It's Not Delivery, It's 29 Homemade Pizza Recipes

From New York-style and Neapolitan pies to French bread pizza done right, these pizza recipes will keep you coming back for more.

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The Serious Eats Team
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Updated January 25, 2023
Overhead view of 3 pizzas

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Good pizza can often be hard to come by, unless you're smack in the middle of New York City. Maybe that's good for our cholesterol, but that doesn't mean the cravings aren't there. Rather than suffer through a life without pizza, we took things into own hands. Fortunately, we've got tons of pizza recipes, from New York-style and Neapolitan pies to French bread pizza done right.

Making great pizza at home isn't the easiest task. The dough, sauce, and cooking method can all be a little overwhelming. If you need some help, check out this quick guide for the tools you'll need to get going.

Meat

  • "Armenian" Pizza With Spiced Lamb Sausage, Armenian String Cheese, and Sumac

    Armenian pizza being cut with a pizza cutter

    Andrew Janjigian

    This pie combines Armenian flavors and classic Italian pizza features, with a lahmajun-inspired lamb sausage and nigella-laced Armenian string cheese in place of low-moisture mozzarella. Using a dough specially formulated for high temperature outdoor pizza ovens produces a perfectly baked pie with a crisp bottom and tender crust.

  • Outdoor Pizza Oven Charred Broccoli Rabe and Anchovy Pizza

    Slicing a pizza with charred broccoli rabe

    Andrew Janjigian

    In order to get the broccoli rabe topping on this pie just right, we charr it quickly in a skillet, right in the outdoor pizza oven as it heats up for baking the pies. To complement the smoky bitterness of the charred rabe, pair it with a blend of Parmesan and Pecorino Romano, a healthy number of anchovy fillets, and a simple tomato sauce. No creamy, melty mozzarella here—this pie is all about its savory punch. 

  • Outdoor Pizza Oven 'Nduja

    Nduja pizza cooked in outdoor pizza oven on a piece of parchment set on a pizza pan

    Andrew Janjigian

    Spicy 'nduja takes center stage here on this otherwise classic Margherita pie. The rest is simple: tomato sauce, Parmesan and fresh mozzarella cheeses, along with fresh basil leaves, placed beneath the cheeses and toppings to keep them from burning. It’s the sort of classic pizza topping combination that never goes out of style.

  • Pizza With Hot Soppressata, Mozzarella, Chiles, and Honey Recipe

    20150702-spicy-salami-chile-honey-pizza-1.jpg
    J. Kenji López-Alt

    The combination of cured meat, chiles, and hot honey isn't the most classic, but in recent years it seems to have become a standard at hip Neapolitan pizzerias. Our version, inspired by the one at Paulie Gee's, uses hot soppressata for an extra kick. Don't worry about it being too spicy, though—the honey keeps the heat in check.

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  • New York-Style Pizza with Bacon-Cherry Pepper Relish and Coppa

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    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    Neapolitan pizza is all the rage these days, but there will always have a special place in our hearts (and stomachs) for a good old New York-style pizza. If you're looking for something more unusual than a plain slice, try topping your New York pizza with coppa and bacon-cherry relish made with pickled cherry peppers, bacon, and sugar.

  • New York Style Pizza with Kimchi, Soppressata, and Maitake Mushrooms

    20130427-kimchi-pizza-1.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    Want to get even more unconventional with your New York pizza? This cultural hybrid tops a cheese pizza with hot soppressata, funky kimchi, and intense maitake mushrooms. Kimchi and cheese might seem like a weird combination, but people have been eating them together since the Korean War. Make sure to drain the kimchi so the pizza doesn't get soggy.

  • Sicilian Pizza With Pepperoni and Spicy Tomato Sauce

    Two square slices of Sicilian pepperoni pizza on a cream colored stoneware plate.

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

    In our opinion, one of the best slices on the East Coast is the Spicy Spring from Prince Street Pizza. This recipe is as close as we can get to the spicy, cheesy, crispy pepperoni-topped Sicilian masterpiece without getting on a plane—it's not quite the same, but it's pretty darn good.

  • The Best Meatball Pizza

    Meatball pizza
    J. Kenji López-Alt

    We make this Italian-American mashup with the same recipe we'd use for regular meatballs, but we make the meatballs small enough to put on the pizza whole. If you save half a cup of the meatball mixture to cook with the sauce, it'll taste almost like it was simmering all day.

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  • Sausage and Radicchio Pizza

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    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    Radicchio is way too bitter for my tastes raw, but in a blazingly hot pizza oven, it becomes sweet and nutty. The more restrained bitterness that remains is wonderful with sweet Italian sausage and fresh mozzarella. We put the sausage on the pizza raw, and as it cooks, the fat renders out and flavors all the other toppings.

