Dough is the part people quit over, and it is the part I have spent the most time on. I have been making bread for years and I still read The Perfect Loaf when I want to fix something specific, which tells you how much of a good pizza is decided before a single topping goes on. The rest is easier than it looks. These pizza recipes cover thin crust, skillet and pan pizzas, a proper New York style cheese, white pizzas with no sauce at all, and a run of loud ones with pickles or pulled pork or jalapenos on top. Some use store bought dough and say so. Get the oven as hot as it will go, use a stone or a steel if you own one, and grate your own cheese. That last one sounds fussy and it is the single biggest difference.
1. Caramelized Onion, Bacon And Spinach Pizza
Caramelized onion is the reason this works even for people who say they do not like onions. Cooking them slowly pulls the harsh bite out and leaves sweetness behind, which is exactly what you want next to salty bacon and fresh spinach. Mozzarella and parmesan together, on a crust with good color on the bottom. If you want to push it further, a few dollops of ricotta or a drizzle of hot honey after it comes out of the oven.
Get the full tutorial at Cooking Classy.
2. Skillet Pizza
Any oven safe skillet will do this, though cast iron is the one to reach for, because the pan holds heat the way a baking stone does and hands you a crisp bottom. No preheating involved, which surprises people. Half a tablespoon of oil around a 10 inch skillet, the dough pressed into the cold pan, and into a 450F oven it goes. Sauce and a full layer of pepperoni is the version pictured, and pasta sauce works as well as pizza sauce. One warning worth taking seriously: that handle stays hot for a long while after the pan comes out.
Get the full tutorial at Tina's Chic Corner.
3. Balsamic Mushroom And Goat Cheese Pizza
Mushrooms cooked in garlic butter until they are properly golden, creamy goat cheese, and a balsamic glaze added after baking rather than before so it keeps its shine. Two things make the difference: wipe the mushrooms instead of rinsing them, because water makes them steam instead of brown, and slice them thick so they stay meaty. Thin rounds of delicata squash go on top, and thinly sliced potato is a fine swap if you cannot find it.
Get the full tutorial at Half Baked Harvest.
4. Easy Mexican Pizzas
This is the Taco Bell copycat, built on fried flour tortillas instead of dough, which means about 30 minutes start to finish. Refried beans and seasoned ground beef go between two tortillas, then taco sauce, cheddar and pepper jack, olives, tomato and green onion on top. Use taco sized flour tortillas rather than corn, because corn splits and the whole stack slides apart. Fry the tortillas until they are genuinely crisp or the middle goes soggy.
Get the full tutorial at Butter Your Biscuit.
5. Mediterranean Roasted Red Pepper Pizza
The whole recipe hinges on slicing the red peppers very thin. Thin slices roast and start to char in the time the pizza bakes, which is where all the sweetness comes from. Thick ones just sit there and steam. Mozzarella, fontina, a great deal of fresh basil and olive oil, and no red sauce at all. On whole wheat dough this is close to a genuinely healthy dinner, which is not a sentence I get to write about pizza often.
Get the full tutorial at Half Baked Harvest.
6. Easy Garlic And Herb Pizza
A store bought flatbread does the crust, so this is a weeknight pizza rather than a project. Rub raw grated garlic straight onto the bread before the sauce goes on, which puts the garlic flavor everywhere instead of in patches. Sauce, a handful of mozzarella, then 6 to 9 minutes at 450F until the cheese browns and bubbles. The fresh herbs go on after baking, not before, because basil and thyme burn in a hot oven.
Get the full tutorial at Life Currents.
7. Jalapeño Popper Pizza
Softened cream cheese goes straight onto the dough as the sauce, which is what turns this into a popper rather than a pizza with peppers on it. Parmesan, whole milk mozzarella and mild cheddar over the top, then crumbled bacon and sliced fresh jalapenos. It bakes at 425F for 15 to 20 minutes and makes one 10 inch pizza, so plan on two if you are feeding more than three people. Scrape the seeds out if your crowd is heat shy.
Get the full tutorial at Baked by Rachel.
8. Best Homemade Margherita Pizza
Margherita is where you find out whether your dough and your oven are any good, because there is nowhere to hide behind toppings. Tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil. Get the oven and the stone as hot as they will go, use fresh mozzarella and let it drain on paper towels first so the middle does not flood, and tear the basil on after baking. Written by someone who went looking for the best version in a normal home oven.
Get the full tutorial at A Beautiful Plate.
9. Chicken Taco Pizza With Secret Sauce
One shop and one prep session gives you two dinners: this pizza tonight, chicken soft tacos tomorrow, using the same rotisserie chicken, beans and sauce. Refrigerated pizza crust goes into a 375F oven, and the secret sauce is a mayo, milk, lime and cilantro mix that ranch dressing can stand in for. Let the dough sit at room temperature five minutes before you unroll it, or it fights you the whole way across the pan.
Get the full tutorial at The Country Cook.
10. Chicken Alfredo Pizza
Alfredo sauce instead of red, built as a proper roux: butter, flour cooked for 30 seconds, garlic, then heavy cream and whole milk, thickened and finished with parmesan. Salt it at the very end, after the parmesan has melted in, because parmesan is salty and you will overdo it otherwise. Rotisserie chicken is fine and fast. The stone needs at least 30 minutes at 450F before the pizza goes anywhere near it.
Get the full tutorial at Cooking Classy.
11. Tomato Pie Pizza
This is the recipe for the week the garden gets ahead of you. The crust is made with bacon lard, and then it is all layers: fresh tomato slices, mozzarella, freeze dried garlic, bruschetta seasoning and fresh basil, baked until the cheese browns across the top. The one step you cannot skip is the draining. Lay the tomato slices in a single layer on paper towels, salt them, and let them sit until they have given up their water, because a wet tomato makes a wet crust. High summer only, when the tomatoes are actually worth it.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
12. Best New York Style Cheese Pizza
The detail that separates this from every other cheese pizza recipe: shred the low moisture mozzarella, then freeze it before it goes on. Frozen shreds melt more slowly, so the cheese finishes at the same moment the crust does instead of turning to oil while the base is still pale. Bread flour in the dough, a 90 minute rise, and a cooked sauce with onion, celery and parmesan in it. This is a weekend recipe and worth the afternoon.
Get the full tutorial at Baker by Nature.
13. Shrimp Scampi Pizza
Scampi is garlic, butter, white wine and lemon, and all four go onto the crust as the sauce here. Cook the shrimp only until they turn pink and then take them off the heat, because they go back into a 500F oven and will finish there. The instruction that actually matters: preheat the baking stone at 500F for a full hour. Brush the dough generously with the pan sauce, but not so much that it pools into a lake.
Get the full tutorial at Cooking with Curls.
14. Ricotta Spinach Pizza
Twenty whole garlic cloves, roasted in a skillet on a low flame until they go golden and sweet, then the spinach wilts in the same pan. The ricotta and fontina get blitzed together with olive oil into a spread rather than dolloped on. Here is the order that makes it work: the crust bakes bare for 3 to 4 minutes first, then the cheese goes on for 5 more, and the spinach goes on last so it never overcooks.
Get the full tutorial at Ciao Florentina.
15. White Pizza
No sauce, no ricotta, just olive oil, a lot of garlic, mozzarella and a thin crust. Two pieces of advice from this one are worth more than the recipe: grate your own cheese, because the anti caking powder on pre shredded makes the top chalky, and do not overload it, since too many toppings on a thin base steams the crust. A pizza stone or steel is the other thing that changes the result completely.
Get the full tutorial at Table for Two.
16. Hawaiian Pizza
Pizza sauce, cheese, cooked ham and pineapple, with crispy bacon crumbled over the top, which is not traditional and is a clear improvement. The homemade crust underneath it takes six ingredients and is mostly hands off time, which makes it a good first yeast dough if you have been avoiding them. Pat the pineapple dry before it goes on. Wet fruit is the reason most homemade Hawaiian pizzas come out soggy in the middle.
Get the full tutorial at Sally's Baking Addiction.
17. Cheeseburger Pizza
The base is fry sauce, which is just ketchup, mayo and a little hot sauce mixed together, and it does the job that pizza sauce cannot here. Brush the crust edge with egg wash and scatter sesame seeds on it so it reads as a bun. Ground beef browned with onion, cheddar, a drizzle of ketchup and mustard, and dill pickle slices, which sound optional and are not. Bake at 425F for 12 to 15 minutes.
Get the full tutorial at I Wash You Dry.
18. Spicy Chicken And Pickled Jalapeno Pizza
No tomato sauce at all. Garlic infused oil goes on the crust instead, and that one swap is what makes this taste different from everything else on the list. Pickled jalapenos rather than fresh, which brings acid as well as heat. The dough is four ingredients and makes enough for four thin crust 10 inch pizzas, so wrap half in plastic and foil and keep it in the fridge for four or five days. An hour of rising is ideal, thirty minutes will do.
Get the full tutorial at Mexican Please.
