"It was pizza night, and at the grocery store, Frost headed straight for Humboldt Fog cheese and prosciutto. Then she said, “I think our pizza would be good with pickles.” Her finale? Chick-fil-A sauce. She wanted a stinky goat cheese, pickle, and pig pizza that she could dip. “You’re a monster,” I told her. “I love you.” Like Frost, I ask myself, what can I do to make a pizza sing? I always have extra sauce and dough in the freezer, so the components that take the longest are already on deck. To ramp up the dough’s flavor, I swap the water for a cold-infused ancho chile stock. But you can infuse it with any fruit or veg that contains sugars to feed the yeast. Forget the pizza peel. It’s easier to use a sheet pan set right on top of the pizza stone. With toppings, I make sure every bite incorporates sweet, spicy, meaty, and fresh things. The honey is optional; use it if you want."—

Date, Sopressata, Arugula, and Smoked Gouda Pizza

Tomato Pie, often referred to somewhat degradingly as “pizza 

 cheese,” is so much more than that. It helps, I think, to imagine it rather as focaccia 

 sauce—a bonus! Popular in Italian bakeries throughout the Northeast and parts of Canada, but namely associated with Philadelphia, Utica, NY, and Rhode Island, the tomato pie is said to have been invented as a way for these bakeries to turn extra bread dough into a value-added product. You’ll typically find the snack sitting alluringly near the register. It is for this reason that tomato pie is meant to be eaten at room temperature.

Italian Tomato Pie

Salad pizza can be found on many pizzeria menus. This elevated version includes a grilled pizza dough, topped with sweet, creamy 

 and a peppery arugula salad tossed with prosciutto for some salt and cherries for complementing sweetness. The dough recipe yields enough for two pizzas, so you can reserve one for a different use, or double the pizza recipe to create two 12-inch pizzas.

Burrata Pizza With Prosciutto, Cherries & Arugula

Here is my recipe for a favorite early 2000's school snack (or late night meal); ranchy pizza pockets with homemade marinara. I use store-bought pizza dough and ranch powder to make them as quick and easy as possible, and serve both ranch and marinara on the side for dipping. I roll out the pizza dough into eight rectangles, fill them with marinara, mozzarella cheese, peperoni, and brush a generous amount of ranch butter on top for extra flavor. The assembly process does require a little patience, but it’s well worth it. 

To up the ante on these, make homemade pizza dough and ranch seasoning. 

If the pizza dough springs back on itself too much while rolling it out, let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes to allow the gluten to relax. 


Ranchy Pizza Pockets

This pizza was inspired by one of my favorites at Folino's Pizza in Burlington, Vermont. My version of their Fire Kracker Shrimp Pizza consists of a homemade, no-knead Neapolitan pizza crust, and is topped with vegan pesto, arugula, spicy marinated shrimp, red onion, and is finished off with simple garlic aioli. It’s entirely dairy-free, and although you can certainly add cheese if you want, you won't miss it. 

The no-knead Neapolitan pizza dough is incredibly easy to make. All you have to do is mix the ingredients together with a wooden spoon, then do a set of rises and folds. I chose to use a high-hydration dough which I find is easier to shape and leads to a more tender crust, but feel free to play around with it. My proportions were 100% flour to 80% water, and although you could decrease it to 75% or 65%, I urge you to trust the process and stick with the higher ratio. 

The dough can be made in advance and frozen for up to 3 months. To use, simply let it come to room temperature. 

If you choose to refrigerate the pizza dough overnight, let them sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour in order to relax the gluten. 

This recipe can easily be doubled; to do this, just make sure to double the pizza dough recipe and divide it into four equal portions. 

If adding cheese, sprinkle grated mozzarella over the pesto before adding the arugula, shrimp, and red onion. 

If you don’t have a pizza stone, use an inverted baking sheet instead. Preheat it in the oven as you would the pizza stone.

Spicy Shrimp & Pesto Pizza

One Saturday morning in a hockey rink in Rochester, New York, I bumped into a dear high school friend and his father, Mr. Paolini. As if no time had passed, we hugged, laughed, snapped photos, and, because I’m a softy, I also cried. Just a little. The next day, Mr. Paolini, hockey fan that he is, came to my daughter’s game and brought us treats for our long car ride home: a loaf of bread from a favorite local bakery, a few clementines, and individual breakfast pizzas, which I devoured immediately. What I loved about those breakfast pizzas was the egg topping. I had only ever seen eggs on pizza with yolks still intact, but these eggs were beaten and spread over the dough, making the pizza a little easier to shimmy into the oven. I love this particular combination of eggs, sausage, pickled peppers, and Gruyère cheese, but you can adapt the formula to your tastes and preferences: Use any cheese or pickled chiles you like and swap in bacon (parcooked) for the sausage or omit the meat all together. 