  • Pizza with Fresh Clams, Garlic, Mozzarella, Romano, and Basil

    20130527-clam-pizza-1.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    Even in New Haven, home of the clam pie, most pizzerias have started using pre-shucked bivalves. It's understandable—whole clams seem like a pretty crazy pizza topping. But using unshucked clams means that you get to preserve all the juices, making for the most flavorful clam pizza possible.

  • Grilled Pizza With Grilled Shiitake, Sopressata, and Parmesan

    20140601-grilled-pizza-toppings-food-lab-2.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    If you're going to grill a pizza (and you absolutely should), you might as well grill the toppings too. Here that means grilling up shiitake mushrooms and soppressata and cooking them onto a pizza with fresh mozzarella, Parmesan cheese, and chives. If you're a fan of truffle oil, this wouldn't be a bad time to break it out.

  • Detroit-Style Pan Pizza

    Detroit-style pan pizza

    This recipe is the result of months of testing and research, and it is indeed glorious, although you may not want to eat it more than once a month. It's constructed in reverse, with toppings placed directly on the dough, then the cheese, then the sweet, spicy sauce. About that cheese: it's Brick cheese, a high-fat aged cheese from Wisconsin with a uniquely tangy, salty, buttery flavor, and it's hard to find a substitute for it, both because of its specific taste and because of the way the fat in the cheese slides of the sides and helps crisp up the crust. And while you may balk at the idea of buying a specific pan to make this pizza, it is well-worth it: the black nonstick coating improves heat conduction, and there is an appreciable difference in the way the Wisconsin brick cheese crisps along the bottom of the crust. You can, however, get by with a 8-inch nonstick or well-seasoned cake pan; in either case, you won't regret making this recipe.

    Vegetarian

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  • Outdoor Pizza Oven Burst Cherry Tomato, Shallot, and Herb Pizza

    Burst cherry tomato outdoor oven pizza being slid off a peel onto parchment on a pizza pan

    Andrew Janjigian

    Make a vibrant burst cherry tomato sauce as your outdoor pizza oven heats up. It’s important to cook the sauce just until the tomatoes begin to burst and char; it should be saucy, not over-reduced. Paired with Parmesan and fresh mozzarella, this is a fresh spin on the most iconic of pizza ingredient combinations.

  • New England Greek Style Pizza

    A slice of New England Greek-Style pizza on a speckled ceramic plate. There is a cutting board holding more pizza on the left hand side of the image

    Serious Eats / Qi Ai

    Slowly simmering the pizza sauce for this pie produces a rich, concentrated flavor. Reserving a portion of crushed tomatoes and stirring them in at the end keeps the reduced sauce bright and fresh-tasting. The end result is an olive oil-enriched dough topped with an oregano-heavy sauce and lots of cheese.

  • Grilled Pizza With Grilled Broccolini, Chilies, and Garlic

    20140601-grilled-pizza-toppings-food-lab-1.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    For a vegetarian take on grilled pizza, we turn to the classic Italian combination of broccolini, garlic, and chilies. We cook the broccolini for a couple minutes until charred and tender and put whole pieces of it onto the pizza. Starting the dough on the grill before adding the toppings ensures it gets properly charred.

  • Grilled Pizza With Grilled Tomatoes, Asparagus, Goat Cheese, and Marcona Almonds

    20140601-grilled-pizza-toppings-food-lab-5.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    Winter isn't the best time to work with fresh tomatoes, but these days, cherry tomatoes are pretty delicious all year. For this recipe, we split them in half and throw them on the grill, then put them onto a pizza with asparagus (also grilled), tangy goat cheese, and crunchy Marcona almonds.

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  • Pizza With Cherry Tomatoes, Halloumi, Olives, and Mint

    20150702-halloumi-tomato-olive-mint-pizza-2.jpg
    J. Kenji López-Alt

    Halloumi, tomatoes, and olives aren't exactly an unheard of pairing, but you probably haven't seen them on pizza. That's partly because halloumi is a tricky pizza topping—it doesn't melt like you want pizza cheese to, so it's best to think of it like another topping and scatter it on top of a bed of mozzarella.

  • Pizza With Zucchini, Feta, Lemon, and Garlic

    20150702-zucchini-pizza-worth-eating-10.jpg
    J. Kenji López-Alt

    Zucchini is another difficult pizza topping: it's incredibly watery, so if you try to cook it on a pizza it'll end up un-browned and soggy. The solution is to salt the zucchini and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Once the zucchini's ready, pair it with mozzarella, feta, and thin slices of garlic and lemon.