19. Spicy Sausage Pizza
Spicy Italian sausage, mini sweet peppers, onion, mozzarella and marinara, with chili oil drizzled on after baking and red pepper flakes if you want more. Regular Italian sausage works if the heat is too much for your table. Shape the dough into a 12 inch circle, put the rack in the lower middle of the oven, bake at 475F for 15 to 17 minutes and rotate it halfway through so it colors evenly.
Get the full tutorial at Baked by an Introvert.
20. Loaded Baked Potato Pizza
Ranch dressing as the sauce, sliced boiled potato, cheese and crumbled bacon, which is a loaded baked potato flattened onto a crust. Made in a 12 inch cast iron skillet: brush the cold pan with olive oil, lay in thin dough, top it and bake at 500F for 12 to 15 minutes. Boil the potatoes and cook the bacon the night before and this becomes a fast weeknight dinner instead of a long one.
Get the full tutorial at Turning the Clock Back.
21. Greek Pizza
A pre baked 12 inch crust, and a spread of light mayonnaise, minced garlic, oregano and feta instead of tomato sauce. Sun dried tomatoes and kalamata olives go on for the first ten minutes at 450F, then spinach, red onion and more feta go on for two minutes at the end so the spinach wilts rather than dries out. That two stage bake is the whole technique, and it takes about twelve minutes total.
Get the full tutorial at Yummy Healthy Easy.
22. Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza
Ranch as the sauce, cooked chicken, bacon and mozzarella, and any leftover or rotisserie chicken does the job. The advice worth repeating from this one is about the cheese: grate it yourself, because pre shredded is coated with an anti caking agent and it does not melt cleanly. Monterey jack or pepper jack instead of mozzarella changes it enough to feel like a different pizza. The dough here is a good beginner yeast dough.
Get the full tutorial at Countryside Cravings.
23. Chicken Caesar Pizza
Caesar dressing as the sauce, chopped chicken, crisp bacon, mozzarella, parmesan and Italian seasoning, and it is on the table in under 30 minutes. The step people skip is pre baking the crust before the toppings go on, and skipping it is why creamy dressing pizzas come out pale and wet. Refrigerated dough is genuinely fine here. Another good use for leftover chicken, which is how most of these get made anyway.
Get the full tutorial at Simply Stacie.
24. Sweet And Spicy Pulled Pork BBQ Pizza
Prepared pulled pork out of a package, which is exactly the shortcut this recipe is built around, so it goes together in about twenty minutes of work. Roll the dough to 16 inches, spread a quarter cup of sweet and spicy barbecue sauce very thin, then mozzarella, pork, red onion and chunks of goat cheese. Bake at 450F for 15 to 20 minutes, drizzle more sauce over, add cilantro and let it stand five minutes before cutting.
Get the full tutorial at The Kitchen is My Playground.
25. Chicken Pesto Pizza
Pepper jack instead of mozzarella, which is the choice that makes this one interesting, and a walnut pesto blitzed from basil, walnuts, olive oil, lemon and garlic. Grilled chicken tenderloin in a smoked paprika rub is worth the extra step if you have time. The oven needs 500F with the stone in it for at least 45 minutes, and the dough makes six balls, so freeze what you do not use.
Get the full tutorial at Ciao Florentina.
26. Jambalaya Pizza
Shrimp in Cajun seasoning, sliced andouille, and the holy trinity of onion, green pepper and celery, on a 16 inch crust baked at 400F. Cook the shrimp and sausage in a hot skillet first, about two minutes a side, then deglaze the pan with a quarter cup of red wine and soften the vegetables in the same pan. Skip the deglazing and you have a pizza with sausage on it and none of the jambalaya, which is the whole point of the thing.
Get the full tutorial at Life Tastes Good.
27. Easy Meatball Pizza
A pre baked 12 inch shell, jarred marinara, ricotta, parmesan and packaged fully cooked Italian chicken meatballs, so this is under 30 minutes and a very easy weeknight answer. Three cheeses are what save it from tasting like a shortcut. Slice the meatballs in half rather than leaving them whole, so they sit flat and every slice gets some instead of one lucky person getting them all. Fresh basil at the end.
Get the full tutorial at Renee's Kitchen Adventures.
28. Bubble Pizza
Four ingredients and under 30 minutes: jumbo refrigerated biscuits cut into quarters, pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella and pepperoni, layered in a greased cast iron skillet and baked for 20 to 25 minutes. The biscuit pieces puff up around the sauce and cheese, which is where the name comes from. Shred your own mozzarella here too. This is the one to make when a group of teenagers turns up and you have twenty minutes.
Get the full tutorial at Onion Rings & Things.
