Margherita Pizza

Pizza with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil is a simple and delicious dinner. When the pizza crust is made with sourdough it adds a lot of flavor to the pizza. I do not make pizza often but when I do it is truly loved. I did have a little crisis with the basil leaves. There is no basil in the garden yet so I have to rely on store bought basil. The week I made this pizza I checked 2-3 grocery stores and they were all out of basil. I used dried basil on the pizza.




You will need
Pizza dough made as per this recipe
Pizza sauce 
Mozzarella cheese sliced (I get lowfat cheese made with vegetarian rennet)
Fresh basil leaves

Prepare the pizza dough and keep it refrigerated at least 24 hours for the flavor to develop. Preheat oven to 500 F. If you have a pizza stone heat it with the oven. If you use a baking sheet like me put it in the oven when the temperature reaches 400 F. Ensure you place the sheet / stone in the top rack. When the oven is preheated and the baking sheet / stone is heated through take the dough out of the refrigerator and shape it. Follow instructions in my original sourdough pizza recipe. Make sure you shape the crust as thin as you can for a thin crust pizza.


When done shaping the dough remove the heated baking sheet. If working with a stone assemble the pizza on a floured pizza peel. Place the pizza carefully on the sheet / peel. The dough is sticky and will stick together if it folds on itself. Spread a ladle of pizza sauce. Place the sliced cheese and sprinkle the dried basil over the top.


Place the baking sheet in the oven. Alternately if using a baking stone slide the pizza from the peel to the stone. Bake for 5-8 minutes. Switch to oven from bake to broil. Let the top brown for 1-2 minutes. If using fresh basil add it before you broil. Do not let the cheese solid separate from the liquid. Remove from the oven and serve it hot.


Enjoy!


Comments

  1. Wow that is delicious.. Dried basil will be so flavorful, but fresh would have been awesome...

    Pizza looks super...

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  2. Delicious looking pizza with all that melted cheese. Sometimes it is so strange how all the stores run out of herbs at the same time. Last week I could not find mint in any of hte stores in my neighborhood.

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  3. Homemade cheesy pizza always wins 😀

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  4. The gooey mozzarella looks so good on the pizza.

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  5. Margherita pizza is one classic dish.

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  6. this looks very nice and loved the meleted mozarella on top..i often end up with basil crisis, the fresh ones are so addictive

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  7. Fresh basil is a weak point with me and so I normally preserve the leaves in oil.. Though nothing like absolutely fresh ones ! The Pizza looks tempting with all the cheese.

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  8. my favorite pizza.love the ooye gooye cheese

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  9. Super like, that mleted mozzarella is very tempting..loving it.

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  10. Wish I could get these fresh mozarella here. You are tempting me with your colourful bakes...

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  11. The next time you make this ,the kids and me are coming over Varada. It looks extremely delicious and very tempting...

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  12. That is a perfectly made pizza. Looks so tempting.

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  13. Perfectly baked pizza. My family would love it.

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  14. The color on top is totally awesome!!! Pizza looks fabulous!

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  15. I had a very hard time finding basil as well last month and could not wait to buy a plant. The pizza looks so lovely!

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