Ingredient Substitutions
What to use when you cannot buy 00 flour, brick cheese, fresh mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes or American pepperoni where you live — with what each swap actually changes, and what it does not.
Almost every canonical pizza ingredient is a local product somewhere and an import everywhere else. These guides start from what the original ingredient actually contributes, then judge each substitute against that — not against its reputation.
How each option is rated
A substitution is not automatically a compromise. Some produce the same result, and some produce a genuinely different pizza that is good on its own terms — which is a different thing from producing a worse version of this one.
- Equivalent
- Behaves the same way in this application. You would not detect the swap.
- Close
- Keeps what defines the style. There is a difference, and it is minor.
- Workable, with trade-offs
- The result is recognisably the style, but you lose something specific — named below.
- A meaningful adaptation
- A good pizza, honestly a different one. Not a failed attempt at the original, and not the original either.
- Not recommended
- Commonly suggested, and it does not work here. The reason is given rather than the advice simply withheld.
Guides
If you cannot get 00 flour
What can I use instead of 00 flour for pizza?
00 describes how finely the flour is milled, not how strong it is — which is why the substitution question is easier than it looks, and why buying a bag labelled 00 does not by itself get you Neapolitan dough.
If you cannot get brick cheese
What can I use instead of brick cheese for Detroit-style pizza?
Brick cheese is genuinely hard to buy outside the American Midwest. What Detroit pizza needs from it is high fat, low moisture and a willingness to fry against a hot pan — which several more available cheeses also do.
If you cannot get good fresh mozzarella
What can I use instead of fresh mozzarella on pizza?
The answer depends entirely on which style you are making — and for most American styles, low-moisture mozzarella is not a substitute for fresh at all, it is the correct ingredient.
If you cannot get San Marzano tomatoes
What tomatoes can I use instead of San Marzano for pizza sauce?
Most tins labelled San Marzano are not the protected product anyway, so this substitution is less of a compromise than it sounds. What matters is the tomato's water content and sweetness, not the name.
If you cannot get American pepperoni
What can I use instead of pepperoni outside the United States?
Pepperoni is an Italian-American invention, not an Italian product, which is why asking for it in Italy gets you chillies. Several European cured meats do parts of its job; none does all of it.
If your oven will not reach Neapolitan temperatures
How should I change my ingredients if my oven only reaches 250°C?
This is an ingredient question as much as an equipment one. A domestic oven does not just bake the same pizza more slowly — it changes which cheese, which sauce and which flour actually work.
If you do not eat pork
What cured meat toppings work on pizza without pork?
Most classic pizza charcuterie is pork. Several beef and poultry equivalents cover the same job well, and the growth of halal and kosher pizzerias has made them widely available in many cities.
If you are not using cheese
Can you make a good pizza without cheese?
Yes, and not as a concession: the marinara is one of only two pizzas named in the protected Neapolitan standard, and it has no cheese at all.