New Haven Apizza Recipe

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Continuing my exploration of pizzas in the Northeast US, I discovered another of the most unique pizzas, which isn’t actually called pizza. This New Haven Apizza recipe tackles some distinctive differences from its peers, and I will do my best to translate it into something you and I can make at home.

New Haven Apizza Recipe

It won’t be easy! One of the hallmarks of New Haven-style recipes is that they’re cooked with coal! But let’s get down to business and discover Connecticut’s Apizza!

Connecting to Connecticut

To truly appreciate New Haven Apizza, we must understand its roots and how it has evolved from another pizza. The story of this iconic pizza style dates back to the early 20th century when Italian immigrants settled in New Haven and brought their culinary traditions with them. New Haven-style Apizza doesn’t appear to come from New York but rather directly from Naples, Italy, and the classic Neapolitan-style pizza.

Frank Pepe’s Apizza

The name that stands out in the history of New Haven Apizza is that of Frank Pepe, who is generally credited as the father of the New Haven Apizza recipe. Born in the foothills of Maori, Italy, in 1893, Frank Pepe immigrated to the United States in 1909 through Ellis Island with no money and unable to speak English – but the desire to work hard and achieve the American dream.

Eventually, after marrying his wife and partner Filomena in 1919, the Pepe’s opened their pizzeria in New Haven in 1925. His original pizzeria, known as “Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana” or simply “Pepe’s,” still stands strong (and even bigger) today, now run by his descendants.

Sally’s Apizza

Speaking of descendants, Frank Pepe’s nephew Salvatore Consiglio (nicknamed Sally) and his wife Flo founded Sally’s Apizza in 1938, which is still very popular today!

Modern Apizza

So I’m sure you are thinking this third one on the list was going to be a young upstart Apizza joint. Well, to Pepe, I’m sure it was. But Modern Apizza was founded in 1934 by Antonio “Tony Apizza” Tolli. At that time it was called Tony’s Apizza.

In 1942, Tony moved into a second location, leaving the old location in the hands of his protege, Nick Nuzzo. In 1944, Louis Persano (who learned his craft from Frank Pepe) took over the second location and renamed it Modern Apizza. In 1952, Persano sold the business to Nick Nuzzo, who kept the name Modern Apizza. Nick owned Modern until 1988 when he sold it to William “Billy” Pustari and his wife.

The Holy Trinity

Most connoisseurs consider Pepe’s, Sally’s, and Modern pizzerias in New Haven the Holy Trinity of Apizza!

What’s This “Apizza”?

One of the quintessential characteristics of New Haven-style Apizza actually has nothing to do with the pizza itself. It’s simply the local pronunciation!

New Haven-style Apizza is generally always spelled “apizza,” but the word is supposed to be pronounced “ah-beets” (feel free to use some Italian hand gestures while saying it!).

You pronounce it "Ah-beets"!

So, What Else is Distinctive About a New Haven Pizza Recipe?

Regardless of how you say it, one thing is clear – a New Haven pizza recipe is distinctive from almost every other pizza and, therefore, has a flavor all its own.

The most unique element is that Apizza is cooked with coal. Not charcoal – actual fossil-fuel coal.

Coal - actual coal.
R.Tsubin / Getty Images

And that, my friend, is where we hit the most challenging roadblock.

Cooking New Haven Style Pizza: Coal-Fired Oven

Traditional New Haven style pizza is still cooked today in a coal-fired oven. This method creates a crispy and charred crust. The smoke of the coal also infuses itself into the crust while adding a touch of bitter flavor.

Can I Cook Apizza Using Coal At Home?

Unless you actually have a coal-fired oven that you could fit a Apizza in, the answer is that you probably can’t—or at least shouldn’t.

First off, if you didn’t know or suspect it already, the use of coal has been linked to lung cancer risk.

CANCER IS BAD! = NO COAL

And you certainly don’t want to put coal into your conventional oven – coal will heat up well past the maximum temperature of your oven.

And, even if a Solo Stove Pi or an Ooni pizza oven can handle the same 800°F to 900°F that you’d get from coal, both companies do not recommend using any fuel except what your oven is designed for.

If you happen to have a classic dome brick oven, you could, in fact, use coal. However, you should still consider the environmental and health impacts of burning coal to cook your food. Several pizzerias in New Haven have switched to gas for these reasons (Frank Pepe’s and Sally’s still use coal, while Modern now uses oil-fueled ovens).

New Haven Style Apizza at Home

Just because you can’t use coal doesn’t mean you can’t make a New Haven-style Apizza recipe at home!

As mentioned, a Solo Stove Pi or an Ooni (among other home pizza ovens) certainly can get to that same very high temperature! And if you use wood, you’ll still impart a little of that smokiness too.

New Haven apizza in the Solo Stove

And as anyone with a home pizza oven will tell you, charring the top is not hard!

Ingredients that Define New Haven Apizza

New Haven Style Pizza Dough: A Thin, Charred Crust

The crust is a crucial element of any pizza, and New Haven Apizza is no exception. To create its distinctive thin and crispy crust, New Haven pizza dough typically uses high-quality, high-protein bread flour. The flour’s high protein content (12% to 14%) contributes to the dough’s chewiness and structure, allowing it to hold up well to the high temperatures of coal-fired ovens and the quick cooking process.

Frank Pepe started as a baker, and the New Haven Apizza dough recipe he created uses wetter dough that ferments a little longer than normal, allowing it to acquire a richer flavor.

The resulting crust is thin, crisp, and perfectly charred in coal-fired brick ovens. This charred quality gives the Apizza a smoky, slightly bitter flavor that differentiates it from other styles.

Apizza Toppings

Traditional New Haven Apizzas are often topped with only a few ingredients. This allows the crust and sauce to shine. Popular toppings follow much of the same found on Neapolitan pizza, including mozzarella cheese, grated Pecorino Romano cheese, garlic, and fresh basil – and sometimes a double helping of pepperoni (sometimes called a “doppio”). Frank Pepe’s “original” is crushed Italian tomatoes, grated Pecorino Romano & olive oil.

New Haven Apizza Tomato Sauce:

New Haven Apizza is generally known for its tomato sauce, which is typically made from simple, high-quality ingredients – crushed tomatoes, oregano, and a generous pinch of salt. In some sauce recipes, garlic and/or olive oil are added. The sauce is applied sparingly to allow the other flavors to shine.

To make New Haven Apizza tomato sauce, use a can of whole steamed tomatoes and, if they are in season, maybe one fresh one, and hand crush them into a bowl. Pull the tomatoes out of the can one by one rather than dumping them into the bowl to keep the sauce from being too runny. Stir in the salt and oregano. That’s it! No cooking!

Hand crushing tomatoes
Don’t be fooled – just because I used a pot in this picture, don’t cook the sauce!

A simple alternative that’s still quite delicious is using Mutti’s pre-made tomato sauce and adding a generous oregano pinch. While all of them are good, I really like the Sal Campo. And if a Cost Plus World Market is near you, they are often a really good price!

Mutti Pizza Sauces

The Apizza White

While tomato-based pies are iconic, many New Haven Apizza aficionados will choose the “apizza white” – an Apizza without tomato sauce (much like the Italian Pizza Biancas). It features olive oil, garlic, herbs, cheeses, and various toppings. Several white Apizzas cover the entire Apizza in grated mozzarella cheese onto the crust, but some are more minimalist in how much cheese is used.

There’s also the unique choice of the Clams Casino Pizza. This New Haven specialty combines fresh clams, bacon, green peppers, and onions atop a white pie. The combination of flavors is both unique and utterly delicious.

We’ll cover these options in other recipe posts soon!

New Haven Style Pizza Dough Recipe

Despite digging around, I haven’t found an official recipe from any of the Holy Trinity restaurants! What I have found is that every New Haven style pizza dough recipe stretches their dough super-thin which can make it quite fragile, so using high-protein flour will be important for getting this right. One option I’ve seen in some recipes is General Mills Full-Strength Flour, which is 12.6%, and bromated, which is a “flour improver,” however, it is considered carcinogenic. That (and the fact that this flour appears to only be available in 50 lb. bags) is sufficient reason for us to use something else!

So instead, we use our favorite flour for almost all American pizza styles: Tony Gemignani flour, the award-winning pizzaiolo’s artisan blend made by Central Milling. Central Milling does not bromate its flour (which is good), so its 15% protein content makes for an incredibly strong dough without the cancer risk!

