Experience the taste of Italy with the help of the humble Margherita pizza. A simple pizza with minimal ingredients that’s still able to create a mouthful of heaven with a crispy crust, creamy mozzarella, fragrant tomato sauce and a few fresh basil leaves to add a sense of authenticity.
What Is A Margherita Pizza?
A traditional Neapolitan Margherita pizza recipe is tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil which represent the colours of the Italian flag – white cheese, green basil and red tomato. Margherita pizza gets its name after the Queen of the Italy of the same name who ruled in the late 1800s ‘Margherita di Savoia’. The name is pronounced: mahr-geh-ree-tah.
How To Make Margherita Pizzas
Now you know more about the toppings on a Margherita pizza, how do you actually make one? You’ll need a few ingredients to make this classic pizza, and the highest quality the better. Here at Cinquecento Pizzeria, we use 100% Italian ingredients for our full authentic Italian menu in the restaurant.
A great Margherita will use these ingredients:
- Pizza dough. Homemade wheat-based dough is always best. We use fresh dough that rises for 2 days, to allow for an easily digestible, light dough.
- Marinara sauce. A good tomato base doesn’t need to use a multitude of complicated ingredients, good quality tomatoes and other simple ingredients such as olive oil and garlic can make a delicious base to your pizza.
- Tomatoes.
- Fresh mozzarella cheese. You can find this in stores usually sold in a ball shape which you can cut into disks.
- Fresh basil leaves. Add these right before serving so they stay green.
- Garlic.
- Extra-virgin olive oil.
Margherita Pizza Vs. Cheese Pizza
Although a Margherita pizza is technically a cheese pizza, a ‘regular cheese pizza’ is a more basic meal with just tomato sauce topped with cheese. Typically a cheese pizza will also use mozzarella but other cheeses such as parmesan may also be mixed in the toppings. However, the mozzarella used on cheese pizzas in America is not fresh and therefore it will be drier and more cheese may be added to compensate.
Italian Secrets
It’s not just what is on a Margherita pizza that makes this Italian speciality so world-renowned. The secrets behind a true Italian pizza and sourcing the best quality Margherita pizza ingredients that make it worth going back for again and again. For example, always use tomatoes that are in season (you’ll be able to smell the difference immediately as fresh, seasonal tomatoes have a fragrant smell that will get your taste buds tingling). You should also keep the basil leaves whole, chopping them will not only spoil the flavour but it also won’t look like a traditional Italian pizza.
Furthermore, a good pizza needs to be baked in a super hot oven reaching temperatures of at least 260°C-290°C. Our restaurants use wood-fired ovens to achieve this. And better yet, you can watch the pizza’s in action with our gallery style kitchen. This allows the pizzas to cook quickly with a delicious crispy crust.
Try A Taste Of Italy Without The Messy Kitchen
Although you may be able to find a recipe Margherita pizza, you’ll be hard-pressed to replicate this Italian classic like you can have in Naples. And there’s nothing like an Italian chef to make you the best quality pizza Margaritas in London without the need to deal with a flour-covered kitchen at the end of your dinner. Pop into our restaurant to try our first-class Margherita pizza for yourself.