You Have to Make This Focaccia Pizza! (2024)

This thick, fluffy focaccia pizza is my favorite at home pizza recipe. An easy overnight dough bakes into the most bouncy, bubbly deep-dish pizza. This pizza recipe will easily be a monthly (jk – weekly) staple.

I stand in two camps when it comes to pizza. I firmly believe that there is no. bad. pizza. which is why I’ll preheat my oven and throw in a store-bought cauliflower crust frozen pizza and eat the entire thing on my couch watching old episodes of Scandal, obviously. I also believe that there is such thing as GREAT pizza. And typically, GREAT pizza is not something we make at home. Great pizza is picked up piping hot from Pizza Delicious in New Orleans or from a restaurant with a wood-fired oven and lambrusco on their wine list.

But great homemade pizza? I’ve always thought of it as elusive until I started topping focaccia dough with pizza toppings.

If you aren’t familiar with focaccia, let’s get acquainted. It’s one of the easiest and most satisfying homemade bread loaves you can bake. Focaccia is a yeast-leavened flat bread soaked and steeped in olive oil. Of course we have the Italians to thank for this particular carb so pizza really is a logical lateral move. It’s a simple dough that requires very little fuss save for a few minutes poking your fingers across the dough. What I love most about focaccia is its bounce – sturdy but downright joyful.

This overnight focaccia dough makes a perfect base for homemade pizza because it’s not actually trying to be anything other than great focaccia. No need to worry about shaping pizza dough this enough or heating the oven to mimic a wood-fired machine. This is simply focaccia with a whole mess of pizza on top.

Fair warning – this pizza is so dang good it’ll become a winter staple. Just prepare your heart and maybe invite a few friends over, too.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make this easy focaccia pizza:

• all-purpose flour (though this is a great recipe to use bread flour if you have it on hand)

• active dry yeast

• fine sea salt or kosher salt

• warm water

• extra-virgin olive oil(It wouldn’t be focaccia without it!)

• grated mozzarella cheese (Buy the block and cheese and grate it yourself, it makes for a much more melty pizza cheese.)

• thick sliced pepperoni (Thick is my preference but any pepperoni is great.)

• jarred pizza sauce (I like RAO’s pizza sauce the best.)

• ricotta cheese (This is optional but I love the extra cheese dollops.)

• dried oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, and sea salt

Other topping ideas: roasted garlic, fresh basil, caramelized onions, browned sausage bits, fresh mozzarella, pesto, roasted tomato slices

I would argue that one of the best things about this focaccia pizza (besides eating it) is the ease with which the dough comes together. This is the sort of dough that crosses my mind while I’m brushing my teeth for the night, I can pass through the kitchen and quick-stir it together, tuck myself into bed and look like a pizza master the next day. Just glorious.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, yeast, and salt. Stir together warm water, olive oil and honey. Add the wet ingrediens to the dry and stir to a very soft and very sticky dough with a wooden spoon or firm rubber spatula.

I find it really helpful to measure both the wet and dry ingredients using grams and a scale. A scale will give you the most accurate measurement of ingredients (and make the dough super quick to assemble).

Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before placing the bowl in the refrigerator overnight (at least 12 hours and up to 48 hours).

The focaccia dough will rise to fluffy and bubbly overnight. The time in the refrigerator will build the structure of the dough. It will still be loosey goosey, but will bake up to a beautiful pizza bread.

We’ll bake our focaccia pizza 9×13-inch cake pan so, according to math, we’re making A LOT of pizza. Drizzle the bottom of the pan with a generous amount of olive oil. I find that 3 or 4 tablespoons is enough to pool around the dough which is exactly what you want.

Flip the dough in the oil inside the pan. Don’t worry about stretching the dough to the corners of the an at this point. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and allow to rest and rise for 30 to 45 minutes at room temperature.

Once the dough has risen, rested, and warmed from the chill of the fridge, it’s time to stipple the dough from edge to edge of the pan. Lightly coat your fingers in olive oil and press dimples into the dough, spreading the dough in an even layer to each corner.Sprinkle a thin layer of mozzarella cheese across the dough.

Dollop pizza sauce over the cheese and spread gently with the back of a spoon. There’s no need to have an entirely even layer of sauce across the dough. Spread lightly to preserve the air bubbles across the surface of the dough. I think it’s nice to have pockets of sauce and tucked in slices of pepperoni. Cozy! Follow your topping with another generous sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.

I like to use a tablespoon to add dollops of seasoned ricotta cheese just for pockets of extra creamy cheesiness. Its not totally necessary but wow, why miss a chance for extra cheese?

Bake this pizza on middle rack of the oven for just under 30 minutes, which is also time enough to throw together a little green salad for good measure.

This pizza will come out of the oven as caramelized and bubbly as you could ever want. The dough rises to just about meet the edges of the pan. The tomato sauce will concentrate. The cheese will melt to stretchy. The ricotta will sink just so. It’s a victory and it’s all yours.

Allow the focaccia pizza to cool just slightly before removing from the pan as a slab. Slice into thick chunks and good luck even making it to the table before you devour your first slice.Finish with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese, or my favorite: candied jalapeños and pickled red onions.

It’s insane. Just go ahead and tape a print out of this recipe inside a kitchen cupboard now.

xo Joy

(Recipe inspired by The Kitchn and Erin Jeanne McDowell’s focaccia in Savory Baking.)

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