Breakfast Pizza With Sausage, Egg & Pickled Banana Peppers 

If you live in a humid environment or are new to pizza making, start with 425 grams of water. The dough may feel dry immediately after mixing, but as the dough rises, the flour will continue to hydrate, and when you turn out the dough to portion it, it will feel much wetter and stickier. If you are an experienced pizza maker and don’t mind working with a higher hydration dough, you can use 450 grams of water to start. 


Neapolitanish Pizza Dough From 'Pizza Night'

The key to a great homemade pizza (made in a hot pizza oven) is not to use too much sauce, as it can make your pizza soggy or hard to handle. I like to start with a little olive oil and salt, or a red marinara sauce. Then add your favorite toppings and freshly shredded cheeses. 

A traditional Margherita is always my first pick; fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella with a little sea salt on top. But four cheese is a crowd-pleaser. I like to have Gruyère, fontina, mozzarella, goat cheese, and (always) freshly grated Parmesan on hand. Realistically, as long as you have some fresh veggies, you can make a great pizza! Sliced tomatoes, olives, squash, zucchini, mushrooms, sliced green onion, and arugula are some of my favorite options. 

My girls like to make a pizza with *all* of the cheeses, then as soon as it comes out of the oven, I drizzle with good olive oil and sprinkle on some sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and shaved Parmesan or Asiago cheese. I like to add arugula to it after it comes out hot, too (this avoids having the greenery wilt in the oven). For something a little different: Parboil some potatoes. Slice them super thin and put them on the pizza with sliced green onion and crumbled bacon. Before you put in the oven, crack a raw egg in the middle for good measure. Sautéed sausage, caramelized yellow onions, and sautéed mushrooms are great options to have on hand as well.

The Five Marys Pizza Party

If you aren’t one for breaking out the thermometer to check the water temperature for the dough, just put the very tip of your finger in the warm water, if it begins to burn after a few seconds, it’s too hot, but if it’s not warm to the touch, it’s not quite warm enough. You want to make sure you start off with the correct water temperature, or else the yeast will not bloom, and you will have to start over.

Homemade Pizza Dough

The crux of this crust is squeezing out all the water from the cooked, riced cauliflower. And there is a lot of water. Wring it until you're sure there's no more moisture—then wring some more. I use all eggs—and no cheese—a technique adapted from "The Food Therapist" by Shira Lenchewski. Homemade or jarred tomato sauce both work. Just make sure to cook it down until slightly jammy. Toppings, from pepperoni and black olives to mushrooms and garlic, are also welcome. 

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Roasted cauliflower is paired with dates, prosciutto, and Fontina Val D’Aosta cheese in this aromatic fall pizza. Both nutty and mild, fontina makes the perfect foil to the sweet and savory flavors in this pie. The crust is made from a simple yeasted dough that’s ideal for beginner pizza makers—and with a rise time of just two hours, it’s one that can easily be made the same day you plan to fire up your Ooni Karu 16 Multi-Fuel Pizza Oven. The Ooni Karu 16 may be compact, but it’s powerful! This multi-fuel oven can reach 950°F in just 15 minutes using wood, charcoal, or gas as fuel. When it’s time to cook, keep a close eye on your pie because when the oven is at temperature, your pizza will be ready in under 3 minutes. 

Roasted Cauliflower, Date & Prosciutto Pizza From Lidey Heuck

It’s more than possible to make a tasty gluten free pizza dough. You can opt to let the dough rest overnight after its initial rise; it will keep, wrapped well, up to 48 hours in the refrigerator. This dough has a tendency to feel stickier to the touch than a typical dough (handle it with lightly oiled or damp hands when shaping). Remember it also lacks some of the structure of a glutinous dough, so when you shape the dough, it’s more about pressing it out than it is stretching it. 

In college, my favorite pizza place served a famous “Salad Pizza” that everyone loved. I do my own version sometimes now, baking the crust entirely on its own, then topping it with loads of my favorite salad (think: the side salad at your favorite Italian restaurant vibes). 

Salad Pizza With Gluten-Free Dough

Pizza Muffins

This focaccia is inspired by the “pizza” focaccia I worship from Liguria Bakery. The one that's topped with tomato sauce and chopped green onions, and despite its name, lacks cheese of any kind. When I moved to New York nine years ago, I felt its loss keenly, thinking of it sometimes twice a day. This version is my attempt to pay homage. To that thin layer of jammy tomato sauce across its top that lends it an almost doughy texture that, when coupled with the crunch of the crisp bottom and the uniquely tight, yet light crumb of the interior, makes for the world's most perfect bite. To heavy-handed scallion application that infuses it with an indispensable savoriness that's at once gentle and intense. It's impossible for me to see bakery twine and not crave it. You wouldn't be doing anyone a disservice by topping this, warm from the oven, with a big spoonful of ricotta.

