For A Tastier Papa Johns Pizza, Order It Chicken Club-Style (Simple And Tasty)

Papa Johns pizza is a longstanding pizza chain that may have ranked behind giants like Domino's and Pizza Hut in our fast food pizza chain taste test, but it's still a fan favorite around the world. And in the past few years, Papa Johns has come out with creative topping combinations that fuse culinary cuisines together, like a butter chicken pizza in Canada. Another food fusion that has global customers swooning is the chicken club-style pizza — a pizza topped with the classic flavors of a chicken club sandwich.

Papa Johns locations in the UK offer the chicken club pizza, which features succulent char-grilled chicken, crispy bacon, onions, and tomatoes over a base of red sauce and mozzarella cheese. A chicken club sandwich tends to feature grilled chicken, bacon, cheese, and fresh veggies. When transformed into a pizza, the veggies are cooked and the cheese is melted, creating more caramelized and rich flavors to complement the savory chicken and salty bacon. The pizza sauce and crust are the unique elements that make this Italian-American fusion work. While US menus don't offer the chicken club pizza, all you have to do is order a cheese pizza with chicken, bacon, onions, and tomatoes to recreate it stateside. Middle Eastern Papa Johns locations, like in the UAE, offer a different chicken club pizza with cheddar cheese and a croissant crust. And you can draw inspiration from this one and other pizza offerings by swapping out crust types or adding more toppings to upgrade your makeshift chicken club pizza even further. 

Global reviews for the chicken club pizza have been fairly favorable, with a few constructive criticisms. A YouTube review from a Papa Johns customer in the UK applauded the "great char grilled flavor ... Nice crunch from the onions, [and] but of saltiness from the bacon," noting that the topping combination really "is like a sandwich." However, the reviewer does think that it's missing a spicy element and recommends adding peppers. While a chicken club may not feature peppers on the sandwich, pickled peppers are a popular Italian sandwich topping and would work well to cut through the richness and savoriness of the proteins and veggie toppings of the pizza. Papa Johns is famous for accompanying every pizza with whole banana peppers, but in this case of the chicken club pizza, you'll need more than one! Even a dip in Papa Johns ranch can elevate the pizza's overall flavor profile, as it offers a tangy and cooling compliment that's also sometimes used to dress chicken club salads. For more decadence, you can add Canadian bacon, a ham-element like we include in our club sub recipe.

If you want to increase the richness of the pizza toppings, you can also swap out a regular crust for a more decadent cheese-stuffed crust. Papa Johns also offers a garlic parmesan crust that would make for a flavorful upgrade. The salty nuttiness of parmesan would pair especially well with the chicken and bacon.