Authentic Neapolitan Pizza Recipe — Dough, Sauce & Baking Guide

A proper Neapolitan pizza begins with an almost suspiciously short ingredient list:

flour, water, salt and yeast.

No sugar. No olive oil in the dough. No herbs. No secret seasoning.

The tomato sauce is hardly a sauce at all — good peeled tomatoes, crushed and never simmered down into a thick paste. Add mozzarella, basil and extra-virgin olive oil and you have a Margherita.

What makes it difficult isn’t the shopping list.

It’s fermentation, dough handling and heat.

Traditional Neapolitan pizza is stretched extremely thin in the centre while leaving gas trapped around the edge, then baked at roughly 430–480°C for just 60–90 seconds. That violent burst of heat creates the combination Naples pizza is famous for: a soft, supple centre and a swollen, airy cornicione.

This guide gives you both:

the traditional Neapolitan method, based on the rules of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN), and
a realistic home-oven method for cooks who don’t have a 450°C pizza oven.

The most useful thing to know before you start: great Neapolitan pizza is not about piling on toppings. It is about learning to control four simple ingredients well enough that the dough becomes the star.

If you’d rather learn the dough from a pizzaiolo while you’re in Naples, this pizza and tiramisu class shows its open dates below:

Neapolitan pizza recipe at a glance

	Traditional method
Dough ingredients	Flour, water, salt, yeast
Dough hydration	Roughly 56–63% within current AVPN ingredient ranges
Dough-ball weight	200–280 g
Pizza diameter	About 22–35 cm
Fermentation	Roughly 8–24 hours
Centre	No more than about 2.5 mm before baking
Oven	Traditionally wood-fired
Oven temperature	About 430–480°C
Baking time	About 60–90 seconds
Texture	Soft, fragrant, elastic
Classic toppings	Margherita or Marinara

AVPN’s current formula starts with 1 litre of water, 1.6–1.8 kg flour, 40–60 g salt and a very small quantity of yeast, adjusted according to temperature and humidity.

That quantity makes far more dough than most home cooks need, so we’ll scale it down.

Other experiences you might enjoy in Naples

Between classes, walk Spaccanapoli, join a street-food tour, or take day trips to Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius and the Amalfi Coast.

The recipe: 4 Neapolitan pizzas

This version makes approximately four 250 g dough balls.

For the dough

615 g pizza flour, ideally Italian type 00 or suitable type 0
369 g water
15 g fine sea salt
approximately 0.5 g fresh yeast

or approximately:

0.15–0.2 g instant/dry yeast

This gives you approximately 60% hydration.

The exact yeast quantity depends heavily on room temperature and fermentation time. Warmer kitchens require less yeast; cooler kitchens can tolerate more.

If you have a precision scale capable of measuring tenths of a gram, use it.

If not, don’t be tempted to throw in an entire 7 g packet of dry yeast. That is far more than this style normally requires.

Why so little yeast?

Because traditional Neapolitan pizza dough is not supposed to inflate as quickly as possible.

Time does much of the work.

AVPN permits an extremely broad range because yeast quantity needs to respond to environmental conditions: its current recipe gives 0.1–3 g fresh yeast per litre of water, with dry yeast used at roughly one-third the fresh-yeast quantity.

For a long fermentation, you may therefore need an amount of yeast that looks almost absurdly small.

That is normal. Our Neapolitan pizza dough guide goes further into yeast, hydration and fermentation times.

More yeast does not automatically mean better rise.

Too much yeast combined with a long warm fermentation can leave you with dough that races past its ideal point: sticky, slack, difficult to stretch and eventually unable to hold its structure.

What flour should you use?

This is one of the most misunderstood parts of pizza making.

Is type 00 flour essential?

No.

00 describes how finely the flour has been milled in the Italian classification system. It does not, by itself, tell you whether the flour is suitable for long-fermented pizza.

Current AVPN rules allow both type 00 and type 0 flour.

What matters is choosing a flour capable of:

absorbing your chosen amount of water
fermenting for the required time
stretching thinly without tearing
retaining enough gas to form the cornicione

A flour marketed specifically for Neapolitan pizza is the easiest option.

If you’re comparing supermarket flours, protein content gives you a rough clue, although it isn’t a perfect substitute for the Italian W strength measurement.

