?izza.
When I set out to interview pizza chefs about making restaurant-grade pizzas at home, I expected to hear about the necessity of portable pizza ovens. While I was unsurprised to learn about the best instant yeast (Fleishman’s) and the importance of buying high-quality crushed tomatoes, I was stunned that none of the chefs said the rest of us should shell out for a home pizza oven.
In fact, they all agreed that you can make amazing pizza — New York, pan, Detroit, grandma, Sicilian and more — with your regular oven. You just need a little guidance and a couple of affordable gadgets — namely, a pizza steel, which is a quarter-inch seasoned sheet of steel that retains and conducts heat far more than a pizza stone.
Dave Quaile, founder of Freelance Pizza, a Philadelphia-based mutual aid pizza pop-up, says upgrading to a pizza steel was “the best investment I ever made.”
“If you really want like restaurant-quality pizza out of your house, you’re gonna have to put the temperature up as high as it can possibly go,” he said. “A steel is better than a pizza stone because pizza stones crack, especially if you are cranking the temperature up.”
Joe Lamberti, founder of Philadelphia’s ?izza, which sells pizzas via Instagram and local pop-ups, said the key to perfecting home pizza is ensuring your oven is properly reheated. “Pre-heat your oven with the steel inside, as high as it goes for an hour,” he told HuffPost.
Apart from getting the right gadgets and ensuring your oven is hot, our experts say the biggest tip in making your own pizza is letting your creativity flow, finding what flavors you like and accepting that errors are a part of the process.
“Make a mess of your kitchen, make mistakes and turn them into something good,” Quaile said. “I used to make a pizza with whiskey caramelized onions, but one day I was out of whiskey and used espresso instead because it was around and it’s the best thing I’ve ever made.”
To help you step up your home pizza game, the experts break down everything you need.
HuffPost may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Every item is independently selected by the HuffPost Shopping team. Prices and availability are subject to change.
1. Elevate your oven with a pizza steel (no, not a stone)
"You put one on the bottom to bake the pizza on, and then you put one on an upper-level rack to kind of serve as a thermal conduit," he said. "It just makes your oven a much more efficient battery of heat. I keep it in my oven all the time. I make bread, bagels, Cuban bread, anything on it. A pizza steel is that next jump-off to where you can really start making pizzas that you are super proud of."
Carruthers says he uses this U.S.-made 16-by-14-inch slate from the once-Kickstarter-funded company Baking Steel, who claim to have invented the whole concept of a pizza steel in the first place.
"It doesn't matter who makes it," Carruthers said. "Just always buy a steel that's a little bigger than the pizzas you're gonna make."
This 16-by-13.4-inch pizza steel is a quarter-inch thick and has easy-grab holes for re-positioning in the oven (with oven mitts on, of course).
2. Get yourself a wooden pizza peel and a kitchen scale
A peel will be a practical help in the kitchen for both raw and piping hot pies.
"When I first started, I didn't have one and I would launch that shit into my oven off of the back of like a sheet pan, and it was a nightmare," he said. "But don’t cut your pizza on the pizza peel; it puts lines in the wood and it makes it harder to clean and makes it harder to slide the pizza in the oven because it the sharp lines can rip the dough."
Metal peels are also popular, but Lamberti urges you to stick with wood. "Get a wooden one, 'cause the metal ones, the dough will stick to it quicker," he said. "The wooden one's a little more forgiving."
This glass-top food scale has an 11-pound capacity and can be easily cleaned with a wet rag.
3. Don't forget storage containers and kitchen necessities
"If that breaks, it's all just kind of ruined, you know? I learned to just get a bunch of plastic bins for everything," he said. "Next time you go to a restaurant, if you peek into the kitchen you'll see everything is plastic, and it makes a lot of sense."
This is a set of 44 microwave, freezer and dishwasher-safe mixed-sized containers with lids.
"I would strongly advise getting all of your pizza-related tools, your peels, your containers, proofing boxes, whatever, at your local restaurant supply store," he said. "You're gonna pay like $20 for a pair of tongs or something when they're $3.99 at the restaurant supply and they're better quality."
4. Consider converting to square pies
"You can pre-bake these squares, then you just top them [when you want to cook] and then bake them again," he said. "It's way easier to not have to stretch any dough, not have to worry about getting the oven hot enough."
Quaile uses these budget 9x9 pans from Target at home and when doing pop-ups.
5. Procure some pizza cookbooks
"The Free Library of Philadelphiahas been the most essential thing to me learning how to make pizza," he said. "I would take out a book on pizza making, test out the recipes, pick out things I did and didn't like from it, then keep reading [other cook books] and kind of combine recipes. And that's how you do different testing and come up with your own recipes."
"It's kinda the obvious answer, but I stand by it," he said. "I think his book has the best overall recipe that 100% caters to an at-home pizza experience."
Before You Go
