Stressing already about Valentine’s Day? Forget Feb. 14 for a moment, because right now, there’s a much more important holiday at hand: National Pizza Day. Seize the opportunity to celebrate by making your favorite kind of pizza tonight with flour, tomatoes, cheese and just a few other ingredients.
Pizza is arguably America’s favorite import: the country’s is blessed with more than 30 different regional styles of pizza that originate anywhere in the U.S. from St. Louis, MO to New Haven, CT. Five of our very favorites are Neapolitan, New York, Chicago deep dish, Sicilian and California-style pizza; below are easy, make-at-home recipes for each.
Neapolitan-Style Pizza
Unlike many of the other pizzas below, this pie isn’t unique to America. This thin-crust pizza originated in Naples, Italy, and is characterized by an airy, elastic, blistered crust, fresh mozzarella (when cheese is used) and the sparing use of toppings. Make the most popular iteration of Neapolitan-style pizza, the Margherita, using this recipe from Brown-Eyed Baker.
Photo credit: Michelle Lettrich / The Brown-Eyed Baker
New York-Style Pizza
If there’s one pizza that defines America, it’s a New York slice: pizza that’s round and generously-sized, with a crust that errs on the side of thin, and a cheese topping that’s made using shredded low-moisture mozzarella. Here’s a version from The Food Lab that you can make at home.
Photo credit: J. Kenji López-Alt / The Food Lab
Sicilian
The opposite of a Neapolitan pizza is might just be the Sicilian pizza, which is rectangular rather than round when whole, has a deep, thick crust, and is served cut into squares rather than triangles. Re-create the Sicilian-American square slice experience at home with Golden Boy pizza sauce and our recipe for Sicilian-style pizza dough.
Photo credit: Kassie Borreson
Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza
Like bad French fries, a reviled pizza is hard to come by, but if there’s one love-it-or-hate-it pizza style, that’d be Chicago deep dish, which is baked in a deep pan with layers of buttery crust, low-moisture mozzarella, generous toppings and chunky tomato sauce. Never sampled it? Form your opinion after trying your hand at this rendition from the Minimalist Baker.
Photo credit: Dana Shultz / Minimalist Baker
California-Style Barbecue Chicken Pizza
Peking duck, smoked salmon and caviar, Jamaican jerk chicken: any topping goes when it comes to the California-style pizza. Perhaps the topping most associated with the Left Coast is barbecued chicken: make an at-home take on it with this recipe from Little Spice Jar.
Photo credit: Marzia Aziz / Little Spice Jar
The post It’s National Pizza Day! 5 Regional Pizza Styles to Try at Home Tonight appeared first on Williams-Sonoma Taste.