Easy Neapolitan Pizza Dough Recipe

Neapolitan pizza has a thin crunchy outside, with a soft, airy middle that is thin at the base and puffs up around the edge. This recipe is the closest that you will get to a wood fire pizza while still being made in the oven. Your family and friends won’t believe that you made this at home.

As a child, Friday was the day of the week that I hated the most. Because Friday’s meant pizza day! This meant that while over half the class ate delicious pizza, I ate a stale bun with jam. And the worst part about the whole thing was that every week someone would ask me why I wasn’t having pizza. And every week I would tell them that I didn’t like that restaurant pizza and preferred homemade pizza. This, of course, was a lie and I would’ve given anything to have that delicious restaurant pizza, but my foster mother didn’t see the point in spending $2 for me to have 2 pieces of pizza when she could make a whole pizza for a few bucks more. I had had that pizza at birthday parties and knew very well that it was better than any homemade pizza that I had ever had, but I had to talk up my mom’s pizza with her ‘special’ homemade crust and homemade pizza sauce. We would spend days in the autumn harvesting the tomatoes and other vegetables from the garden and making numerous jars of sauce for her fresh homemade pizza. Sounds great, right? No. But after years of talking it up so much, I actually believed that my foster mother’s pizza was the best pizza.

And based on how I just described it, it seems believable. But it was not the best. It was well below average. But what I did like about her pizza was the whole experience. It wasn’t her typical frugal mennonite dish, and we didn’t get it very often so it was a treat. I remember her rolling out the pizza dough and spreading out all of the ingredients on it. And the smell of it baking in the oven. And then she would pull out the big round aluminum pizza pan out of the oven, you know, the one with the holes in it. But we couldn’t eat it right away. We would have to let it cool down for a bit. And the crust would be crunchy and then the tang of the pizza sauce would hit my mouth like a burst of amazingness and the gooey, stringy cheese would get stuck to my chin, and the school pizza just wasn’t the same.

Is it just me, or was the holey pizza pan a really popular kitchen item for the ’90s? Like I remember having conversations with other kids in my class about who’s mom made the best homemade pizza, and who baked their pizza on the holey pan. It was a big deal, and the other kids were jealous if your mom baked her pizza on the holey pan. So I just realized that we don’t actually own one of those, and I really need to get one. When we were cleaning out my foster mother’s apartment when she moved to the nursing home, we donated all of her pans to goodwill because I didn’t think that I had a use for a holey pizza pan, but now wish that I took it for nostalgic reasons. So I did some research and I found one similar to the one she used to own here. Do any of you readers actually use these pans? And do they even make a difference in your pizza?

Anyway, anyone who knows me, and reads my blog knows that farmer sausage is my most favorite food in the world. So when she would ask what type of pizza we wanted, I would always beg for farmer sausage pizza, not only because I love sausage, but because the other options weren’t great (but that’s another story for another post). And she was usually quick to comply because that meant that she didn’t have to spend extra money on deli meat as we always had a freezer full of homemade farmer sausage.

I have her original pizza recipe somewhere, and I am going to try to make it again. But it’s pretty crazy. Her recipe consists of everything from the crust to the toppings. I tried to make it a few years back but couldn’t decipher it as the recipe is half English, half low german, and written in her fancy cursive writing. I’m thinking it’s going to be how I remembered it, but not. You know, like baked french fries. How as a child baked french fries were so delicious and now from time to time you crave baked fries, and then when you make them as an adult, it still smells the same as when you were a kid and you get so excited to have those baked fries from your childhood, but then you actually eat them and realize that they’re either too hard or too soggy and bland and actually really gross? *side note, I just messaged my sisters, and they all agree that her pizza was in fact, terrible.

When I make pizza for my family, it is either this Neapolitan pizza or a thick crust deep dish pizza. My kids love both. But I prefer to make this one. It is so easy to make and tastes more amazing than any other homemade pizza that I’ve ever had in my life. And the great thing about this recipe is that you don’t have to spend 2 hours making and babysitting the dough. You literally set it and forget it. It is very similar to my No-Knead Artisan Bread recipe. But just a heads up, you need to make it about 2 days before you are going to actually make the pizzas.

First, you need to gather your ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast (I prefer quick rise yeast).

Mix 3 cups of flour, and 2 teaspoons of salt in a mixing bowl.

In a glass measuring cup, mix together 1 1/4 cup of warm water, and 1/4 teaspoon of yeast and let it sit until the yeast starts to foam.

Pour the yeast/water mixture into the flour/salt mixture.

Stir with a wooden spoon just until most of the flour is incorporated, making sure that there are no hard flour chunks on the outside of the dough.

Place your dough in a sealed container, and let it sit/proof for 12-24 hours, or until your dough has doubled in size. I put my containers in the oven with the light on as our house is quite cool in the winter. (I bought these specifically for bread/pizza dough making).

After your dough has doubled in size, scrape the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into two balls, which will make two 12-14” pizzas. Form dough into balls and put them into 2 different sealed containers. Put the containers back into the fridge for another 24-48 hours. At this time you can either make your pizzas, or put the dough balls in ziploc bags and freeze them. If you freeze them, make sure they are completely thawed in the fridge, and then let them sit on the counter for an hour or two before you use them.

Take the dough out of the fridge one to two hours before you make your pizzas.

Now you have your Neapolitan pizza dough, but you need to get that wood fire taste. If you have a pizza stone, place the stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 550 degrees Fahrenheit with the stone in there already for at least half an hour. I do not have a pizza stone, but I have a rectangular cookie sheet stone. So I placed the cookie sheet stone on the rack below where I will place my pizza (the stone remains in the oven during the entire cooking process as it helps make the bottom of the pizza crispy). *Note: this did work, but the pizza would turn out a lot better baked on an actually pizza stone

After the oven is done preheating, turn it to broil. Then stretch out (DO NOT ROLL) your dough into a circular shape, put your dough on a floured pizza peel (or an upside-down cookie sheet, or whatever you have on hand that will work). Apply your toppings and slide onto your pizza stone (while keeping the stone in the oven). Because I don’t have a pizza stone, I placed my dough onto a sprayed pizza pan and put on the toppings. I find that with this type of pizza, it’s better to not load on the toppings.

Bake for about 6-8 minutes or until the crust is golden and charred in spots. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack for a few minutes before you cut it.