Can I use bread flour?

Yes, especially if it is your best available option.

You may get a slightly different texture, but a well-fermented bread-flour pizza is far better than a badly handled pizza made with expensive imported 00 flour.

For home cooks, technique matters more than the logo on the bag.

Do you need sugar?

No.

Traditional Neapolitan pizza dough contains no sugar.

The intense heat of a proper pizza oven browns the dough rapidly without requiring additional sugar.

This becomes more complicated in a domestic oven.

Some recipes designed specifically for low-temperature ovens add sugar or oil to improve browning. That can be a sensible adaptation — but once you do that, you are deliberately moving away from the traditional Naples formula.

There is nothing wrong with that.

Just understand what problem the extra ingredient is solving.

Do you need olive oil in Neapolitan pizza dough?

Again, no.

Olive oil goes on the pizza, not into the classic dough formula.

The traditional AVPN dough is simply flour, water, salt and yeast.

Step 1: Mix the dough

Put the water into a large bowl.

Dissolve the salt in the water.

Add roughly 10% of the flour and stir until you have a thin slurry.

Add the yeast.

Gradually add the remaining flour while mixing.

AVPN’s official process similarly begins with water, dissolves the salt, incorporates part of the flour and then introduces the yeast before gradually adding the rest of the flour.

Once the dough becomes too stiff for a spoon, start using your hands.

Mix until no obvious dry flour remains.

Step 2: Knead

Turn the dough onto a clean work surface.

Knead until it becomes:

smooth
cohesive
elastic
only slightly tacky

For hand kneading, expect roughly 10–15 minutes, though the exact time depends on technique and flour.

You don’t need to attack the dough.

Stretch, fold and rotate it rhythmically.

As gluten develops, the rough mass should gradually become smoother and more elastic.

What should properly kneaded pizza dough feel like?

This is one reason making pizza in Naples with a pizzaiolo is so useful: dough consistency is much easier to feel than describe.

You’re looking for dough that feels:

soft but not liquid, elastic but not rubbery, slightly tacky but not glued permanently to your hands.

If it tears immediately when you gently stretch a small piece, it may need more kneading or resting.

If it becomes extremely tight and keeps snapping back, give it a rest.

Gluten often relaxes more effectively through time than through additional force.

Step 3: Let the dough rest

Shape the dough into a rough ball.

Cover it so its surface cannot dry out.

AVPN specifically warns against allowing a dry crust to form during the resting stage.

Let the dough begin its first fermentation.

There is no single magic timetable because dough temperature, room temperature, flour and yeast quantity all matter.

Step 4: Divide into dough balls

Divide the dough into four pieces of roughly 250 g each.

AVPN permits dough balls between approximately 200 and 280 g, producing pizzas around 22–35 cm across.

Now form each portion into a tight, smooth ball.

In Naples this division and ball-forming stage is called staglio.

The traditional balling technique is sometimes described as resembling mozzatura, the hand movement historically associated with forming mozzarella.

The goal isn’t simply to make something round.

You’re creating surface tension around the dough ball while keeping its interior gas structure intact.

Step 5: Ferment

Place the balls in a covered proofing box or individual covered containers with enough space for them to expand.

For true Neapolitan-style dough, think in hours rather than minutes.

Current AVPN guidance gives a recommended fermentation/leavening period of approximately 8–24 hours, subject to the flour and environmental conditions.

A useful home schedule is:

Same-day / overnight schedule

Morning or previous evening

Mix and knead.

After initial rest

Divide and ball.

Following hours

Leave the dough balls covered until fully relaxed and fermented.

Judge the precise duration by the condition of the dough as much as by the clock.

How do you know when pizza dough is ready?

A properly fermented ball should look:

noticeably expanded
relaxed rather than taut
smooth on top
slightly bubbly
soft when gently touched

Press very lightly with a finger.

If the dough is tight and springs back immediately, it may need more time.

If it collapses, spreads like a puddle and is almost impossible to handle, it may have fermented too far.

Ideally it should feel alive but still structurally sound.

Room-temperature fermentation or refrigerator?

Traditional Naples practice is closely associated with controlled room-temperature fermentation, but refrigeration has become common in modern pizza making.

