Learn this Quick and Easy Recipe now. When you’ve had the best pizza in Naples italy, it’s hard to go back. You know in the movie The Matrix when Neo is allowed to pick the blue and red pill, a choice between blissful ignorance or truth? Eating pizza in Naples, the place where pizza was invented, is like choosing the red pill. Once you’ve tasted Neapolitan pizza, you’ll never go back. Then you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to learn and recreate it at home! Luckily, we did that for you. Here are all our tips and tricks for the best homemade Neapolitan pizza, so you can enjoy it for a lifetime!
Most Neapolitan pizza recipes call for placing tomatoes right onto the dough. The San Marzano variety of tomato is a type of Italian tomato that is most often used on Neapolitan pizza. You can find canned San Marzano tomatoes in many grocery stores in the United States these days.
Neapolitan Pizza Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ball Best Homemade Pizza Dough
- ⅓ cup Easy Pizza Sauce
- 3 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese (or about ¾ cup shredded mozzarella)Kosher salt
- 2 basil leaves
- Semolina flour or cornmeal, for dusting the pizza peel
Instructions
- Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 500°F. OR preheat your pizza oven (here’s the pizza oven we have!)
- .Make the Homemade Pizza Sauce.
- Slice the mozzarella into ¼ inch thick pieces. If it’s incredibly watery fresh mozzarella (all brands vary), you may want to let it sit on a paper towel to remove moisture for about 15 minutes then dab the mozzarella with the paper towel to remove any additional moisture.
- When the oven is ready, stretch the dough into a circle; see How to Stretch Pizza Dough for instructions. Sprinkle a pizza peel with semolina flour or cornmeal, then carefully place the dough on top. Spread the pizza sauce across the dough. Top with mozzarella cheese. Taste a bite of the mozzarella cheese; if it does not taste salty, add a few pinches of kosher salt to the pizza.
- If you’re baking in a pizza oven, add the basil leaves. For baking in a standard oven, add the basil leaves after you bake (the leaves turn black in a standard oven).
- Transfer the pizza to the pizza stone on the pizza peel, then bake until the cheese is melted, about 7 minutes in the oven (or 1 minute in the pizza oven). Slice into pieces and serve immediately.
