Building a pizza: sauce, cheese and toppings

Short answer

For most styles, spread a thin layer of sauce, add cheese suited to how hot and long the bake is, and keep toppings fewer and drier than feels generous. Excess moisture from sauce, fresh cheese or raw vegetables is the most common reason a home pizza turns out soggy.

Sauce: a thin layer

On a thin or hand-stretched pizza, sauce is a seasoning layer rather than a filling. A thin coat, spread with the back of a spoon from the centre outwards and stopping short of the rim, is usually enough — some of the dough may show through. A thick or watery sauce soaks into the dough before it can set, which is a common cause of a soft, pale centre.

If a sauce is very wet, draining crushed tomatoes briefly or cooking the sauce down a little reduces the water. Raw and cooked sauces taste different and suit different bakes; neither is wrong, but a raw sauce on a long, cooler bake has more time to release water.

Cheese: fresh or low-moisture

Fresh mozzarella (including fior di latte and buffalo mozzarella) has a lot of water. It suits very hot, short bakes such as Neapolitan, where it melts in pools without fully drying out; in a cooler, longer domestic bake it can release water onto the pizza. Tearing it into pieces and letting it drain for a while before use helps.

Low-moisture mozzarella, usually sold in blocks, melts more evenly, browns and blisters more readily, and releases less water. It is the usual choice for New York-style and most American styles and is the more forgiving option in a domestic oven. Many styles use other cheeses or blends — provolone, brick cheese, cheddar or pecorino, for example — so check the style page.

Toppings: moisture and restraint

Every topping adds weight and, often, water. Mushrooms, courgettes, onions, peppers and fresh tomatoes release water as they cook; pre-cooking or salting and draining them first is a common way to manage that. Cured meats render fat rather than water, which is easier for the base to cope with but can pool if there is a lot.

A pizza with a few well-chosen toppings usually bakes more evenly and tastes more balanced than a crowded one, because each ingredient has room to cook and the base is not weighed down. If the toppings are still undercooked when the base is done, there is probably too much on top for that oven.

Order of construction

The most common order is sauce, then cheese, then toppings, with delicate ingredients added after baking: fresh herbs such as rocket, cured ham like prosciutto, a drizzle of oil. Toppings that should crisp, such as pepperoni, go on top; ingredients that dry out easily can go under the cheese.

Several styles deliberately reverse this. Chicago deep dish puts cheese against the dough with sauce on top; Detroit spreads cheese to the edges of the pan and often adds sauce in stripes over the cheese; tomato pies may have sauce on top of a little cheese, or no mozzarella at all. Build quickly once the base is on the peel, as a dough left sitting under wet sauce is more likely to stick and to bake soft.

Common misconceptions

“More sauce and more toppings make a better pizza.”

Past a certain point, extra load mainly adds moisture and weight, leading to a soggy centre and toppings that cook unevenly.

“Fresh mozzarella is always the better cheese.”

It suits very hot, short bakes. In a typical domestic oven, low-moisture mozzarella is often the more reliable choice.

What this page cannot tell you

This page gives general construction guidance; quantities depend on pizza size, style and oven, and some styles follow different rules on purpose. It does not cover food-safety handling of toppings.

Related

Evidence

• The Pizza Lab (column) — Serious Eats
• The Pizza Bible — Ten Speed Press
• How to make pizza crust crispy (and why yours isn't browning) — King Arthur Baking Company