For the closest traditional approach, work within AVPN’s fermentation framework and control yeast according to ambient conditions.

For home cooks, the refrigerator can make scheduling substantially easier.

A cold fermentation also slows yeast activity and gives you a wider practical window.

But don’t make the mistake of taking rock-hard dough directly from the refrigerator and immediately trying to stretch it.

Let chilled dough warm and relax first.

The authentic Neapolitan tomato sauce

Here’s another surprise.

You don’t cook it.

For classic Neapolitan pizza, good peeled tomatoes are crushed rather than simmered into the dense, seasoned red sauce associated with many other pizza styles.

AVPN says peeled tomatoes should be crushed by hand and remain somewhat chunky rather than becoming excessively dense.

Simple pizza tomato

For four pizzas:

1 × 400 g tin good-quality whole peeled tomatoes
salt to taste

Crush the tomatoes gently with your hands.

That’s essentially it.

You can remove particularly tough stem ends if necessary. For tomato choice, salting and the Marinara variation, see our Neapolitan pizza sauce guide.

Should I blend pizza sauce?

Preferably not into a completely smooth liquid.

Hand-crushing gives you irregular texture without aggressively breaking up the tomato seeds.

A food processor can also incorporate air and create a thinner, frothier sauce than you want.

This is one of those cases where the primitive tool — your hand — works extremely well.

Do you cook tomato sauce for Neapolitan pizza?

Not traditionally.

Remember what will happen next:

the tomato is about to enter an oven approaching 450°C.

Cooking it first isn’t necessary.

The flavour you’re looking for is bright, clean tomato, not the concentrated sweetness of a long-cooked pasta sauce.

Do you need San Marzano tomatoes?

This question inspires more arguments than it deserves.

High-quality San Marzano dell’Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP tomatoes are closely associated with Naples pizza and can be excellent.

But the useful lesson for the home cook is not:

If the tin doesn’t say San Marzano, abandon dinner.

It’s:

Use excellent peeled tomatoes that taste good before they go on the pizza.

AVPN asks for suitable tomatoes and says pizza toppings should preferably come from Campania.

Poor tomatoes with an impressive label remain poor tomatoes.

Taste before topping.

Margherita ingredients

For four pizzas, you’ll need approximately:

your four fermented dough balls
300–400 g crushed tomato
300–400 g fior di latte or mozzarella
fresh basil
extra-virgin olive oil
optional finely grated hard cheese, depending on the version you’re making

AVPN specifies that mozzarella can be distributed as sliced buffalo mozzarella or strips of fior di latte, with basil added fresh and olive oil applied in a spiral.

Fior di latte vs buffalo mozzarella

Both work.

Fior di latte

Made from cow’s milk.

Advantages for pizza:

typically less watery
mild, milky flavour
easy to distribute
predictable melting

Mozzarella di bufala

Made from buffalo milk.

Expect:

richer flavour
more acidity
more moisture
a softer, juicier finished pizza

Neither is automatically “better.”

They’re different.

The mozzarella mistake that ruins home pizza

Too much water.

Fresh mozzarella contains considerable moisture.

In a 450°C oven that moisture has little time to flood the pizza before the dough is cooked.

In a 250°C oven, your pizza may spend four to eight times longer baking.

That gives the cheese far more time to release liquid.

If you’re using very wet mozzarella, drain it well.

Cut it ahead of time and let excess whey escape before topping.

This matters especially in a domestic oven.

How much topping should you use?

Less than you probably think.

One of the easiest ways to ruin Neapolitan pizza is to overload the extremely thin centre.

For a roughly 30 cm pizza, you’re looking for a restrained layer of tomato and a modest amount of cheese — not complete coverage.

You should still see tomato between the mozzarella.

More cheese does not necessarily mean more pleasure.

At some point it simply means more water and weight sitting on fragile dough.

How to stretch Neapolitan pizza dough

This is arguably the single most important physical skill.

Do not use a rolling pin.

A rolling pin pushes out the gas you’ve spent hours building.

Instead:

place the dough ball on a lightly floured surface
press gently into the centre with your fingertips
work outward
leave the outer edge untouched
flip or turn the dough as needed
continue pressing outward
gently stretch the disc with your hands

AVPN describes the motion as starting from the centre and moving outward with finger pressure, repeatedly turning the dough. The traditional centre is extremely thin — about 2.5 mm or less before baking.

