Creamy Bacon French Bread Pizza Recipe

French bread pizza topped with bacon pieces and cream cheese. Easily made at home and oh so good, with just a few ingredients.

Make this for lunch or dinner anytime! I show you how in this homemade recipe.

Jump to:

• 📕 What is a French Bread Pizza?
• 🥖 Ingredients
• 🧂 Flavor Variations
• 🔪 How to make it?
• 💡 Tips
• 🍴 Serving
• 🍱 Storage
• 💭 FAQs
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

📕 What is a French Bread Pizza?

A French bread pizza is a crispy open face, sheet pan, oven baked baguette-like bread, topped with meats or veggies or seafood or mushrooms and with cheese.

It's pizza flavors on bread instead of a pizza base! The major difference is, that the topping consists of cream instead of tomato sauce.

You might have seen ready-made frozen french bread pizza from stouffer or red baron in stores.

This homemade french bread pizza is like a gourmet version of these frozen ones, and it comes together easily within minutes.

🥖 Ingredients

Here is an overview of what you will need to make these french pizza breads at home.

Teh full recipe with US and metric measurements can be found further below in the printable, compact recipe card.

• French bread – I use loaf of french bread or Paul's baguette bread, but you can use regular baguette as well, if that is what you get in stores.
• Garlic – fresh
• Cream Cheese – I mix it with a Tablespoon of water to help spread it on the pizza bread. That way your bread pizza won't turn out too dry, nor soggy.
• Bacon strips – I like to use streaky or back bacon, but any will do.
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Oregano
• Cheese – shredded. I like to use good melting cheesy pizza cheese such as mozzarella cheese.
• Olive Oil – a small drizzle to top it off. Adds flavor and keeps the pizza bread cirsp and not soggy.
• Chives – fresh as a topping, it alleviated the aesthetics and flavor of your French bread pizza.

🧂 Flavor Variations

Make your own version of homemade pizza bread by switching out or adding ingredients!

Here are some ideas, just pick your favorite pizza toppings:

• Use Pepperoni slices or other Italian sausage instead of bacon
• Get creative by topping it with other meats such as BBQ chicken, tandoori chicken or ground beef.
• Switch the cream cheese with liquid cream or, if you are vegan, use a vegan alfredo sauce or pizza sauce or any other unflavored marinara sauce.
• Add chopped onions
• Enhance it with artichokes, red peppers, olives and or mushrooms.
• Make it like my Hawaii pizza and top with pineapple and ham.
• Make it less cheesy but saltier, more flavorful and use Parmesan cheese or fresh feta cheese.
• Season with pizza seasoning or Italian seasoning instead of oregano.
• Enhance your simple oregano seasoning by adding garlic powder to it.
• Switch the olive oil with flavored butters such as herb compound butter or garlic butter.
• Make it hot and top with red pepper flakes.
• Top with fresh basil instead of chives

🔪 How to make it?

This is a quick summary to help you get going. All process details can be found further below in the recipe card.

Step 1

Chop the garlic small and slice your bacon small.

Step 2

Cut open your French bread and lay them out next to each other face up on a baking sheet.

Mix the small quantity of water into your cream cheese.

Spread cream cheese over each bread.

Step 3

Top with your seasoning, garlic and bacon.

Step 4

Top each with shredded cheese and drizzle some oil over that too.

Step 5

Toast in the oven for a few minutes until golden.

Serve up hot with freshly chopped chives.

💡 Tips

Keep all ingredients ready before topping your bread to save prepping time.

Preheat your oven before you prepare your breads because these are quickly made.

You can use day old bread to avoid wasting bread to go all zero waste in your kitchen.

If you use aged bread, reduce baking time or add more water to your cream cheese because it will dry out faster in the oven.

The French breads should all be the same size, or else some will get a harder crust and darker than others.

🍴 Serving

This makes for a great summer lunch or dinner with a simple side dish salad.

We tend to enjoy vinaigrette based simple salads, such as a carrot salad or a kohlrabi salad, with this kind of meal.

I have also served these homemade French bread pizza bites as a party snack, for example on game day or for a tailgating get together.

🍱 Storage

Store leftovers in an airtight container. I like to use rectangular glass containers, like the ones from IKEA, which come with a clip lid, to store in my fridge.

These are good for at least 2 days in your fridge after they have been baked.

To warm them up again, slowly reheat in the oven at a lover temperature setting for a short time, so that they don't end up too dry.

You can drizzle a few drops of olive oil just before that, which should help in keeping them from turning out too dry.

I don't recommend reheating these bread pizzas in the microwave because they will turn out soggy.

Optionally, you can prep your French bread pizza in advance for a party or food event by freezing them in batches.

To freeze, prepare them as per the instructions, but don't bake them. Instead, place them on a sheet pan into your freezer to freeze hard. When frozen, take them out and place them into bags or containers and freeze them again until further use.

To thaw frozen french bread pizza bites, thaw overnight in your refrigerator OR place them on your oven rack frozen and increase the baking time by 10–15 minutes so that they not only thaw but that the crust heats up properly.

💭 FAQs

📖 Recipe