Making pizza at home.
Four things decide how a pizza turns out: dough, heat, sauce and cheese, and a little gear. This is how I handle each one in a regular kitchen oven.
01 · Dough
Most of it is dough.
Flour, water, salt, a little yeast, and time. A cold ferment in the fridge does more for flavor and crust than any trick. It’s mostly waiting. Get the dough right and even an ordinary oven makes a good pie.
- Use a scale and bakers’ percentages. Cups don’t repeat.
- Around 60–65% hydration for a home oven; go wetter as the heat goes up.
- Cold ferment 24–72 hours.
- 00 or bread flour for chew.
02 · Heat
Get the oven as hot as it goes.
A pizzeria oven runs far hotter than yours. You make up some of the gap with a steel or stone preheated for a long time and the broiler on top. An outdoor oven closes the rest.
- A steel moves heat faster than a stone.
- Preheat 45–60 minutes at max, then broil the top.
- Outdoor ovens (Ooni, Gozney) get past 850° for 90-second Neapolitan bakes.
- Peel, a little semolina, and turn it once for even char.
03 · Sauce & cheese
Leave the sauce alone.
Good canned tomatoes, crushed, salted, not cooked. Pick low-moisture or fresh mozzarella depending on the style and use less than feels right.
- Crush San Marzano-style tomatoes raw. No simmering.
- Salt, no sugar, no dried herbs.
- Low-moisture mozz for New York style, fresh mozz for Neapolitan.
- Basil, olive oil, and hard cheese after it comes out.
04 · Gear
A steel, a peel, a scale.
You don’t need much. These are the few things that changed my pizza. The gear page links to them; those are affiliate links and they’re marked.
- Pizza steel or stone (the biggest upgrade)
- Launching peel, and a small turning peel if you get serious
- Digital scale
- Later, maybe: an outdoor pizza oven
If you buy one thing, make it a pizza steel. A launching peel is next. The rest is on the gear page. Or skip the cooking and check the ratings.