The most important stretching rule

Don’t touch the cornicione

Imagine a ring approximately 1–2 cm from the edge.

Once you’ve pushed gas toward that ring, stop pressing it.

That’s your future crust.

Every time you flatten the edge, you squeeze out the bubbles that would otherwise expand dramatically in the oven.

You cannot “make” a great cornicione in the oven.

You preserve the conditions that allow the oven to make it.

Should you toss pizza dough in the air?

You can.

You don’t need to.

The theatrical overhead spin isn’t necessary for good Neapolitan pizza.

Controlled hand-stretching on the bench gives beginners much more control.

Save the acrobatics until you can reliably produce dinner.

How thin should the centre be?

Very thin.

AVPN’s current rules specify a centre around 0.25 cm maximum before baking, with a small tolerance.

A good practical test:

Hold the stretched dough up carefully. You should almost be able to see light through parts of the centre without it tearing.

The rim, by contrast, remains visibly thicker.

How to top a Margherita

Once your dough is stretched, work quickly.

1. Tomato

Spoon a modest amount into the centre.

Spread it outward with a circular motion, stopping before the rim.

2. Mozzarella

Distribute pieces evenly.

Do not completely cover the tomato.

3. Basil

Add several leaves.

4. Extra-virgin olive oil

Finish with a thin spiral.

That pattern closely follows the traditional AVPN topping method.

Build the pizza only when you’re ready to bake

This is a small detail with huge consequences.

Once wet tomato touches stretched dough, the clock starts.

Leave a topped pizza on the worktop or peel for ten minutes and moisture begins penetrating the base.

It becomes:

softer
stickier
harder to launch
easier to tear

So prepare your ingredients before opening the dough.

Stretch.

Top.

Launch.

Don’t stretch four pizza bases and leave them waiting like dinner plates.

The traditional bake: pizza oven

If you own a high-temperature pizza oven capable of reaching roughly 430–480°C, you can get much closer to the Naples method.

AVPN’s traditional standard specifies a wood-fired oven within that temperature range and a bake of roughly 60–90 seconds.

Before launching

Make sure:

the oven is fully saturated with heat
the floor is hot enough
the pizza isn’t stuck to the peel
toppings are ready
you have a turning peel if needed

Give the peel a small shake before approaching the oven.

The pizza should move.

If one section sticks, fix it now.

Once half a topped pizza has entered a 450°C oven, negotiation becomes difficult.

How to launch the pizza

The motion is less like throwing and more like withdrawing the peel from beneath the pizza.

Place the peel near the intended spot.

Make a short forward movement followed by a confident backward pull.

Hesitation tends to create elongated pizzas, folded edges and toppings decorating the oven floor.

Your first few may not be beautiful.

That’s normal.

Turn the pizza

The side facing the flame cooks more aggressively.

After the first portion of the bake, rotate the pizza so the rim colours evenly.

At these temperatures, the difference between pale and burnt can be measured in seconds.

Stay at the oven.

This is not the moment to chop basil.

How do you know when Neapolitan pizza is cooked?

Look for:

an inflated rim
browned and darker blistered patches
a cooked underside
bubbling cheese
hot tomato
a centre that remains soft rather than dried out

The pizza should be soft and fragrant, qualities AVPN explicitly identifies in the finished product.

You are not aiming for a cracker.

The home-oven problem

Most kitchen ovens top out somewhere around 230–275°C.

Authentic Neapolitan pizza is baked around 430–480°C.

That isn’t a small difference.

It’s almost an entirely different cooking environment.

At lower temperatures, the pizza must stay in the oven much longer to cook.

During that extra time:

the dough loses more moisture
mozzarella releases more liquid
the crust may dry
the topping can overcook before the rim colours
the pizza becomes increasingly unlike a 60–90 second Naples pizza

Pizza professionals repeatedly point out that a conventional domestic oven cannot exactly replicate the high-temperature pizzeria process.

So don’t judge your home pizza against an impossible physical standard.

Instead, maximise the heat you actually have.

Best method for a normal home oven

If you don’t own a pizza oven, use:

Best option

Pizza steel + grill/broiler

Good option

Pizza stone + grill/broiler

Useful alternative

Heavy cast-iron pan + grill/broiler

A pizza steel transfers heat much more aggressively than a normal baking tray.

The grill supplies intense heat from above.

Together they narrow the gap between a domestic oven and a pizza oven — though they do not eliminate it.

The skillet-and-grill approach is also widely recommended as a way to approximate the high-heat combination at home.

Home-oven method

1. Put the steel high in the oven

Position it relatively close to the top heating element — but leave enough clearance for the pizza to rise safely.

2. Preheat thoroughly

Set the oven to its maximum temperature.

Give the steel at least 45 minutes, and often closer to an hour, to absorb heat.

The oven air reaching temperature is not the same as the steel reaching temperature.

3. Switch to the grill/broiler

Shortly before baking, use the strongest overhead heat available.

Exactly how your oven behaves varies, so learn its quirks.

4. Launch the pizza

Bake directly on the heated steel.

5. Watch continuously

Domestic-oven baking takes considerably longer than 60–90 seconds.

Rotate if one side colours faster.

6. Remove before the cheese separates

You want the cheese melted and lightly coloured, not boiled into a greasy puddle.

Should you use the exact traditional dough in a home oven?

You can.

But this is where recipe dogma becomes unhelpful.

Traditional dough is engineered for a brutally hot oven.

If you consistently get a pale, dry pizza from your domestic oven, you have two choices:

improve the cooking environment with steel + grill, or
adapt the dough to the oven.

Some home-oven pizza recipes include a little oil or sugar specifically to encourage browning and alter tenderness.

That makes the pizza Neapolitan-inspired rather than strictly traditional, but it may produce the better dinner.

Understanding tradition should help you cook better, not trap you.

Pizza stone vs pizza steel

Pizza steel

Best if:

your oven has limited heat
you want aggressive bottom browning
you make pizza often

Advantages:

transfers heat quickly
produces strong underside browning
durable

Disadvantages:

heavy
can over-darken the bottom if positioned badly
usually more expensive

Pizza stone

Best if:

you want gentler heat
you bake bread as well as pizza
your oven runs hot enough

Advantages:

effective heat reservoir
generally inexpensive
produces good crust

Disadvantages:

transfers heat more slowly
can crack
may struggle more in cooler ovens

Do you need a wood-fired oven?

For AVPN-certified traditional pizza, the current standard specifies wood-fired cooking.

For making excellent Naples-style pizza at home?

No.

Gas and electric specialist pizza ovens can produce very good high-temperature pizza.

The critical cooking variable for the home cook is heat performance, not romantic imagery of burning logs.

How to make Pizza Marinara

Once you can make the dough, Marinara is even simpler than Margherita.

For each pizza use:

crushed tomato
thinly sliced or chopped garlic
oregano
extra-virgin olive oil

No mozzarella.

Despite its name, a traditional Marinara does not contain seafood.

It is one of the best pizzas for judging your dough because cheese isn’t there to hide anything.

If your dough and tomatoes are good, Marinara can be spectacular.

What about Parmesan or Pecorino?

Some traditional formulations use a little grated hard cheese in addition to mozzarella.

AVPN’s current instructions allow grated cheese where appropriate and specify spreading it evenly in a circular motion.

Use it as seasoning; don’t turn the pizza into a cheese blanket.

Common mistakes — and how to fix them

Fix

Accept an imperfect circle.

A slightly wonky airy pizza is better than a perfectly round dense one.

10. Baking too long trying to achieve dark spots

Symptom

Dry crust and rubbery mozzarella.

Fix

Remember that classic spotting comes from extremely high heat.

Do not sacrifice the entire texture just to reproduce a photograph.

Why did my pizza dough tear?

Usually one of five reasons:

Not enough gluten development

The dough has insufficient strength.

Insufficient resting

The gluten is too tense.

Over-fermentation

The structure has weakened.

Uneven stretching

One spot became paper-thin while another remained thick.

Dough sticking to the bench

You pull upward and tear the base.

A small tear can often be pinched closed.

A large one usually means it’s better to reshape gently and make a slightly smaller pizza.

Why won’t my pizza dough stretch?

If it springs back relentlessly, the gluten is too tight.

Stop fighting it.

Cover the dough and let it rest for 10–20 minutes.

Then try again.

Rest is one of the most underrated tools in dough making.

Why didn’t my crust puff up?

Possible causes include:

the dough was under-fermented
you squeezed the gas from the rim
the oven wasn’t hot enough
the dough structure was too weak
the pizza sat too long after stretching
the rim was overloaded with sauce

The cornicione isn’t created by a magic ingredient.

It’s the result of fermentation + preserved gas + fast heat.

Why is the middle soggy?

A soft centre is part of Neapolitan pizza.

But excessive wetness can result from:

too much tomato
overly watery cheese
too many toppings
insufficient bottom heat
extremely thin or torn dough
a long low-temperature bake

Before changing the dough recipe, reduce topping moisture.

That solves more pizzas than people expect.

Should I precook the crust?

Not for traditional Neapolitan pizza.

The dough and toppings are baked together.

However, some domestic-oven adaptations partially bake the base before adding delicate toppings because their ovens cannot provide enough simultaneous top and bottom heat.

That’s a home workaround and no part of the traditional Naples technique.

How to plan a pizza night without losing your mind

Neapolitan pizza is quick to bake but surprisingly demanding to serve.

The problem:

you can only make one pizza at a time.

For four people, organise everything before the first dough ball is stretched.

Prepare in advance

dough fermented
tomato crushed
mozzarella drained and portioned
basil washed
olive oil accessible
peel ready
oven fully heated
plates waiting

Then cook continuously.

One person can stretch while another manages toppings and oven duties.

Or do what many home pizza obsessives eventually do:

serve pizzas one at a time and share them as they emerge.

It’s more sociable and every pizza gets eaten hot.

Can you freeze Neapolitan pizza dough?

Yes, though fresh fermented dough is preferable.

Freeze individual dough balls after they have been formed.

Use airtight containers or freezer bags.

When needed:

thaw slowly in the refrigerator
bring to room temperature
allow the dough to relax and show renewed fermentation activity
stretch as normal

Exact timing depends on dough size and room temperature.

How long does pizza dough keep in the refrigerator?

It depends on:

yeast quantity
flour strength
initial fermentation
refrigerator temperature

There isn’t a universal “three-day dough is best” rule.

The dough continues changing in cold storage.

Eventually its structure weakens.

If it becomes extremely slack, sticky and difficult to handle, you’ve probably gone past its ideal window.

Can you make Neapolitan pizza dough without a mixer?

Absolutely.

Pizza existed long before domestic stand mixers.

A mixer provides consistency and convenience, but hand kneading works.

A pizza class in Naples can be especially revealing here because you can see how surprisingly gentle experienced pizzaioli can be with dough.

Can you make the dough with sourdough starter?

Yes, but you’re now changing fermentation management considerably.

AVPN’s current formulation permits mother yeast, listed as a percentage of flour, as an alternative to commercial yeast.

Sourdough isn’t inherently more authentic than baker’s yeast.

Both can sit within Neapolitan pizza practice.

Use the fermentation system you can control well.

What does hydration mean?

Hydration is the amount of water expressed as a percentage of the flour weight.

For example:

600 g flour
360 g water

equals:

60% hydration

because 360 is 60% of 600.

Higher hydration generally creates softer, stickier dough and can encourage a more open crumb, but it also becomes harder to handle.

Do not chase high hydration because Instagram tells you 70% is sophisticated.

A well-managed 60% dough is infinitely better than a 70% puddle.

Neapolitan pizza baker’s percentages

If you want to scale the recipe up or down from the fixed gram amounts, use baker’s percentages.

For the practical recipe above:

Ingredient	Baker’s percentage
Flour	100%
Water	60%
Salt	~2.4%
Fresh yeast	~0.08%, depending on conditions

This is one of the most useful things a serious pizza class can teach because it frees you from fixed recipe sizes.

Once you understand percentages, six pizzas and sixty pizzas are the same mathematical problem.

How much dough do I need per pizza?

Current AVPN rules specify approximately 200–280 g per dough ball for a 22–35 cm pizza.

At home:

200–220 g → smaller/thinner pizza
230–250 g → comfortable standard size
260–280 g → larger or slightly fuller rim

For beginners, around 240–250 g is forgiving.

