Perfect Cheese Pizza
- PREP 30min
- COOK 10min
- TOTAL 40min
Our best recipe for cheese pizza! We use our favorite homemade pizza dough, a garlicky pizza sauce, two types of cheese, and herbs.
You Will Need
1 batch homemade pizza dough or use store-bought dough
4 to 6 tablespoons pizza sauce, try homemade pizza sauce
1 cup (57g) shredded mozzarella, not fresh mozzarella
1/2 cup (28g) shredded parmesan
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
All-purpose flour, for forming dough disc
Semolina flour, for dusting pan
Directions
At least 30 minutes before you plan to bake your pizza, preheat the oven to 450° Fahrenheit (232°C). If you have one, place a pizza steel or pizza stone into the oven before preheating. Personally, we use a higher temperature, see the tips section for our thoughts on what temperature is best for baking pizza at home.
If your pizza dough is cold, allow it to warm at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes.
When ready to bake your pizza, prepare a pizza peel or pizza pan by dusting it with semolina flour.
In a medium bowl, mix the shredded mozzarella, parmesan, chives, and oregano together.
Dust a clean work surface with all-purpose flour, and then form your pizza dough into a round, large enough to fit your pizza peel or pan. To stretch the dough, avoid rolling it out, as this can flatten the bubbles that have formed. Instead, use your fingers to make dimples in the dough, starting from the center and working outwards. Carefully stretch and push the dough to fit your pizza pan or peel. Use a light touch to maintain as many air pockets in the dough as possible.
Transfer the dough round to your pizza peel or pan, and reform it if it shrinks back a bit.
Spread pizza sauce over the pizza, leaving a thin edge untouched for the crust. Scatter the cheese mixture over the sauce.
Bake until the crust is set and golden brown and the cheese has melted with golden spots all over, 6 to 15 minutes, depending on oven temperature. Remove from the oven, cut, and serve.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Oven temperature: We recommend 450° Fahrenheit (232°C) in the recipe, but if you are comfortable with it, increasing the temperature to 550° Fahrenheit (288°C) will provide even better results. If you have a vented hood above your oven, turn it on high. When our oven is heated to such a high temperature, the fire alarm occasionally goes off due to the hot air that escapes when we open our oven door. It’s not a problem, other than the noise, and in our experience, it is remedied with a few fans of a dish towel near the alarm, but it is something to consider. If 550° Fahrenheit (288°C) is too high for you, feel free to use a lower temperature. However, keep in mind that this pizza bakes best between 425° Fahrenheit and 550° Fahrenheit (218°C to 288°C). The lower the temperature, the longer it will take to bake and the less bubbly it will be.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.