"Pizza" Focaccia with Tomato Sauce & Green Onion

I’ve been making sourdough pizza from home for years. It’s an easygoing dough where you can mix the dough on day one, then make pizza the next day (and even a few days after that, pulling one or two dough balls out of the fridge for several days in a row). Pizza is probably the perfect food, and I like to think it’s appropriate for any day and mood. Though I typically just use type 00, in this variation, I went for whole-wheat pizza dough, bumping up the whole-wheat percentage in the dough for a sturdier, chewier pizza. At half whole-wheat, this makes for a super flavorful and nutritious pizza crust that can handle any toppings you’d like to throw at it. Coupled with the long, natural fermentation when using a sourdough starter, I find this pizza is just as flavorful with a simple tomato topping situation as it is with a thick smattering of cheese and pepperoni. To get a well-baked bottom crust, be sure to heat your oven and baking surface (my preference is to use a baking steel) for a full hour before baking. To make shaping and transferring the pizza to the oven effortless, I like to lay the stretched pizza dough on a piece of parchment paper before topping, then slide that right onto the heated surface. For some toppings inspiration, check out Food52’s 

Whole-Wheat Sourdough Pizza Dough

 poll winners were homemade dough, butternut squash, mozzarella, maple syrup, and baking. I knew exactly what I was going to make: your new favorite pizza. One of my objectives was to highlight the butternut squash’s flavor, instead of masking it into something like faux pepperoni or bacon. So I kept it simple with maple syrup, black pepper, coriander, cayenne, and enough salt to contrast all the sweetness. Roast until deeply browned (that means lots of sweet, awesome flavor). To really lean in to the poll, more maple syrup gets mixed into the pizza dough 

 brushed onto the crust at the end. After I pulled out my pizzas, I was shocked by how well it all worked. Creamy cheese, candied squash, savory shallot, spicy pepper, citrusy coriander. Just don’t shy away from the salt at the end—it brings everything together. If you aren’t into homemade doughs, feel free to swap in store-bought pizza dough for ease. Also, if you’d like to plan ahead, you can proof the dough overnight in the fridge instead of at room temperature; this yields a more deeply flavored crust. And if you’d prefer to make larger instead of smaller pizzas, you can divide the dough into three or two pieces instead of four, roll them into bigger circles, then extend the cook time accordingly.

Caramelized Butternut Squash Pizza

This profoundly fragrant tomato sauce, inspired by tom yum, the spicy and sour soup from Thailand, makes for a sultry version of the classic pizza margherita. Southeast Asian herbs like lemongrass, galangal, and makrut lime leaves integrate so incredibly well with tomatoes that I imagine if a large influx of migrants from Thailand were ever to settle in Italy (or vice versa), this pairing would be inevitable. If you don’t already have a jar of homemade shrimp and chile oil on hand, there are many shrimp- or dried-shrimp-based chile sauces that you can find in Asian supermarkets and use as a substitute. I can’t say that every single one of them will be marvelous, but I also can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be. Alternatively, you can make your own by frying chopped dried shrimp or anchovies and red bird's-eye chile in canola oil until the chiles are crispy, then season with a bit of fish sauce. A note on mixing dough by hand: The first part of this process is called autolysis, and it starts by mixing the flour and wet ingredients without yet adding the yeast. Autolysis maximizes the gluten formation in the dough without over-kneading, and the longer the autolysis, the more elastic and better-tasting your final result will be. You get a really great result for the amount of effort you put in. The length of autolysis can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 10 hours and beyond. For best results, start the morning before you bake your bread. Then your mixture can go through 10 hours of autolysis and you can proceed with the next step that evening. Another option is starting around 6 hours before your bedtime the night before you bake, and letting the dough sit for at least 30 minutes before moving on to the next step. 

The Art of Escapism Cooking: A Survival Story, with Intensely Good Flavors

Tom Yum Margherita Pizza

Adapted from Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery.

Jim Lahey’s 5-Ingredient Summer Squash Pizza

I had incredible Italian Taggiasca olives in Kuwait (the chef I worked with was from Northern Italy, where the olives are sourced). Sicilians love their green Castelvetrano olives. I could go on. Here’s what to remember: Whichever olive you choose will be the main character of this pizza, but most any will work because they’re paired with the sweetness of onions. Both the onions and the olives sink into the dough, which will be light and fluffy in places and dense and chewy where the moisture of the olives and onions is trapped. This is a nostalgic pizza for me. It could become one for you. 

