Here’s a recipe for real Italian pizza and everything you need to know to make it at home! Includes pizza dough tutorial and step-by-step video.
want to do real Italian pizza at home? Alex and I have been studying the art of homemade artisan pizza for over 10 years. We even made a few trips to Italy to unveil mysteries from Rome and Naples. Do you want to make the best homemade pizza dough and sauce? Want to make it easy on a hot pizza stone? We’ll show you how it all works. Let’s make Italian pizza together!
What is an Italian pizza?
Before we begin: what is this? real Italian pizza? American delivery pizza has nothing to do with Italian pizza. But as with any popular food, there are different types of Italian pizza depending on the region and method. For example:
- In Rome: There is a Roman pizza maker named Bonci who made a name for himself by making thick crust rectangular pizzas with amazingly colorful toppings (see our article on Rome!).
- In Naples: Naples is the birthplace of pizza itself, and here the pizza crust is thin and fluffy! It’s topped with tangy tomatoes, often a plain margherita pizza.
Here is our definition of Italian pizza: a pizza with simple flavors and a soft, thin crust that’s baked in a very hot oven. (That’s also the definition we use for our Neapolitan pizza.) The recipe we’re sharing below is elegantly simple: a perfect crust, flavorful tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and homemade pesto with light green basil. .
Before you start making Italian pizza, you need a few special tools. Are you here to deserve it? Then you need these two tools to make great Italian pizza:
- pizza stone: A pizza stone makes the Italian pizza base crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Here’s a pizza stone we recommend and a little more about the best pizza stones and pizza stone care.
- pizza shovel: The pizza is pushed onto the hot pizza stone in the oven with a pizza scraper. Try this aluminum pizza peel or this conveyor belt pizza peel. The pizza pusher with conveyor belt is worth the extra investment as it makes pushing the pizza out of the oven very easy.
How to make Italian pizza dough
It all starts with a good Italian pizza dough. It took Alex and I 10 years to create our perfect dough recipe! We learned a few things from some of the top pizza restaurant chefs in America who themselves studied pizza in Naples. Here are a few tips:
- If possible, use good flour (type 00). The flour we use is called Type 00 flour; that’s what Neapolitan pizzerias use. This results in a nice soft and fluffy dough. We buy our Tipo 00 flour online. If you can’t find it, all-purpose will work too.
- Use the right recipe. This pizza dough recipe is our perfect method! We make it with a stand mixer, but you can also knead it by hand. Or try our Easy Thin Crust, which makes a thinner crust than you roll out.
- Watch our video! Dough is easier to learn by looking at it. Since we can’t come to your kitchen, here’s the next best thing! Below is a video of Alex showing how to make and stretch Italian pizza dough. We highly recommend checking out the recipe before trying it!
Video: How to Make Italian Pizza Dough (1 min 45 sec!)
Top with Easy Italian Pizza Sauce
This Italian pizza uses our best pizza sauce recipe. It’s really her better because it brings great taste with quality ingredients. Best of all, it only takes 5 minutes to prepare! It makes the tastiest pizza sauce you’ve ever tasted, reminiscent of pizza straight from Naples. (At least we think so!) Here are some tips:
- In a blender, whisk together the canned fire-roasted tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and some salt. That’s it! 5 minutes max.
- Be sure to use fire roasted tomatoes. Fire roasted tomatoes are readily available at most grocery stores in the United States. If you can’t find them, use the best quality tomatoes you can find.
A dollop of homemade pesto (or store-bought best quality)!
For this Italian pizza recipe, we made it super easy: tomato sauce, mozzarella, and homemade pesto. The simplicity of the flavors is truly breathtaking. Add the pesto after Bake pizza for the freshest flavor and brightest color. Here are some tips for the pesto filling:
- Homemade pesto yields the lightest green color. This pesto recipe we used is our best basil pesto recipe. It’s prepared by whisking together fresh basil leaves, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, and olive oil in a food processor until they form a light green paste.
- Try one of our variations for a twist. Try our Basil Cashew Pesto, Basil Cashew Pesto or even our Vegan Cashew Pesto.
- Or use a top quality store-bought pesto. It tastes better with homemade pesto, but there’s a lot of great shopping these days. Sometimes the color of store-bought pesto sauces may appear brown rather than green. If you like the bright greens in the picture, homemade pesto is the best.
This Italian pizza recipe is…
Vegetarian.
The description
Here’s a recipe for real Italian pizza and everything you need to know to make it at home! Includes pizza dough tutorial and step-by-step video.
- Prepare pizza dough: Follow the Best Pizza Dough recipe to prepare the dough. (It takes about 15 minutes and 45 minutes to rest.)
- Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 500°F. OR preheat your pizza oven (this is the pizza oven we use).
- Prepare pizza sauce: Prepare the pizza sauce 5 minutes.
- Prepare cheese: If using fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into ¼ inch thick pieces (see photo). If it’s incredibly watery fresh mozzarella (all brands vary), you can let it sit on a paper towel for about 15 minutes to remove the moisture, then blot the mozzarella with the paper towel to remove extra moisture.
- Bake pizza: When the oven is done, dust a pizza peel with corn or semolina flour. (If you don’t have a pizza peel, you can use a rimmed baking sheet or the back of a rimmed baking sheet. But a pizza peel is worth the investment!) Roll out the dough in a circle; For instructions, see How to stretch pizza dough. Then carefully place the dough on the pizza peel.
- Spread the pizza sauce thinly over the dough with the back of a spoon. Add mozzarella cheese. Garnish with a few pinches of kosher salt.
- Use the pizza peel to carefully transfer the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone. Bake the pizza until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes in the oven (or 1 minute in a pizza oven).
- Drizzle with basil pesto. Cut into pieces and serve immediately.
- Category: main course
- Method: Cooked
- Kitchen: Italian
Keywords: Italian pizza, Italian pizza, real Italian pizza, the pizza is Italian
Looking for more pizza recipes?
Aside from this Italian pizza recipe, here are some of our favorite pizza recipes for more inspiration:
