Neapolitan Margherita Pizza Recipe
AVPN approved recipe for Neapolitan Margherita pizza
Equipment
- 1 Wood-burning pizza oven AVPN says this is required, but use what you've got!
Ingredients
- 1 Pizza Dough ball (7 oz makes 1x 10" personal, 10 oz makes 1x 12" pizza) (Refer to our recipe for making AVPN Neapolitan dough)
- 3 Tbsp Flour (AP is good but any flour will be fine for this)
- ⅓ Cups Tomato sauce (Refer to our recipe for making your own sauce from canned tomatoes or try Mutti brand sauce)
- 2 Tbps Parmesan cheese (optional)
- 2.5 Ounces Fresh mozzarella (approximately one ball) Cow or buffalo milk cheese
- 1 Tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil (optional)
- 1 Ounce Basil Hand-torn
Instructions
- Preheat your pizza oven to ideally about 900°F.
- If you are using a pre-made dough ball, give it at least 30 minutes to come to room temperature.
- Put 2 tablespoons of flour on your work surface
- Begin stretching your pizza dough on your work surface. With 8 ounces of pizza dough, you should be able to make an 11" to 12" pizza, depending on the dough. True Neapolitan pizza will leave about a half inch outer ring slightly taller than the center.
- Put 1 tablespoon of flour on your pizza peel (so the dough will not stick when launched into the oven).
- Remove your mozzarella from the water, dry with a paper towel, and chop into slices (buffalo milk) or strips (cow milk).
- Check your pizza oven temperature. Add more wood if necessary. Do not proceed to the next step if your oven is not ready.
- Transfer your dough to the pizza peel.
- You will want to quickly apply your toppings and get the pizza into the oven before the dough sticks to the peel.
- Apply the tomato sauce to the center of the pizza. Use a spoon to spread the sauce out from the center in a spiral pattern but keeping the sauce off of the outer ring.
- Distribute the mozzarella cheese evenly over the pizza.
- If you are going to add parmesan cheese, sprinkle it over now.
- Drizzle the olive oil over the pizza.
- Check the pizza oven temperature again. If you have an infrared thermometer, check for the hottest part of the pizza stone.
- Launch the pizza into the oven on the hottest part of the stone without being in the flames.
- Before rotating the pizza, make sure that Rotate the pizza one quarter turn every 45 seconds. Generally, the pizza will be done in 6 minutes or less. So watch it closely!
- Remove the pizza from the oven and let it rest for about 3 minutes.
- Cut and serve immediately.
Notes
Conventional Oven option:
- If you are going to cook this in a conventional oven, you'll want the highest temperature you can get the oven to.
- If you have a pizza stone (or pizza steel), that's going to help a lot in getting the most authentic crust. If not, a pizza pan (or cookie sheet) will still turn out a great pizza.
- You can either start the pizza on a pan (or cookie sheet) and transfer it to the stone after about 10 minutes (when the crust is firm enough to be safely transferred). At this point, turn off the oven and let the pizza cook on the stone for another 5 minutes. Remove and let rest on a cutting board for another 5 minutes before cutting and serving.
- Alternatively, you can start by launching the pizza directly to the pizza stone in your oven. This is more tricky and you might want to practice with some dough with no toppings!
Nutrition
Calories: 1111kcalCarbohydrates: 131gProtein: 48gFat: 45gSaturated Fat: 18gPolyunsaturated Fat: 4gMonounsaturated Fat: 17gCholesterol: 76mgSodium: 2850mgPotassium: 371mgFiber: 5gSugar: 17gVitamin A: 2471IUVitamin C: 9mgCalcium: 770mgIron: 8mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!