How to Create Restaurant-Quality Pizza at Home

Hello there, pizza enthusiasts! Are you ready to bring your favourite pizzeria right into your own kitchen? You’d be surprised how satisfying it is to craft your own pizza, serve it up to family and friends, and watch their eyes light up with that first bite. All you need are a few good-quality ingredients, basic(ish) equipment, and some good preparation to craft restaurant-quality pies at home. We’ve created this guide as your foundation, from which you can experiment to find your personal pizza-making style.

Equipment

A few essentials to turn your kitchen outdoor area into your own pizzeria:

• An outdoor pizza oven like an Ooni is ideal but a pizza steel or stone works great in a home oven
• A pizza peel for launching your pizza into the oven
• A ladle for spreading your sauce smoothly
• A pizza cutter or a large kitchen knife for those perfect slices
• A wooden board for both prep and serving
• An infrared thermometer (optional) can be a very handy tool to have on hand

Pizza Ingredients

Remember, your pizza is only as good as your ingredients. Your base ingredients should be high-quality. Consider the following:

• High-protein flour (above 12%) like Italian 00 or 0 flour. If unavailable, high-protein bread flour works fine
• Quality canned tomatoes, San Marzano DOP or Mutti Polpa are our go-to’s for the sauce
• Cheeses like fresh mozzarella, low-moisture mozzarella, and grana padano. Stay away from pre-grated cheeses as these are usually coated to prevent clumping, which can impact flavour and meltability
• Fresh and/or dried herbs like basil and oregano add a touch of aromatic elegance and flavour
• A drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil, pre and/or post bake, ties everything together

Pizza Dough

The soul of your pizza is in the dough, and we suggest a longer fermentation period for a taste and texture that truly stands out. A room temperature proof of around 16-24 hours, or a cold temp fermentation of around 48-72 hours, is ideal. It’s a touch longer than a lot of recipes online, but the depth of flavor and the chewy, crunchy texture is absolutely next level.

Pizza Toppings

When it comes to toppings, remember the golden rule: less is more. Avoid overloading your pizza to ensure even cooking and harmonious flavors. Allow your ingredients to stand out and complement one another.

Pizza Oven Essentials

An outdoor pizza oven like an Ooni reaches professional pizzeria temperatures, yielding that gorgeous, puffy cornicione, maybe together with coveted leopard spotting. If this is out of your budget, a pizza stone or a pizza steel in your home oven is a great, cost-effective alternative. They retain and distribute heat evenly, helping achieve a perfectly cooked crust.

Cooking Method

Now, let’s get to the heart of pizza-making.

• Follow any of our dough recipes. All of our dough recipes follow a long fermentation method and work very well most pizza styles
• Prepare the sauce, we recommend our standard pizza sauce. It’s simple and versatile
• Fire up your oven. For an outdoor oven like an Ooni, aim for a temperature of 450-500°C in the center of your pizza stone, this should take around 25 – 30 minutes on full flame. Use an infrared thermometer if you have one on hand. For a home oven, set the temperature to max, insert your pizza stone or steel for at least 30 minutes before baking
• Stretch out the dough, place it on a lightly floured pizza peel
• Assembly time – start by ladling the sauce onto the dough and spreading it in a circular motion from the center. Next, evenly distribute the cheese over the sauce, but remember not to overdo it! Sprinkle dried or fresh herbs over the cheese – if you prefer, you can add these after baking, but we find that baking them enhances their aroma and flavor. Top with any additional ingredients you like. Finally, give your pizza a finishing touch with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
• For an outdoor pizza oven, launch the pizza into the oven and bake for 60-90 seconds. Keep an eye on the pie and rotate every 10-15 seconds to ensure even cooking and to avoid burning. For a home oven with a pizza steel or stone, the bake time should be around 7-10 minutes.

Mastering the art of pizza-making at home is a journey, one filled with delicious experiments and little victories as well as setbacks. With a few simple principles outlined above as your foundation, you’re well on your way to creating restaurant-quality pizzas right in your own kitchen. Embrace the process, be creative and remember, even mishaps are just tasty learning opportunities. You’re going to tear a few doughs and mess up a few launches, of course, this is all part of the fun!

As you become more comfortable with the process, start to incorporate your own twists and variations. Experiment with different cheeses and cheese blends, play around with different herbs and spices and try new and unusual topping and flavour combinations; we’re firm believers that with the right balance and preparation, just about anything works on a pizza. When it comes to pizza making there’s no definitive right or wrong, just a wide world of delicious possibilities to explore!

Finally, remember to share the love (and the pizza!). Whether it’s a family dinner, a casual gathering with friends, or just a self-indulgent night in, there’s nothing quite like the joy of biting into a slice of homemade pizza. From scratch to oven, you’ve crafted it, and now it’s time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

So, go forth and bake, budding pizza maestros! Your pizzeria-quality pizza at home awaits you. Happy pizza-making!