5 Reasons Why an Ooni Pizza Oven is the Best Tool for Your Next Cookout

June marks the official start of summer. It’s warm enough to enjoy being outdoors, lawns are turning vivid green, pools are filling up with water, and dinner prep is moving out of the kitchen and into the backyard. While that used to mean one thing, and one thing only – time to drag out the charcoal grill – summer shindigs don’t need to be so, well, limiting.. Forget the hamburgers! As you’re planning your outdoor get-togethers this year, try centering your menu around an Ooni oven. You just may not go back.

If you’re not sure you’re ready to give up the grill just yet, we have a few compelling reasons why an Ooni oven is the best tool for your next cookout.

1. Pizza parties. It’s a stinging realisation that hits you mid-party: You’ve become the lonely grillmaster standing guard over burgers and hot dogs while everyone else chats and plays lawn games. If you want the party to come to you, make pizza. Folks are naturally drawn to check out an outdoor pizza oven, and you can also involve family and friends in the process. Invite them to stretch, top, and launch their own pizzas. That’s a heck of a lot more fun than standing solo in front of a hot grill.

2. High temps = fast bakes. As soon as guests start launching those pies they stretched and topped, they’ll only be 60 to 90 seconds from eating. That’s about six times faster than cooking a medium burger!

3. Ooni ovens are versatile. While we obviously love a pizza party, you can cook far more than pizza in your Ooni oven. From appetizers and sides to cast-iron dishes, the possibilities are wide open. For starters, check out the recipes for our Buffalo wings, bourbon bacon oysters Rockefeller, or salted chocolate chip skillet cookie.

4. Cooking with wood is a barbecue shortcut. Love the taste of wood smoke but don’t want to spend 12 hours tending to a smoker? Using an Ooni oven with wood can give you a bit of that barbecue flavor, but only takes 20 minutes to get up to temperature. Though it won’t fall off the bone like Texas pit barbecue, you can get amazing smokiness in recipes like herb-marinated lamb chops and wood-fired turkey breasts.

5. Ooni ovens clean themselves. Unlike a grill that you need to brush and clean before and after every use, Ooni ovens are largely self-cleaning. Because they run at such high temperatures, most food debris burns off after a few minutes of running the oven at top temps. Less cleaning means more time for eating, drinking, hanging out, and enjoying the warm weather outside.