The toppings on a Margherita Pizza famously feature the colors of the Italian flag: red tomatoes, white mozzarella, and green basil. That’s all. It seems too simple – where’s the pepperoni? Yeah, but when the ingredients are at their peak, this simplest and freshest-tasting of combinations is something special; don’t be tempted to muck it up by adding meat or other vegetables, not even garlic or oregano or chili flakes. All it needs is a sprinkle of kosher salt and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.
The classic recipe for Margherita Pizza has no sauce, only fresh tomatoes, but I sometimes add a tiny bit of marinara sauce for even more tomato flavor – and I really mean a very little bit. This pizza has a lot of moisture in it already from those fresh tomatoes and that water-packed mozzarella cheese; add too much sauce and you run the risk of a soggy crust, which would be a crying shame. In the end I leave the decision about sauce up to you. The photo above shows a pizza with sauce, the one below has no sauce.
We’ll talk about how to protect the crust from sogginess in a minute, but let’s start with the crust itself.
John likes thin crust pizza. The thinnest of thin crusts is an art I’m still working on mastering. It’s easy to get the center of the circle thin, but getting it evenly thin all the way out to the edges without tearing it is hard. It helps to have a good stretchy dough (like the one I’m about to recommend) and some patience. I’ve experimented with numerous recipes for pizza crust and my favorite is this Lazy Pizza Dough from Smitten Kitchen. Deb Perelman borrowed from Jim Lahey, and I borrow from Deb, appreciating the flexibility she introduced by offering three variations, depending on how far in advance you want to start the dough. I almost always end up doing the half-day version – I plan to make it the night before, then I end up getting into bed, turning off the light, and saying to myself, crap I forgot to make the pizza dough.
(By the way, it’s just coincidence that Deb Perelman happened to attach her dough recipe to a recipe for Margherita Pizza. This is the dough I use for any kind of pizza. In her post, she goes in a different direction with the Margherita itself, using only sauce, no fresh tomatoes, and aged mozzarella cheese in place of fresh. Looks good, just different – I haven’t actually made her Margherita, I just use the dough.)
I prefer bread flour for pizza dough (although all-purpose will work), and occasionally I’ll use this fancy Artisan Bread Flour from King Arthur Flour if I have it on hand. I really do recommend making your own dough but if you want a shortcut, you can buy it. Most grocery stores sell balls of dough, usually in the deli section, and many pizza restaurants sell their dough, too. Just make sure to get the real thing (not the stuff that comes in a cardboard tube that you pop open by smacking it on the edge of the counter).
Here are my tips for avoiding a soggy crust with this or any other kind of pizza:
- Get the oven blazing hot (set it to 500 degrees and preheat it for 45 minutes).
- Bake the pizza on the lowest rack in the oven. Use a pizza stone or cast iron pizza griddle if you have one, and put it in the oven for the entire preheating time so it gets blazing hot, too.
- Reduce the sauce. Simmering the sauce down to a thick paste concentrates the flavor while eliminating excess moisture.
- Go easy on the toppings – less is more, no matter what kind of pizza you’re making.
- Remove as much water as you can from the toppings before you add them. For Margherita pizza, I usually use the drier plum (sauce variety) tomatoes – this time I had a glut of beefsteak tomatoes from my garden, so to make them less juicy, I squeezed the pulp and seeds out, leaving just the spoked wheels. For other kinds of pizzas, pre-cook and drain any watery vegetables, such as mushrooms, before adding them to the pizza.
- When you take the pizza out of the oven, immediately remove anything it’s been sitting on (pan or parchment) and let it sit directly on a rack so there’s air flow around it and no moisture condensing underneath the crust as it cools.
Making this ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- You know what to do with leftover pizza, right? (If you say, “eat it cold for breakfast”, I approve.) There’s really no bad way or bad time to eat pizza – hot and fresh out of the oven with melting cheese and crispy chewy crust is hard to beat, but leftovers are great too, hot or cold. I prefer reheating pizza in a 350-degree oven – rather than in the microwave which makes it soggy.
Margherita Pizza
Refer to the post for the link to my favorite pizza dough, or use your own recipe or store-bought dough.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup prepared pizza sauce or marinara sauce, optional
- 1 ball of pizza dough, 1 to 1½ pounds
- All-purpose flour
- 1 pound of fresh mozzarella, thickly sliced
- 12 ounces of tomatoes, preferably plum (sauce variety) tomatoes, but slicing tomatoes (such as beefsteak) will do
- Kosher salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons julienned fresh basil
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 500 degrees with racks in the lowest and highest positions, and (optional) a pizza stone or cast-iron pizza griddle on the bottom rack. Let the oven heat for 45 minutes, with the stone or cast-iron griddle in place, if you’re using it.
- Step 2 Reduce the sauce, if you’re using it. Put the sauce in a small saucepan over medium-high heat and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the sauce, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes, until the sauce is very thick and reduced by about half.
- Step 3 Divide the ball of pizza dough in half with a bench scraper or sharp knife. On a lightly floured board, work with the first half of the dough to gently push it outward from its center with your fingers, turning it constantly and adding more flour to the board if needed, to stretch the dough out to a thin circle about 12 inches in diameter. If you’re using a pizza stone, lay a sheet of parchment on a pizza peel or a large, rimless cookie sheet. Carefully drape the dough onto the parchment. If you’re not using a stone, you can still use the parchment-covered cookie sheet, or if you prefer, oil a pizza pan with olive oil, and arrange the dough on the pan.
- Step 4 Spread half of the sauce in a thin layer on the dough, if you’re using sauce, leaving about an inch bare around the edge. Arrange half of the mozzarella slices evenly over the top of the pizza.
- Step 5 Thickly slice the tomatoes into rounds. If you’re using juicy beefsteaks or other slicing tomatoes, push out the seedy, juicy pulp with your fingers, leaving the spoked wheels of the slices intact. Arrange the tomatoes over the pizza, tucking them in and among the mozzarella slices. Sprinkle the mozzarella and tomatoes with kosher salt, and drizzle the entire top of the pizza generously with olive oil.
- Step 6 Carefully slide the parchment with the pizza on it onto the stone or cast-iron griddle, or if you’re not using a stone, put the cookie sheet or the pizza pan into the oven on the bottom rack. Cook the pizza for 10 minutes, or until the bottom is browned, the crust is risen and puffy, and the cheese is melted and starting to brown. If the cheese isn’t browning as much as you’d like, once the bottom is done to your liking, carefully move the pizza to the top rack, and turn on the broiler for 3 minutes or so, watching carefully, until the cheese is browned in spots.
- Step 7 While the first pizza is baking, prepare the second one.
- Step 8 Remove the first pizza to a cooling rack, placing the pizza directly on the rack without the pan or parchment underneath. Sprinkle the hot pie with half of the basil. Let the pizza rest while the second one bakes.
- Step 9 When the second pizza comes out of the oven, sprinkle it with the remainder of the basil. While it rests on the cooling rack, move the first pizza to a board to slice it and start enjoying it while it’s hot.
