La Pizza Margherita Recipe, the classic “Napoletana” dish!
Recipe by
La Pizza Margherita is the classic and quintessential dish of Napoli, Italia and as the locals will tell you there, no one in the world makes better pizza (although my Roman family would beg to differ and likely find a way to get some pancetta on there too). What is so fantastic about this pizza is how simple and basic it is but at the same time how delicious the few ingredients blend together. Less is more and in this case, rather than stuff your pizza with a 1,000 toppings and dilute the taste of each, the few included burst with flavor!
The recipe for La Pizza Margherita (you have to say it with the “la”, for no other reason than to lift your hands in the air and press your index finger to your thumb and wave them like you’ve been red carded in a soccer match at the San Siro in Milan) is actually very simple and will take you no time. You can cook the pizza either on the grill or in the oven. I find it easier to cook the pizza in the oven and a little bit faster than firing up my charcoal grill – although my brother loves to make pizza on his gas grill, so either way can work and it’s up to you and your available time. I also find it necessary to have a bottle of red (preferably Italian in this case) to help me through the process. A nice table wine of Sangiovese or Chianti is a typical accompaniment to this pizza. So here it is from Paggi Pazzo, “in bocca al lupo!“
La Pizza Margherita
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 hour
Yield: 8 slices
Ingredients
- Home made Napoletana dough recipe
- 12 ounces crushed tomatoes (San Marzano)
- 8 ounces fresh mozzarella
- 3 cloves garlic
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 10 fresh basil leaves
- 16 ounce fresh dough
- handful of flour
- pinch of salt and pepper
Cooking Directions
- In order to make the sauce, add oil to pan at medium heat for 2 minutes.
- Add garlic and 2 chopped basil leaves for 3 minutes
- Add crushed tomatoes, salt and pepper
- Let cook for 30 minutes at low heat
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees
- While sauce is slowly cooking, add flour to top and bottom of dough
- Begin to poke and stretch dough slowly to flatten out
- Take dough roller and spread dough out to a fine thin spread
- Lightly brush pizza stone with olive oil
- Once dough is nice and flat, put dough onto pizza stone
- Add sauce to pizza dough
- Slice fresh mozzarella and spread across pizza
- Add 2 basil leaves cut in 1/2 across pizza
- Cook for 25-30 minutes, until cheese is slightly browned and crust is crunchy
- Take pizza out and add remaining basil leaves whole
- Ready to serve!
La Pizza Margherita Recipe stars based on 27 ratings.
Click here for full Neapolitan Pizza Margherita Recipe and all other Paggi Pazzo recipes.
Easy Recipes for the Grill & Cucina - Paggi Pazzo 
La pizza Margherita! porca miseria!! yuummm, it’s good as well senza pomodoro con le patate!…I’m moving back to Bologna!!haa
That look really tasty! I want to have one now. I really love pizza and I thank you for posting this one. Keep it up and good luck.
Can’t wait to give this a try. Can I use a wheat dough instead of the regular dough?
Thank you for your post Susan!
You can absolutely use wheat pizza dough, I have many times as a replacement. It does change the taste a little bit and removes some of that rustic flavor, but the wheat is a nice alternative.
The Pizza is delicious, great recipe. It was a big hit with my family. I will definitely make it again. Thank you for sharing this. Though if you do cook it on the grill, grill the dough for two minutes, flip it, add the sauce, mozzarella, and basil and cook for another two mins.
That looks good!!! Simple recipe too, but I might throw a topping or two on there