dinner roll dough. I have a recipe for sourdough dinner rolls here. After the first rise, let the dough rest for a few hours, then shape into balls and place them into a buttered 9-inch cake pan.
Pre-heat your pizza oven to 900°F/482°C when you are almost ready to bake the dinner rolls, then turn it off or let it cool. The cake pan can then be placed on the stone once it extinguishes the flame. Turn the dinner rolls once during each 30-35-minute time period during the baking process.
Throughout the baking process, the temperature in the oven should slowly decrease, but it should remain high enough to bake the dinner rolls fully in 35 minutes. The flame can always be re-ignited, or a fire can be lit to boost the heat. Have a blast baking your dinner rolls.
Peach Cobbler
Peach cobbler is incredibly easy to make in an Ooni pizza oven, especially if you use a quick cake mix style cobbler, where all of the ingredients are combined in one bowl.
AllRecipes.com has an excellent recipe for this cake, but I usually cut it in half for my 9-inch pan.
Put one can of peaches in syrup in a metal cake pan and grease it with butter. Combine yellow or white cake mix with the peaches (about half of 15.25 oz. of cake mix).
Firmly press the cake mix into the peaches. Place four tablespoons of cold butter, cut into cubes (half of a stick, or 57 grams) on top of the cake mix. Then, bake the cobbler according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Make sure your Ooni pizza oven is hot enough to bake the cobbler. After that, turn it off and let it cool down. Close the oven door (if your Ooni has one) and place your cobbler pan on the pizza stone.
About halfway through the baking time, turn the cobbler and let it bake for another 30-40 minutes. The flame should be on for a minute or two if you feel the oven temperature is dropping too far below 350 F.
When the cobbler has finished cooking, remove it from the oven, allow it to rest for five minutes, and then enjoy.
Focaccia recipe
Ooni pizza ovens can be used to prepare nearly any focaccia recipe. In addition to being versatile, focaccia is often prepared in a “falling-oven” without any flame. The Ooni, which is capable of both, is a perfect vessel for cooking this.
I prefer to bake focaccia without flame since I use a wood-pellet-powered Ooni Fyra, so I don’t have to tend to the fire while the focaccia cooks. The focaccia can be baked in any Ooni oven model.
When the focaccia dough has been bulk fermented (or the dough has gone through its first rise), oil a 9-inch round cake pan generously with extra virgin olive oil, stretch out the dough as far as it can go without pulling back into the pan after you transfer it to the pan.
Put the dough in a pan with a lid and cover it for several hours until it’s doubled in size and jiggles when you shake it.
Immediately after proofing, preheat your Ooni oven as high as it will go – about 900°F/482°C. Apply more olive oil to the dough, then dimple it down with your fingers. You can sprinkle fresh rosemary and salt over it if you wish. Put the focaccia pan directly on the hot pizza stone once the flame has died down.
Turn the pan one time in the middle of baking the focaccia for about 30 to 35 minutes at a low temperature as the temperature slowly decreases. You can turn on the flame to raise the temperature of the oven if you suspect it’s getting too low. Bake for 30-35 minutes and remove the focaccia when it has browned beautifully!
Your Ooni pizza oven can be used to make a lot more than just pizza. Be sure to try a few of these out soon!
If you own an Ooni pizza oven and love cooking in it whenever you can, why not try out a few more dessert recipes in it? We will provide nine desserts you can make in your Ooni pizza oven.
What else can you cook in a OONI pizza oven?
Ooni pizza ovens are incredibly adaptable. Everything from Neapolitan pizza to your favorite meats and sweets may be cooked in your OONI.
In an Ooni pizza oven, you can cook everything from pizza to bread and almost any meat. Surprisingly, some desserts perform great in an Ooni pizza oven as well.
Here are some of the meals you can cook in an OONI Pizza Oven:
- Grilled or BBQs of any type of meat
- Bread and other types of baked foods
- Lasagna
- Fried or roasted vegetables
- Desserts
- Fish, etc.
The only limit is your own culinary creativity.
Can you cook burgers in an OONI pizza oven?
Yes. If you have OONI, you don’t need anything else to make a luscious flame-cooked cast iron Smashburger. When a burger desire strikes, turn on your Ooni pizza oven.
A cast-iron flame-cooked double Smashburger topped with gouda cheese, pickle, red onion, lettuce, and tomato and served between sweet butter-toasted brioche buns is possible. Serve directly from the pan between luscious, butter-toasted brioche buns.
Related Articles:
