Thin peanut-ginger sauce on the dough. Whole-milk mozzarella (no gouda). Marinated, pan-cooked chicken and julienned carrots baked on. Bean sprouts, green onions, cilantro, and chopped peanuts added raw right after the oven. The sauce works double duty — same batch marinates the chicken and spreads on the dough. Don’t bake the sprouts.

The peanut sauce is the heart of this pizza, and it does two distinct things.

The first job is marinating the chicken. The thicker version — just the sauce as-is — coats the chicken pieces and gives them their flavor. When the marinated chicken hits a hot pan, the peanut sauce caramelizes against the cast iron and builds a lacquered crust on each piece. That crust is why the chicken on CPK’s pizza has more presence than plain grilled chicken would.

The second job is the pizza base. The thinner version — the same sauce extended with a tablespoon or two of water until it flows freely — replaces tomato sauce and BBQ sauce on this pizza. This is not a thick peanut layer; it is a coating, just enough to flavor the dough surface. Spread it thin, the same way you would restrain yourself with BBQ sauce on the BBQ Chicken Pizza. A heavy peanut layer saturates the dough and prevents the crust from crisping.

The result of the double-duty approach: when you eat a slice, the peanut flavor is layered through the pizza rather than concentrated on top. The marinated chicken brings peanut from inside the cheese layer. The sauce base brings it from under. The chopped peanuts bring it at the finish. It is consistent without being overwhelming.

This is one of the few places where the Thai Chicken and BBQ Chicken Pizzas diverge in a way that actually matters. The BBQ Chicken Pizza uses a smoked gouda and mozzarella blend — the gouda is the most-missed ingredient in BBQ Chicken copycats, and it adds a smoky richness that mozzarella alone cannot provide. The Thai Chicken uses mozzarella only, and that is correct.

Mozzarella’s clean, mild flavor is the right pairing for the peanut-ginger base. A smoked or aged cheese would fight the sesame and ginger character. The goal is a neutral, creamy cheese layer that carries the peanut sauce and the chicken without adding its own competing flavor.

The one non-negotiable: shred the mozzarella yourself from a block. Pre-shredded mozzarella is coated in potato starch or cellulose to prevent clumping in the bag. That coating prevents the cheese from melting fully and creates a slightly grainy, separated texture. Whole-milk low-moisture mozzarella from a block melts into a uniform, creamy layer. The difference is visible.

The official CPK menu description is “chicken marinated in a spicy peanut-ginger and sesame sauce, green onions, bean sprouts, julienne carrots, cilantro and roasted peanuts.” That list is accurate — but it doesn’t tell you which items bake and which don’t, and that distinction is the entire technique.

Goes in the oven: the peanut sauce base, mozzarella, cooked marinated chicken, julienned carrots.

Goes on after the oven: bean sprouts, green onions, fresh cilantro, chopped roasted peanuts.

The carrots go in because they benefit from the heat — 12 minutes at 500°F softens their raw edge and concentrates their sweetness, and they nestle into the cheese layer rather than sitting on top.

Everything else goes on after because heat ruins it. Bean sprouts are about 92% water by weight. In a hot oven, that water evacuates fast, leaving behind limp, translucent, flavorless strands — not the crisp, fresh crunch that makes this pizza interesting. Add them raw to the hot cheese right after you pull the pizza; the residual heat warms them through without destroying the texture.

Fresh cilantro loses its aromatic oils at high heat and turns flat and slightly bitter — the same reason it goes on after the bake in the BBQ Chicken Pizza. The roasted peanuts become over-toasted and lose their crunch if they bake for 12 minutes at 500°F. And green onions, while you can bake them successfully, stay sharper and fresher when added after.

The 90 seconds of resting time after the bake is important: the cheese is hot enough to warm the cold-finish toppings, but letting it settle briefly means the sprouts and cilantro do not drop onto a surface that is actively boiling with escaped steam.

CPK’s crusts are thinner than most American casual-dining pizzas. Stretch your dough thinner than seems right. The center of a 12-inch pizza should be roughly ¼ inch — translucent-ish when held up to a light, not opaque. The rim can be thicker, maybe ½ inch.

The other critical element is the preheated surface. A pizza stone or heavy baking sheet, preheated in a 500°F oven for at least 30 minutes, provides the bottom heat that crisps the crust from below while the oven air works on the top. Without it, the top finishes before the bottom, and you get melted cheese over slightly doughy, pale crust — technically cooked, but not right.

The Thai Chicken Pizza runs approximately $22–24 at CPK as of 2026, varying by market. Per fastfoodnutrition.org and CalorieKing, the restaurant version is approximately 210 calories per slice on the original hand-tossed crust (the pizza is cut into 6 slices, so about 1,260 calories for the whole pie). The home version runs approximately 390 calories per serving (based on 4 servings from a 12-inch pizza), with more protein than the restaurant version because the chicken portion is generous.

• More heat. Double the chili oil in the sauce, or add a thin drizzle of sriracha over the assembled pizza just before baking. The peanut base absorbs heat well without becoming overwhelmed.

• Add cucumber. A few thin cucumber slices added with the cold-finish toppings add a cool, water-forward crunch that reinforces the sprouts. Not on CPK’s official version, but a common and successful home addition in the copycat-recipe community.

• The BBQ direction. Swap the peanut sauce for sweet-smoky BBQ sauce, the chicken marinade for plain seasoned grilled chicken, and add smoked gouda to the mozzarella. That is CPK’s BBQ Chicken Pizza, their top-seller, and the recipe is different enough that both pizzas justify their own dedicated page.

• Wonton strips. A handful of fried wonton strips scattered with the cold-finish toppings adds extra crunch and leans further into the Asian-fusion character. Crispy chow mein noodles work the same way. Neither is on CPK’s menu; both are good.

• Cauliflower crust. CPK offers a cauliflower crust version at the restaurant (approximately 160 calories per slice). At home, a store-bought cauliflower crust handles this pizza well — the mild crust doesn’t fight the peanut base, and the lower carb load offsets the peanut butter’s fat content if that matters to you.