. Listen as Anthony stretches, folds, and tops his way through this recipe, offering insider tips and backstory along the way.

Onion & Olive Bread

This is what happens when you combine the caramelized, golden-edged goodness of roasted cauliflower with melty pockets of mozzarella, crispy pepperoni, and your other favorite pizza toppings. Serve it to cauliflower lovers, or even the haters. Trust me, it’ll make you see cauliflower in a whole new way.

Cauliflower Pizza Bake

Another way to eat pizza for breakfast—without, you know, literally eating pizza for breakfast. A few notes on substitutions: Don't substitute fresh, whole-milk mozzarella; it has too much moisture and will lead to a soggy omelet. Don't substitute just any tomato sauce, either, for the same reason; you can use another recipe—just make sure to reduce it until very thick. Do add pizza-y toppings, like pepperoni or anchovies or mushrooms.

Pizza Omelet

From Nik Sharma's 'Season':  I like to pair dishes, like a Margherita pizza, with bold, unconventional flavors, like coriander and nigella seeds. Using cracked coriander seeds, rather than ground, enhances the flavor of the chili flakes. Nigella seeds pair well with tomatoes. A little sprinkle over this fresh tomato-topped pizza gives the tomatoes a fragrant, nutty flavor. You can also use olive oil instead of ghee if you prefer.

Margherita Naan Pizza

Jim Lahey has refined his revolutionary no-knead bread technique for pizza and, astonishingly, it's even easier. Though Lahey loves smart, unusual toppings like charred thai eggplant with bonito flakes, shiitake with walnut onion puree, and cheese piled with spinach leaves, here we went with his version of the classic Margherita Pie. Lahey would want you to feel free to tinker, and to feel free to freeze the dough. Adapted very slightly from 

My Pizza: The Easy No-Knead Way to Make Spectacular Pizza at Home

Jim Lahey's No-Knead Pizza Dough + Margherita Pie

For this crispy, cheesy cloud of pizza, you won’t need any prior dough skills or know-how, but you will need a bit of time—almost all of it is hands-free time (and the hands-on part is fun!). The brilliant minds at King Arthur Flour tell us a little more about the pizza: "Out of all the styles of pizza, we’ve chosen Crispy Cheesy Pan Pizza as our 2020 Recipe of the Year. With its crispy golden edges, gooey layer of cheese (right to the edge!), and thick yet delicate crust, it has a texture and taste that make you want more. Plus, the crust has just five simple ingredients: it’s easy to pull off in a home kitchen. "Our recipe incorporates four baking 'tricks.' An untraditional, nearly no-knead method of folding the dough creates airy pockets in the crust. An overnight refrigerated rest allows the dough time to develop maximum flavor. Baking in a cast-iron pan makes an audibly crispy crust for your flavorful assortment of toppings. And finally, the unique layering of cheese beneath the sauce acts as a barrier to minimize sogginess." King Arthur has been making variations every month on their 

. Feel free to follow their lead, or use whatever's in your fridge and on your mind. Just be sure to use a light hand with the toppings so the dough can puff up in all its cheesy-crispy glory. Here are even more helpful tips from King Arthur: —Our base cheese of choice is a block of low-moisture mozzarella, coarsely grated. Want to experiment with different cheeses? Choose those that melt well: Fontina, cheddar, Jack, provolone, Gouda, and Muenster are all good candidates. —Want to add your own favorite toppings beyond red sauce and cheese? Vegetables or meats should be cooked before arranging them in a single layer atop cheese and sauce. Feel free to experiment with other sauces, too; pesto or white sauce are great alternatives to tomato. One hint: To avoid potential sogginess, stick to the same quantities and layering process for sauce and cheese listed above. —For an extra hit of flavor, sprinkle freshly grated hard cheese (e.g., Parmesan, Asiago, Romano) and/or fresh herbs (oregano, basil, thyme) over the hot pizza just before serving. —If you're serving the entire pizza (no leftovers) right away, you can serve it right from the pan if desired. We don't recommend using a knife to cut the pizza in the pan; it might mar your cast iron's surface. Instead, after loosening the edges, use a spatula to partially lift the pizza out of the pan, then cut a wedge using a pair of standard household scissors or kitchen shears. Remove the wedge and repeat until you've cut and served all of the pizza. —Feeding a larger group? Double all the ingredients in the recipe and follow the recipe instructions as written, dividing the dough into two pans (mix and match from the choices listed in step #6 above). Slightly adapted from 

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