The most useful lesson from making pizza in Naples

Recipes encourage you to think in numbers:

grams
minutes
temperatures
percentages

A pizzaiolo teaches you to watch the dough.

Is it tight?

Is it relaxed?

Has it fermented enough?

Is the centre evenly stretched?

Is the rim full of gas?

Is the oven floor too hot?

Does the mozzarella need draining?

Those judgments are why two people can follow the same written recipe and produce completely different pizzas.

A good pizza-making class in Naples is therefore less valuable for giving you another recipe than for teaching you what each stage should look and feel like. Our guide covers what to expect and how to choose a pizza-making class.

The pizza and tiramisu class we recommend lasts 2–3 hours with a pizzaiolo, includes drinks, and ends with you eating your own pizza and tiramisu. It starts from about $22 (prices vary by date) and is rated 4.9/5 from more than 1,700 reviews. If you’re weighing it against a broader class, our guide to cooking classes in Naples compares the formats, our cooking class vs pizza-making class comparison sets out the differences, and what to expect at a Naples cooking class covers the practical side.

Take the recipe home.

Take the sensory memory with you.

That is harder to Google.

Frequently asked questions

What is the authentic Neapolitan pizza dough recipe?

The traditional AVPN formula uses only flour, water, salt and yeast. Current rules give roughly 1.6–1.8 kg flour and 40–60 g salt per litre of water, with yeast adjusted according to conditions.

Does authentic Neapolitan pizza dough contain olive oil?

No. Olive oil is traditionally used as a topping, never as a dough ingredient.

Does Neapolitan pizza dough contain sugar?

No. Sugar isn’t part of the classic traditional dough formula.

What hydration is Neapolitan pizza dough?

The current AVPN flour-to-water ranges correspond broadly to roughly 56–63% hydration, depending on flour absorption.

How long should Neapolitan pizza dough ferment?

Current AVPN guidance recommends roughly 8–24 hours, with the precise schedule affected by temperature, flour and yeast quantity.

How much should a Neapolitan pizza dough ball weigh?

Approximately 200–280 g under current AVPN rules.

Do I need 00 flour?

No. AVPN permits suitable type 00 or type 0 flour. More important is choosing flour appropriate for your fermentation and hydration.

Should Neapolitan pizza sauce be cooked?

Traditionally, no. The peeled tomatoes are crushed by hand and go on the pizza uncooked.

Can I use normal mozzarella?

You can, but fresh fior di latte or buffalo mozzarella produces a more traditional result. Drain particularly wet mozzarella well when using a domestic oven.

How hot should a Neapolitan pizza oven be?

Current AVPN rules specify roughly 430–480°C.

How long should a Neapolitan pizza bake?

Approximately 60–90 seconds in the traditional high-temperature oven described by AVPN.

Can I make authentic Neapolitan pizza in a normal home oven?

You can reproduce the dough, toppings and technique, but a normal oven cannot reproduce the thermal conditions of a 430–480°C pizza oven. A pizza steel or stone combined with strong overhead heat is one of the better home adaptations.

Is a pizza stone or steel better?

For a relatively low-temperature domestic oven, steel usually transfers heat into the pizza faster. A stone works well too but is less aggressive.

Why shouldn’t I use a rolling pin?

It pushes gas out of the dough, especially around the edge, making it much harder to create a light cornicione.

What is the easiest Neapolitan pizza to make?

Marinara is simplest because it requires no mozzarella, but its simplicity also exposes every weakness in the dough and tomato.

The bottom line

The authentic Neapolitan pizza recipe is almost comically simple:

flour + water + salt + yeast

then:

tomato + mozzarella + basil + olive oil

But simplicity is exactly why technique matters so much.

There is no sugar to disguise weak fermentation. No heavy topping to hide mediocre dough. No long bake to gradually dry and brown the crust.

You have to ferment the dough properly, preserve its gas when stretching, keep the toppings restrained and expose it to enormous heat.

That is why Neapolitan pizza is simultaneously one of the simplest recipes in Italian cooking and one of the hardest to master.

If you’re visiting Naples, eating a great pizza shows you the result. Making one alongside a pizzaiolo shows you why it works.