Description
Grab a pizza stone and make this simple Italian margherita pizza made with fresh mozzarella, basil, and red sauce.
Ingredients
Scale
- 18–20 ounces pizza dough
- 1/2 cup Victoria’s Pizza Sauce or homemade pizza sauce
- 6–7 1/4 inch slices fresh mozzarella
- 3–4 basil leaves chopped or arranged in the center
- Flour, for pizza peel
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, for crust
- pinch of salt
Homemade pizza sauce
- 2 peeled plum tomatoes (from the can) do not include excess juice
- 1–2 garlic cloves
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- pinch of salt, to taste
Instructions
For the homemade sauce
- Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Pulse until smooth. This will render more sauce than you need, but you’ll only want about 1/2 a cup of sauce for the pizza. Don’t be concerned if the sauce appears to be a little runny.
For the pizza
- Preheat the oven to 500 °F. Place the pizza stone in the oven and let preheat for 45 minutes to one hour.
- Meanwhile, roll out the dough into a 12-inch crust. Be sure the dough is adequately floured and not sticky. A little extra is better.
- Place a small handful of flour onto a pizza peel and spread evenly to prevent the dough from sticking to the peel.
- Transfer the dough onto the peel. Top with a light coating of evenly spread olive oil. Use the backside of the spoon to spread the oil over the entire crust. Sprinkle with a little salt. Evenly coat with pizza sauce leaving a 1-inch crust all the way around. Add the fresh mozzarella.
- Slide the finished pizza onto the pizza stone and bake for 10-15 minutes. Be sure to carefully watch the pizza because all ovens will cook at different rates. Sometimes it will only take 10 minutes to fully cook.
- Once the pizza is golden, turn the oven to high-broil and let broil for about 1 minute, or until crust and cheese presents a few lightly charred spots. Remove from the oven, let cool, and serve topped with fresh basil.
Notes
Homemade pizza sauce is really easy to make and taste fresher than anything you can buy in a jar. You don’t need to precook the sauce. Several recipes call for simmering the tomato sauce to cook it before topping the pizza. The high oven temps will cook the tomatoes enough in the oven while the pizza cooks. That being said, you can simmer it beforehand on the stove in a saucepan on medium heat if you would like a thicker style sauce. Simmer until slightly reduced and the sauce reaches your desired thickness.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 slices
- Calories: 615
- Sugar: 6.6g
- Sodium: 990mg
- Fat: 2.9g
- Saturated Fat: 1.6g
- Carbohydrates: 66.5g
- Fiber: 5.6g
- Protein: 23g
- Cholesterol: 8mg
Keywords: margherita pizza recipe
