Pizza crust is made from the same basic ingredients as bread: flour, water, salt, and yeast. But when it comes to flour, which one is best? Should you use all-purpose flour? Bread flour? Or what about one that literally has pizza in its name, '00' pizza flour?
Each of these flours makes great pizza, it just depends on the style you want. Whether you’re looking to bake a thick and puffy pan pizza, a crisp and chewy Neapolitan-style pizza, or a classic cheese-topped pie to replace your weekly takeout, here are the best flours for each style of pizza.
Photography by Kristin Teig; food styling by Liz Neily
For classic pizza crust: All-purpose flour
Looking to make a basic pizza crust, one with a crispy bottom, a little bit of chew, and enough strength that the slices won’t get floppy under all that sauce and cheese? For a no-fuss crust, you need a workhorse flour, and that’s all-purpose flour.
Why all-purpose flour works:This everyday flour is designed to succeed in all kinds of baking, and if you only keep one type of flour in your house, it should be this. It has enough protein (11.7%) to support a robust gluten network, translating to crust with plenty of strength and chew. It’s also versatile enough to use in almost all of your other baking — from cakes to cookies — so you only have to worry about keeping one bag of flour in your pantry.
Pizza recipes that use all-purpose flour:
Pizza Crust
Sourdough Pizza Crust
Light and Crispy Pizza
The Easiest Pizza You’ll Ever Make
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
For thick, chewy pan pizzas: Bread flour
Pan pizzas are typically defined by their thick, puffy crusts, with a hearty chew and a crunchy bottom (achieved with a combo of oil and a hot pan). To get there, you need a flour that has plenty of strength and can support a high-hydration dough. You need bread flour.
Why bread flour works:King Arthur bread flour has a higher protein content (12.7%) than all-purpose (11.7%). Because the protein in flour is what forms gluten in your dough, higher protein means more gluten. More gluten means stronger, more stretchy dough, which is critical for a puffy, airy crust with lots of chew — exactly what you’re looking for in a pan pizza. Flour with a higher protein level is well suited to higher hydration doughs, whichare ideal forpan pizza,yielding a pie with an open crumb and lofty height.
Pizza recipes that use bread flour:
Detroit-Style Pizza
Pick-Your-Pan Pizza
Photography by Kristin Teig; food styling by Liz Neily
For pizza with a crispy, bubbly exterior and a puffy, airy interior: '00' pizza flour
Neapolitan-style pizza is known for its puffy outer crust (called the cornicione), crispy exterior, and airy, hole-flecked interior. The best versions of this classic pizza style are made with a specific flour designed to emulate the flour used to make pizza in Italy: '00' pizza flour.
Why '00' pizza flour works:'00' pizza flour is a finely milled flour made from both hard and soft wheat. The hard wheat gives the dough strength, so it can be stretched thin without tearing (and gives the finished pie its distinctive chewiness). The soft wheat provides extra starch, which gives the dough the perfect crisp (but not hard!) crunch and makes it easier to stretch. This flour is also milled to the same standards as Italian pizza flour. Unlike the United States, the European standard for flours is on a numerical scale, ranging from 2 (coarse, whole grain) to 00 (extra fine, white flour). Neapolitan pizza is made with flour milled to '00' standards, which is exactly how we’ve prepared our version of this flour.
Pizza recipes that use '00' pizza flour:
Neapolitan-Style Pizza Crust
Weeknight Neapolitan-Style Pizza
Pizza Italiana
Photography by Danielle Sykes; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
Baking gluten-free?We have a pizza flour for that, too! Try our Gluten-Free Pizza Flour; it’s the secret to the best (gluten-free) pizza you’ll ever make.
The best flour for making Deep-Dish Pizza Dough is all-purpose flour. In bakeries and pizzerias, Pizza Flour is often used because it is a high-protein flour that produces a light and airy crust. However, all-purpose flour will also work well for Deep-Dish Pizza Dough.
00 Flour. Tipo “00” Flour is the shining star of Neapolitan pizza. A good, quality “00” flour typically has around 12% protein; but more importantly, it's the incredibly fine milling that sets it apart from other flours.
In Italy, 00 flour is the gold standard for Neapolitan pizza—the thin, crispy-yet-flexible Italian pizza from Naples—and fresh pasta, largely due to its gluten content.
You need bread flour. Why bread flour works: King Arthur bread flour has a higher protein content (12.7%) than all-purpose (11.7%). Because the protein in flour is what forms gluten in your dough, higher protein means more gluten.
At Ooni, we always use high quality 00 flour, and we recommend that you do, too. This is a finely ground Italian style of flour, which makes for pizza dough that's easy to work with, stretches beautifully and has a great texture and flavour.
To make a great New York Style, Detroit, Sicilian, or Chicago, you should choose a flour with a high percentage of protein content – 13-14.5% preferably. Neapolitan pizza, a much thiner dough, on the other hand, needs one with a lower percentage of protein 11-13%.
Active dry yeast is the most commonly used type of yeast for making baked goods. It is yeast that has been dried out so that it has a longer shelf-life.
The simple ingredients are mostly pantry staples. However, I would definitely recommend using High Grade Flour over ordinary flour. High Grade Flour has a higher content of gluten which makes the crust chewier.
What's the best flour for pizza dough? We recommend using Allinson's Strong White Bread Flour. Bread flour has higher gluten levels than culinary flours such as plain or self-raising. Very strong bread flour has an even higher gluten level, so it's perfect for pizza dough.
A Neapolitan pizza is a thin crust pizza with a pronounced fluffy “cornicione” (the outer rim / lip of the crust), topped with a sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil. Traditionally it's made from Tipo 00 flour, a finely ground refined wheat flour of medium strength.
The best flour for making Deep-Dish Pizza Dough is all-purpose flour. In bakeries and pizzerias, Pizza Flour is often used because it is a high-protein flour that produces a light and airy crust. However, all-purpose flour will also work well for Deep-Dish Pizza Dough.
Made from durum wheat, semolina flour is coarser than regular flour so it's slower to absorb water. Other types of flour such as rye, rice, corn, and whole wheat (or a combination of two or more) can also be used as peel dust.
Besides the level of the grind, the other big difference between “00” flour and all-purpose flour is how the gluten in each flour behaves. The gluten from durum wheat flour tends to be strong but not very elastic, while the gluten in red wheat flour is both strong and elastic.
If you're planning on cooking pizza at home, the most important tip is to choose unbleached flour. However, here are some more tips below on using unbleached flour: While it's true that bread flour has a higher rise and crispier crust, unbleached flour retains a more subtle flavor.
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