What We Recommend for a New Haven Pizza Dough Recipe

I’ve found Tony Gemignani‘s Master Dough Recipe to be an excellent choice as a New Haven pizza dough recipe (and it’s probably no surprise that this is the recipe he uses too, per his book The Pizza Bible). So, I’m going to point you there for the dough recipe.

Stretching NY Pizza dough

How to Cook New Haven-Style Apizza At Home

  1. Preheat your oven as hot as it will go.
    • If you’re using an indoor oven, that’s ideally around 550°F. If you have a pizza stone, place it in the oven to preheat.
    • If you have an outdoor pizza oven, most can reach above 900°F, which is about the same temperature a coal oven would reach. However, the Tony Gemignani Master Dough recipe seems to work better a little cooler—I recommend 600°F to 650°F.
  2. To make your tomato sauce, mix the crushed tomatoes, minced garlic, dried oregano, salt, and pepper in a small bowl.
  3. Roll out your Apizza dough into a thin, round shape.
    • If you are cooking indoors, you should transfer the Apizza dough to a flat baking sheet.
    • If cooking outdoors, transfer your dough to a floured pizza peel.
  4. Drizzle olive oil over the Apizza dough.
  5. Spread the tomato sauce evenly, leaving a border for the crust.
  6. Sprinkle a generous amount of shredded mozzarella cheese over the sauce, followed by the grated Pecorino Romano cheese.
  7. Add your choice of toppings.
    • For a classic New Haven Apizza, you can stick to basics like fresh basil leaves.
    • Add fresh clams and bacon if you want to venture into Clams Casino territory.
  8. Transfer the Apizza to your preheated oven.
    • If cooking indoors, place the baking sheet in the oven. Bake for about 7 minutes, then rotate the Apizza in the oven. Continue cooking until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is bubbly and slightly charred, which will take another 6 to 7 minutes.
    • If cooking outdoors, launch the Apizza from the peel into the oven. It will cook very fast. It should be rotated a quarter turn about every 20 seconds. Depending on the exact temperature, this Apizza will probably take 5-6 minutes to cook.
  9. Once out of the oven, scatter fresh basil leaves on top and drizzle more olive oil if desired.
  10. Slice and serve immediately to savor the deliciousness of homemade New Haven Apizza.

Tips and Tricks for New Haven-Style APizza

  • Although a pizza oven’s very high temperature allows the use of Neapolitan-style 00 flour, I still recommend using a high-protein flour and generally prefer the Tony Gemignani Flour.
  • If you really want to go to a super-high temperature with Neapolitan-style flour, I suggest trying Central Milling’s Organic Reinforced flour. This flour does an amazing job of being structurally tough!
  • Stretch or roll out your dough as thin as possible.
  • Go easy on the tomato sauce. Or, go Apizza white and use just olive oil and seasoning!
  • Charring of the crust is a signature of this recipe – but that doesn’t mean burnt. Watch your Apizza very closely while it cooks.
New Haven Apizza Recipe

New Haven Style Apizza Recipe

Todd Mitchell
This New Haven Style pizza recipe captures the essence of the New Haven Style Apizza made at home.
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Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 14 minutes
warming the dough to room temperature 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 24 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American, Italian
Servings 2 people
Calories 854 kcal

Equipment

  • 1 Stand Mixer Optional
  • 1 Dough Scraper (Or spatula)
  • 1 Pizza Screen For cooking in an indoor oven
  • 1 Pizza Peel For cooking in an outdoor oven
  • 1 Deep bowl

Ingredients
  

  • 12 ounces pizza dough ball (recommend Tony Gemignani's  Master Dough Recipe)
  • 6 ounces low moisture mozzarella cheese
  • 3 ounces prosciutto (optional)

New Haven Red Apizza Sauce

  • ½ cup canned San Marzano crushed tomatoes I recommend Mutti, which you can probably find in most grocery stores
  • ¼ cup tomatoes fresh, if in season
  • 1 pinch sea salt generous
  • ½ teaspoon dried oregano

Instructions
 

Preparation

  • Remove the pizza dough from the fridge and let warm in the sealed container at room temperature until ~60°F.
  • At this time, preheat your pizza oven.

