Authentic Pizza Margherita Recipe | Easy and Homemade
A simple but delicious Italian pizza topped with fresh crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil with a chewy and crispy crust made from scratch.
Servings 4 people
Ingredients
- 1 Ball Pizza Dough I always use my homemade pizza dough recipe for this pizza crust! If you don't have time to make your own doughyou can buy balls of dough at some grocery stores. Some pizza shops will even sell you their dough!
- 1-2 large ripe tomatoes When the tomatoes are ripe in the summertime I use fresh tomatoes and crush them myself. The instructions are below. If I make this when tomatoes aren't in season I always use canned whole San Marzano tomatoes.
- 1 large pinch Kosher Salt Kosher salt is coarser than table salt. This really adds an awesome saltiness to the authentic Margherita pizza sauce but any salt will work fine!
- 1 Ball Fresh Mozzarella Fresh mozzarella is really important
- 1 large bunch Fresh Basil Use fresh basil leaves and not dried basil.
- 2 Tablespoon Good Olive Oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven and the pizza stone. Place your oven rack in the middle of the oven. Place a pizza stone or a large cast iron skillet on the middle rack. Preheat the oven to 500ºF.
- Roll out the pizza dough. Roll out the pizza dough onto a sheet of parchment. It doesn’t matter what shape you roll it out to, just make sure the shape will fit your pizza stone. You want the dough thin.
- Make the crushed tomatoes (when tomatoes are in season): If you want to use fresh tomatoes to make the sauce, then you’ll want to boil the tomatoes until the skin comes off (the skin will become wrinkly; you can also make a small cut in the bottom of the tomatoes so you can see the skin peel away and know when they are done about 60-90 seconds). Remove, let cool, then quarter. Pulse in a blender or food processor until it's the consistency of a chunky sauce. Or put the peeled tomatoes in a bowl and crush with your hands until they become a slightly chunky sauce.
- Pull the cast iron skillet or the pizza stone out of the oven. Drizze with a little olive oil. Transfer the pizza dough from the parchment paper to the hot pizza stone. Be careful! The oven and stone are HOT!
- Spoon the crushed tomatoes over the top of the dough, spreading it to cover the whole pizza except 1 inch along the border. This will act as the crust. Sprinkle the sauce with kosher salt. Then drizzle with a little more olive oil.
- Top with fresh mozzarella. Place slices of fresh mozzarella on top of the sauce to cover the pizza to your liking.
- Bake for 11-12 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the pizza has lightly golden brown spots.
- Remove and top with fresh basil leaves. Transfer to a cutting board and slice and serve immediately. Enjoy!