New York-Style Pizza
The big, thin, foldable slice: a cold-fermented bread-flour dough with a little sugar and oil, a smooth cooked tomato sauce and grated low-moisture mozzarella, baked hot and long until the cheese spots brown.
Lombardi's on Spring Street calls itself "America's First Pizzeria" and dates itself to 1905. Pizza historian Peter Regas has since found pizzerias in Manhattan before that, including one at the same Spring Street address, so the "first" title is DISPUTED (see Rules). New York's early pizzerias baked whole pies in coal ovens. According to pizza guide Scott Wiener, quoted by Serious Eats, the switch to cooler gas-fired deck ovens gave a drier pie that reheats well, and that is what made the slice possible; New York shops were selling slices by the 1940s, with Nunzio's selling them by 1943.
🇺🇸 This one is American
The big, thin, foldable slice: a cold-fermented bread-flour dough with a little sugar and oil, a smooth cooked tomato sauce and grated low-moisture mozzarella, baked hot and long until the cheese spots brown.
🇮🇹 The original
In Naples, pizza is a soft, thin-centered disc with a puffy, blistered rim, topped with tomato, mozzarella and basil and baked in about 90 seconds in a wood-fired oven. See the Pizza Napoletana Margherita recipe.
Why it works the kitchen science
Cold fermentation
A day or more in the fridge develops flavor and makes the dough relax, so it stretches thin without springing back.
Sugar and oil in the dough
They help a 500°F home oven brown the crust in a 12 to 15 minute bake and keep the slice tender enough to fold.
Step by step
- Step 1
Pulse the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a food processor 3 times. Add the water and oil and run until the dough forms a ball, about 15 seconds, then run 15 seconds more. Knead briefly by hand until smooth.
- Step 2
Divide in half, put each piece in a lightly oiled zipper bag or covered container and refrigerate at least 1 day and up to 5.
- Step 3
Make the sauce: melt the butter with the oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat, add the garlic, oregano and pepper flakes and cook 2 minutes, until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, onion, basil and sugar and simmer on the lowest heat about 1 hour, until reduced by half. Discard the onion and basil and season with salt.
- Step 4
At least 2 hours before baking, shape each piece of dough into a tight ball, set on a floured counter, cover and let rise until roughly doubled. One hour before baking, put a stone or steel on the middle rack and heat the oven to 500°F.
- Step 5
Freeze the mozzarella 15 minutes so it grates cleanly, then grate it.
- Step 6
Stretch one ball over your knuckles to about 13 inches and lay it on a floured peel. Spread about 2/3 cup sauce, leaving a 1/2-inch border, and top with half the cheese.
- Step 7
Slide onto the stone and bake 12 to 15 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is bubbling with brown spots. Repeat with the second pie.
- Step 8
Rest 2 minutes, cut into 8 slices and fold to eat.
New York-Style Pizza
Serves 4 (4 slices each) · 2 pizzas, about 13 inches each · 28 hr total
Dough
- 3 1/2 cups (425 g) bread flour
- 2 1/2 tsp (10 g) sugar
- 1 1/4 tsp (7 g) table salt
- 2 1/4 tsp (7 g) instant yeast
- 1 cup plus 3 tbsp (277 g) lukewarm water
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Sauce
- 1 can (28 oz) whole peeled tomatoes, puréed smooth
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- Pinch red pepper flakes
- 1/2 small onion, peeled, in one piece
- 2 sprigs basil
- 1 tsp sugar
- Salt
Topping
- 10 oz (300 g) low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella, grated
- Flour or semolina, for the peel
Method
- Pulse the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a food processor 3 times. Add the water and oil and run until the dough forms a ball, about 15 seconds, then run 15 seconds more. Knead briefly by hand until smooth.
- Divide in half, put each piece in a lightly oiled zipper bag or covered container and refrigerate at least 1 day and up to 5.
- Make the sauce: melt the butter with the oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat, add the garlic, oregano and pepper flakes and cook 2 minutes, until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, onion, basil and sugar and simmer on the lowest heat about 1 hour, until reduced by half. Discard the onion and basil and season with salt.
- At least 2 hours before baking, shape each piece of dough into a tight ball, set on a floured counter, cover and let rise until roughly doubled. One hour before baking, put a stone or steel on the middle rack and heat the oven to 500°F.
- Freeze the mozzarella 15 minutes so it grates cleanly, then grate it.
- Stretch one ball over your knuckles to about 13 inches and lay it on a floured peel. Spread about 2/3 cup sauce, leaving a 1/2-inch border, and top with half the cheese.
- Slide onto the stone and bake 12 to 15 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is bubbling with brown spots. Repeat with the second pie.
- Rest 2 minutes, cut into 8 slices and fold to eat.
Adapted from Serious Eats, "New York-Style Pizza" by J. Kenji López-Alt, scaled from 3 pies to 2: with his cooked "New York-Style Pizza Sauce". The uncooked crushed-tomato sauce in Tips is the classic slice-shop alternative described in the Serious Eats slice history. Serious Eats. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
Tips
- Slice-shop sauce is often uncooked: crushed tomatoes with salt and sometimes oregano (Serious Eats slice history). It's faster and brighter.
- Low-moisture mozzarella, not fresh, gives the classic stretchy, browned top.
- Reheat slices on a hot skillet or in a 450°F oven until the cheese bubbles (165°F).
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Fold it. Documented as the classic way to eat the slice (Serious Eats).
- Cooked or uncooked sauce. Disputed: Kenji's recipe cooks it an hour; the classic slice shop uses crushed tomatoes with salt (Serious Eats slice history).
- Lombardi's 1905, the first pizzeria in America. Disputed: Lombardi's says 1905. Peter Regas found a pizzeria at 59 1/2 Mulberry Street by 1894, and that Filippo Milone very likely opened the 53 Spring Street pizzeria in 1898, with Giovanni Santillo running it in 1904 (History.com). Regas found no primary evidence that Lombardi owned a pizzeria in 1905 (Culinary Historians of Chicago).
- The 1905 license. Folklore: Regas traces the business-license story to 1984 and 1996 retellings, not to a document.
- The first gas pizza oven. Disputed: one Serious Eats history credits Frank Mastro with a gas oven by 1934; another credits Ira Nevin's Bakers Pride oven in 1945.
- New York water makes the crust. Folklore: often claimed; no source we opened tests it.
Every other pizza
Pizza Napoletana Margherita
The Naples original: a soft, hand-stretched dough with a puffy, charred rim, topped with hand-crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil, and nothing else.
Pizza Marinara
Naples' other classic, and the older idea: tomato, sliced garlic, oregano and olive oil on a soft, charred crust. No cheese, and no seafood either.
Sfincione (Palermo-Style Sicilian Pizza)
Palermo's tall, spongy pan pizza: cheese and anchovies pressed into the dough, a sweet onion and tomato sauce on top, and a crunchy blanket of oregano and toasted breadcrumbs.
Roman Pizza al Taglio with Potato and Rosemary
Rome's sheet-pan pizza by the slice: a very wet dough, cold-risen for a day, baked airy and crisp, topped with paper-thin potatoes, rosemary and olive oil, and cut into rectangles with scissors.
Grandma Pizza
Long Island's thin square pan pie: an oiled sheet-pan crust, mozzarella first, then raw tomatoes tossed with garlic, olive oil and oregano spooned on top.
New Haven White Clam Pizza
New Haven's famous "apizza": a thin, charred crust with olive oil, garlic, oregano, grated Pecorino Romano and fresh littleneck clams, and no mozzarella.
Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza
A tall, flaky, buttery crust baked in a round pan, filled with a thick layer of mozzarella and topped with a chunky tomato sauce and Parmesan. Eat it with a knife and fork.
Chicago Tavern-Style Thin-Crust Pizza
Chicago's everyday pizza: a cracker-thin crust, a sweet herby sauce to the very edge, fennel-flecked sausage and mozzarella to the rim, cut into little squares.
Detroit-Style Pizza
A thick, airy rectangle baked in a well-oiled steel pan, with pepperoni under Wisconsin brick cheese spread to the very edge so it fries into a dark, crispy crown, and sauce spooned on top in stripes.
St. Louis-Style Pizza
A cracker-thin crust rolled out with a pin, a sweet oregano sauce, toppings to the edge and gooey, smoky Provel cheese, cut into squares.
California-Style BBQ Chicken Pizza
The pizza that told America anything goes: barbecue sauce instead of tomato, smoky gouda and mozzarella, roasted chicken, red onion and fresh cilantro.
Weeknight Skillet Pizza
Store-bought dough crisped in a skillet on the stove, then finished under the broiler: a crackly-bottomed cheese pizza in about 35 minutes, no stone and no preheating.
Pan Pizza, Inspired by Pizza Hut
Inspired by Pizza Hut's Pan Pizza, not an official recipe: a thick, no-knead dough that rises in an oiled cast-iron skillet and bakes with a golden, almost fried bottom and cheese right to the edge.
Meatballs of the World
Italian-American Meatballs
Big, tender meatballs braised for an hour in red sauce over spaghetti. The one most Americans grew up with.
Pallottine (Abruzzo Meatballs)
Tiny meatballs, smaller than a marble, tossed right through square spaghetti alla chitarra. No bread at all.
Swedish Meatballs (Köttbullar)
Small, soft meatballs browned in butter, in a cream sauce made from the same pan, with lingonberry jam on the plate.
Danish Frikadeller
Pork meatballs shaped with a spoon and fried slowly in butter, crusty outside and soft in the middle.
Königsberger Klopse
German meatballs that are never fried: poached, then served in a creamy white sauce with capers.
Spanish Albóndigas in Almond Saffron Sauce
The tapas bar classic: small meatballs in a golden sauce thickened with fried almonds and bread.
Mexican Albóndigas with Chipotle and Mint
Soft meatballs with rice and fresh mint inside, simmered in a smoky tomato and chipotle broth.
Izgara Köfte (Turkish Grilled Meatballs)
Small, flat meatballs kneaded hard, rested cold, and charred on a hot grill pan.
Lion's Head Meatballs
Big, soft pork meatballs, stirred into a sticky paste, fried to set, then braised in a savory sauce.
Chicken Tsukune
Japan's chicken meatball: kneaded sticky, grilled on skewers, glazed with sweet soy tare, dipped in egg yolk.