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Neapolitan pizza dough – the full recipe and the why behind it

Four ingredients, 65% water and 48 hours in the fridge. We explain every number, lay out the schedule and say plainly where we step outside the AVPN rules.

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3 min
Updated

Quick answer: flour, water, salt and yeast – nothing else. The AVPN rules explicitly forbid fat and sugar in the dough. Our house method runs 65 % hydration, 2.8 % salt and 48 hours of cold fermentation, which gives a soft, lightly chewy crust with good flavour – but it sits outside AVPN’s own limits on two points, see below.

The ingredients – and what isn’t allowed

The AVPN disciplinare 2024 specifies type 00 or 0 flour with a W value of 250–320 (the strength of the flour, not a ”Weibull value” as is sometimes wrongly claimed), water, salt and yeast – fresh compressed yeast, dried yeast or natural sourdough. Fat and sugar are forbidden in the dough (”non inserire alcun tipo di grasso o zuccheri nell’impasto”). Olive oil goes on afterwards, never into the dough.

The house method – our recipe

We use a single house dough for the entire recipe library: 65 % hydration, 2.8 % salt, 250 g per ball, 48 hours of cold fermentation at 4 °C. That is our own choice (house method, not an AVPN figure), and it deliberately departs from the disciplinare on two points:

  • Water: 65 % is more than the roughly 55.5–62.5 % that AVPN’s ”1 litre of water to 1.6–1.8 kg of flour” works out to.
  • Fermentation time: 48 hours exceeds the AVPN 2024 maximum of 24 hours in total.

We think the result is better for baking at home – a more digestible crust and more flavour from the long fermentation – but it is our choice, not an official rule. Get the exact grams from the dough calculator, which scales to any number of pizzas.

The method, step by step

  1. Dissolve the salt in the water. AVPN requires that salt and yeast never be in direct contact for more than 5 minutes, because the salt can otherwise damage the yeast cells.
  2. Mix in a small part of the flour plus the yeast into the salted water and stir.
  3. Add the rest of the flour gradually until the dough is soft, smooth and no longer sticks to the side of the bowl.
  4. Knead – by hand for at least 10–15 minutes, by machine for 5–10 minutes on low speed, until the dough is elastic.
  5. Bulk fermentation for a short while at room temperature before balling.
  6. Ball into 250 g portions – the calculator gives you the exact number for however many pizzas you are baking.
  7. Cold fermentation in the fridge at 4–8 °C, in our case for 48 hours.
  8. Bring to room temperature for 2–3 hours before baking, covered.
  9. Stretch by hand from the centre outwards – never a rolling pin, never a dough press. Leave the outer rim alone.
  10. Bake for 60–90 seconds in a wood-fired oven, longer in a home oven with a steel or stone.

Frequently asked questions

Is this ”the one true” Neapolitan recipe? No. AVPN gives ranges (flour 1.6–1.8 kg/L, salt 40–60 g/L, yeast 0.1–3 g/L), not a single exact figure. Our house method is a choice within, and partly outside, those ranges – declared openly above.

Carry on to hydration to understand the water in depth, yeast to convert between yeast types, or cold fermentation for planning your timings. See the recipe in action in the margherita and the marinara, or read about what goes wrong in sticky dough.