  • Pizza With Mushrooms, Mozzarella, and Truffle

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    J. Kenji López-Alt

    Sliced mushrooms are about as common as pizza toppings come. There's nothing wrong with putting fresh mushroom slices on a pizza, but for the deepest mushroom flavor, pair them with rich, well-browned duxelles. The brandy-spiked duxelles act like a sauce, so skip the tomatoes and keep this one all-mushroom (plus mozzarella, of course).

  • Charred Kale Pizza With Garlic

    20141022-kale-pizza-7.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    If you've ever had kale chips, you know how sweet and crispy the brassica gets when exposed to high heat. Baked kale is tasty on its own, but it's even better on a pizza with nutty Gruyère and stretchy mozzarella. Par-cooking the dough is a must, or else the kale will be burnt before the crust is done.

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  • Pizza With Cherry Tomatoes, Garlic, Basil, and Mozzarella

    20130926-kettle-pizza-baking-steel-new-22.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    This simple Neapolitan pizza is topped with split cherry tomatoes, sliced garlic, basil, and mozzarella. The heat from the oven softens the raw tomatoes and singes the basil. We add a layer of San Marzano under the cheese to help soften the crust and drizzle the pizza with extra-virgin olive oil before cooking.

  • The Best Pumpkin Pizza

    20141021-pumpkin-pizza-1.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    It's not exactly pumpkin season, but this recipe is worth keeping in your back pocket until fall. We make it with pumpkin in two forms: sautéed in butter and roasted and mashed. The intense pumpkin purée stands in nicely for tomato sauce, and we reinforce the fall flavors with apple and sage.

  • Vodka Pizza

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    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    On the surface, there's not much more to vodka sauce than taking a standard red sauce and adding cream and vodka. But because those additions make the sauce richer and sweeter, be sure to add a little more salt and a lot more red pepper flakes than you might otherwise.

  • Foolproof Pan Pizza

    20190319-cast-iron-pan-pizza-reshoot-vicky-wasik-29
    Serious Eats Team

    Not interested in a pizza recipe that calls for lots of work and special equipment? Our pan pizza only requires a cast iron skillet and 15 minutes of active time (and that includes making the dough from scratch). The hearty no-knead, no-stretch dough can handle almost anything you throw at it, so don't be scared to go wild with the toppings.

    Pizza-Like Objects
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  • Extra-Crispy Bar-Style Tortilla Pizza

    20210321_TortillaPizza_LizClayman-10
    Photographs: Liz Clayman. Video: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.

    When you want pizza in a hurry, there's no better option than this bar-style version. We use a tortilla as the crust, which bakes up extra crispy in a cast-iron skillet. We top the pizza with tomato sauce, grated mozzarella and parmesan, basil, and olive oil. You can add other toppings too, but the thin crust can only hold up to so much.

  • Pizzadilla (Quesadilla Pizza)

    20141019-quesadilla-pizza-pizzadilla-09.jpg
    Photographs: J. Kenji López-Alt. Video: Natalie Holt

    Our bar-style tortilla pie already bears a resemblance to a quesadilla, so we decided to go a step further and combine the two snacks. To do so, we start by making a pizza-flavored quesadilla with pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese, cooking it in a skillet until the bottom is crispy. Then we flip it over and top it just like our regular tortilla pizza.

  • The Best French Bread Pizza

    French bread pizza cut up and displayed on two ceramic plates and on a wooden cutting board.

    Serious Eats / Mateja Zvirotic Andrijanic

    A throwback to the grade school cafeteria, this French bread pizza is probably a little better than the ones of your youth. We flatten the bread out with a baking sheet and melt on a little cheese before adding the sauce to protect it against sogginess. Despite the name, you don't want to make this with a real baguette—go for a soft, squishy supermarket "French" loaf.

  • The Best English Muffin Pepperoni Pizza

    20131020-english-muffin-pizza-16-final.jpg
    J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

    The English muffin pizza is another pizza-like object that might conjure up childhood memories. We make ours with a simple fresh tomato sauce and toasted English muffins (which hold up to the sauce better). Pepperoni is a great topping, but par-cook it in a skillet before assembling the pizzas—the pizzas cook too quickly for the pepperoni to crisp up properly otherwise.

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  • Homemade Bagel Bites

    Three rows of homemade bagel bites
    Photograph and video: Vicky Wasik

    This recipe is for all the lovers of Bagel Bites out there, which should be every right-thinking person in the world. Wee little bagels topped with a wee bit o' sauce and a wee bit o' cheese (okay, a fair amount of cheese) and a wee handful of chopped pepperoni—there really isn't anything not to like. You can also make the bagels ahead of time, since the base bagel recipe is magic and the bagels stay fresh for days.

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