A classic among the classics: the pizza Margherita. In this recipe we show you how to prepare an authentic pizza Margherita yourself.
In this recipe we make everything ourselves: the pizza dough and the pizza sauce. Of course you don’t have to, but it is more fun and tastier.
Preparing the pizza dough
We make the pizza dough ourselves. Therefore we take into consideration a rising time of 8 hours. By giving it enough time to rise, the most beautiful bottom with the best taste will be created.
If you have less time, you can add more yeast to shorten the rising time. You can read more about this on the aforementioned page.
Preparing the pizza sauce
We prepare the pizza sauce ourselves as well. It may sound crazy, but for the best pizza sauce you don’t use fresh tomatoes! Check out the recipe below.
The preparation
Baking an original Neapolitan pizza is nearly impossible in a general home oven, as it must reach a temperature of more than 450 degrees Celsius. With that temperature, the pizza is ready in about 2 minutes and you get that well-known “limp” pizza.
If you still want to bake a pizza in your oven, set it to the highest temperature (250-300 degrees) with the top heat and the fan on. Place a pizza stone in the oven and let it get hot for at least 15 minutes, which will give you a much crispier bottom.
Let’s return to Napoli one more time. They actually only know 2 types of pizza there: the marinara, which is topped only with tomato sauce, slices of garlic, olive oil, salt and oregano, and the Margherita, which consists of sauce, mozzarella or fior di latte, fresh basil and olive oil. All other variations are not considered authentic by the purists.
Would you rather have a different pizza?
Have a look at a selection of our other pizzas below:
Pizza Margarita
Ingredients
For the pizza dough (8 hours rising time)
- 5 dl tap water
- 850 gr pizza flour type 0 or 00
- 20 gr sea salt
- 2.5 gr dried yeast
For the pizza sauce
- 1 can 400 gr peeled tomatoes diced tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 shallots
- 2 sprigs oregano
- 8 leaves basil fresh
- splash olive oil
- black pepper freshly grounded
- salt
For the topping
- 1 scoop buffalo mozzarella or 75 grams fior di latte
- 1 sprig oregano fresh
- 16 basil leaves
- splash olive oil
Instructions
Pizza dough
- Put the water in a measuring cup and add the sea salt. Stir very well to make sure that the salt dissolves.
- Create a circle of the flour on your counter and press with a bowl in the centre to create a volcano. Pour the water into the middle of the volcano and add some of the flour (from the volcano) to the water with one hand. Keep your other hand clean.
- When about ⅓ of the flour has been mixed with the water, add the dried yeast.
- Meanwhile, just mix it with the dough.
- Keep mixing until all the flour has been incorporated and knead very vigorously for about 10 minutes. You will notice that the dough becomes more and more flexible.
- Make 1 large ball from the dough, place it on a plate or in a bowl and cover it with a damp cloth.
- Place in a medium warm place (around 25 degrees) and let it rise for 2 hours.
- Remove the cloth and cut the dough into 5 equal parts.
- Roll out the dough into nice, round balls. Place them in a deep container or bowl separately and cover with a damp cloth.
- Now let them rise for about 6 hours in another warm place.
Pizza sauce
- Clean the garlic and shallot and chop very finely.
- Heat a dash of olive oil in a saucepan and fry the garlic and shallot for about 5 minutes.
- Add the oregano without the stems, fry briefly and then add the contents of the can. Not only the tomatoes, but also the moisture.
- Bring to a boil and let it reduce slowly to a firm and “thick” sauce.
- Remove from the heat and season to taste with a pinch of salt and freshly grounded pepper. Tear the basil leaves and stir into the sauce.
Decorate and prepare
- Place the pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven at 250°C.
- Sprinkle the counter with some flour and flatten the ball of dough. Pick up the dough, pull the dough outwards with your fingers, turn the dough and keep stretching until you create a circle of about 25 cm in diameter with a slightly wider edge at the end.
- Place it on a pizza shovel that has been sprinkled with flour and spread the bottom with the pizza sauce. Make sure to keep about 2 centimetres of the edge free. Be careful not to mess with the sauce or the bottom will stick.
- Tear the mozzarella into slices and divide them on top of the pizza. Sprinkle the oregano on top and gently slide onto the hot pizza stone. Help with your fingers if necessary.
- Immediately close the oven door and bake the pizza for about 4 minutes. To be sure, remove the dough from the stone once with the pizza shovel and turn it half a turn.
- Bake for as short a time as possible. Check whether the bottom is firm and coloured and the edge of the dough is slightly risen and baked crispy.
- Remove from the oven, drizzle lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with basil and serve immediately.