Prepare the Apizza Sauce

  • Open the can of tomatoes and pull the tomatoes out one by one (be careful not to cut your hand on the can edges.
  • In a large bowl, hand crush the canned and fresh tomatoes with your fingers and palm pointing down. To reduce splashing, cover the bowl and your hand with a cloth.
  • Add the sea salt and oregano.
  • Stir well and set aside.

Prepare the Apizza

  • Dust your work area and also your pizza peel with your pizza flour.
    Floured pizza peel
  • If there are large air bubbles in the dough, pinch them with your fingers to pop them.
    Pinch the air bubbles in the dough
  • Using your fingers or a dough cutter, lift the dough ball away from the bottom of the container. If the dough is very sticky, I generally dust my hands in flour and gently lift it with my fingers.
    Tony Gemignani Flour 37
  • Transfer your dough to the dusted work surface as gently as possible – try hard not to distort the shape.

Stretch the Dough: Tony Gemignani's Method

  • Dust your hands with the same flour used to make the dough ball (or bread flour).
  • Press your hands into the center of the dough trying to leave about an inch ring around the outside. You want to make an impression in the center but leave a 3/4″ lip.
    Use your hands to begin stretching the dough.
  • Flip the dough between your hands:
    – Lay the dough across the open palm of one hand.
    – Gently flip it onto the open palm of the other hand.
    – Rotate the dough a little and repeat “a few more times”. I think 6 is as high as you should go!
    – The more gently you do this step, the more tender the final crust will be.
    Tossing the dough between your hands
  • Stretch the dough by draping it over your hands and rotating:
    – Drape the dough over your two loosely clenched fists with your fingers facing each other.
    – Move your fists apart a little (maybe 1″) and toss the dough up with both fists to turn it slightly.
    – You’re NOT THROWING the dough in the air like on TV! Just an inch in the air so that it will turn.
    Stretching NY Pizza dough
  • When the dough is thin enough to see light through it, you’ve stretched it enough. The Apizza disk is probably about 12″ in diameter. If you use a screen or pan, you can likely get this pizza up to 13" in diameter. But don't compress the outer edge to do this.
    Final pizza dough is 12" to 13" in diameter

Cook the Pizza: Outdoor Oven

  • Ensure your pizza oven is between 600°F to 650°F.
    Pizza oven should be between 600 and 650 F
  • Gently transfer to the pizza peel, which has been dusted with flour.
  • Top with the Apizza sauce.
  • Add your toppings.
    New Haven toppings
  • Launch the Apizza into the oven.
  • The Apizza will take 5-6 minutes to cook, but monitor throughout. Rotate a quarter turn 4 times.
    New Haven apizza in the Solo Stove
  • Remove the Apizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board.
    New Haven Apizza

Cook the Apizza: Indoor Oven

  • Ensure your Apizza oven is between 500°F to 550°F.
  • Oil the bottom of the Apizza with olive oil. Using a basting brush to spread the oil over the dough.
    Use a basting brush to spread olive oil over the bottom of the pizza before flipping it onto the pizza screen.
  • Flip and transfer the dough oil-side-down to a pizza screen or pizza pan.
  • Gently lift and tug the edges of the Apizza dough to shape the dough to be round on the screen/pan. Be careful not to tear the dough!
    Final pizza dough is 12" to 13" in diameter
  • Top with the Apizza sauce.
    Spread the sauce over the pizza.
  • Add your toppings.
  • Place the Apizza into the oven.
  • Cook the Apizza for 7 minutes and rotate 180°. If you keep a pizza stone in your oven, use a spatula to slide the Apizza onto the pizza stone to finish.
  • Cook for an additional 7 minutes until the cheese is golden brown. If the cheese browns very quickly, turn off the oven but let the Apizza finish inside with the oven off.
  • Remove the Apizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board.
  • Rest for 3 minutes before cutting and eat immediately.
    New Haven Apizza

Nutrition

Serving: 9ouncesCalories: 854kcalCarbohydrates: 87gProtein: 39gFat: 40gSaturated Fat: 17gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 11gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 83mgSodium: 2.126mgPotassium: 233mgFiber: 3gSugar: 13gVitamin A: 694IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 601mgIron: 5mg
Keyword Pizza Dough
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

New Haven Apizza Recipe

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