How to Bake Pizza at Home (9 Useful Tips)

When it comes to making pizza at home, I find how to bake your pizza is the second most important thing after finding the best pizza dough.

Just consider this: the real Neapolitan pizza must be baked in a 905 °F or 485 °C stone oven. But most home ovens heat up to only 550 degrees F (275-300 C), which is way lover. Other than this, a stone oven is open all the time, while your wall oven is closed during baking. You think this is not that important? An open oven creates a nice circulation of air, while your home oven won’t. This is the reason while your homemade pizza can easily turn out soggy and/or under-cooked. So essentially the only part that’s missing to create a real Italian pizza at home is an authentic stone oven.

Of course if you have a stone pizza oven at home, that’s a completely different situation. But most of us don’t.

But not anymore! Read this recipe as I experimented the best way to bake your pizza at home, in a conventional wall oven, so that it can turn out almost exactly the same crispy and delicious pizza that you would get in an Italian restaurant.

This recipe is the last one of my 4-part How to make homemade pizza series (1. Making the dough; 2. Shaping your pizza dough; 3. Pizza sauce and toppings; 4. Baking your pizza). In this last step I’m going to show you how to bake your pizza at home in a wall oven.

« Previous step: Homemade pizza sauce recipe

How to Bake Pizza in a Wall Oven

Here I give you the quick instructions on how to bake pizza at home first, but make sure to read on to find more detailed explanations and tips below.

1. Turn on your oven and set it to the highest heat possible. If you have a convection oven, or even better one with a pizza setting, turn those settings on.
   That’s right. While most homemade pizza recipes call for 400-450 degrees (200-220 C), the closer you can get to the “real” pizza oven temperature, the more authentic and yummy your homemade pizza will be.
2. Let your oven warm up completely. This takes at least 20 minutes, but for some models it can take up to one hour.
3. Get your pizza ready in a pizza pan with the sauce and the toppings. For instructions, see my homemade pizza sauce recipe.
4. Place your pizza pan with your pizza on it on the lowest rack of your oven, but not on the bottom.
5. Baking time depends on your oven and pizza size. I find a regular pizza needs approx. 10 minutes, while a small pizza is baked in 8 minutes. Please see my tips below to find the best way of baking your pizza at home.
6. Your pizza is ready when it has a crisp, slightly browned edge. Take it out of the oven, and let it rest for 1 minute. Your perfectly baked homemade pizza is now ready to be served.

Tips on Baking Your Homemade Pizza

1. Use the highest temperature setting on your wall oven. Really don’t worry about the degrees. You can’t go wrong with a home wall oven by just setting it to the warmest possible setting.
2. Let your oven warm up completely. This takes at least 20 minutes, but for some models it can take up to one hour.
3. Use the lowest rack in your oven. Not the bottom, as you can easily burn your pizza that way, but the lowest rack.
4. Use pizza setting (if applicable). Some ovens have a dedicated pizza setting. I find this is the best way to get a crispy crust without any hassles. If using the pizza setting, you don’t even have to worry about the next tips.
5. Use convection at the beginning and end. In a convection oven, I find you can make the best pizza by using the convection setting for the first and last 2 minutes, and using the regular top and bottom heating in between. (You don’t need to worry about this if you have a pizza setting on your oven.)
6. Open the door a few times. If you don’t have a pizza setting, after the first 2 minutes open the oven door every 2 minutes. Then wave with an oven glove a few times to make some air circulation between the oven interior and the kitchen. This helps imitate the open stone oven, and release some of the excess moisture that will accumulate in your wall oven. This way your pizza will turn out crispy and just the way you want it. (Again, don’t worry about this with a pizza setting.)
7. Don’t open the door the first 2 minutes.
8. Turn your pizza at halftime. Most ovens have different temperatures at the back. Turn your pizza 180 degrees at the middle of the baking time to have it baked evenly.
9. Some people call for placing a stone on the bottom of your oven. This can be a pizza stone, or even 2-3 regular bricks. I haven’t tried this method yet, and I tell you just by applying the other tricks here, my homemade pizza turns out just like the ones in an Italian pizzeria.

If you have any tips or experience with baking pizza at home, share it with us at the comments below.