Few foods are as beloved or as versatile as pizza. Sometimes, it’s a fun party food, perfect for when you can’t be bothered cooking or thinking about your meals. Other times, it’s a comforting treat, perhaps with a glass of wine after a breakup (or an entire bottle of wine?).
You can also elevate pizzas, such as making them in a pizza oven or on a pizza stone at home. Or, you could experiment with toppings, such as using truffle oil, parmesan, or your own favorites to create something highly personal.
Now, the pizza we know and love is most often associated with flatbread dishes created in Italy, back in the 18th or 19th century. However, the term pizza has been around for much longer than that, dating all the way back to 997 AD.
Pizza has, of course, been through plenty of changes in its history. That’s clear from how many types of pizza there are these days, including Neapolitan, Sicilian, Chicago deep dish, Detroit style, and Roman style pizzas.
With such pizzas, most of the variation is in the type of base. After that, there are all the different topping combinations to consider, along with what the best sides to serve with your pizzas.
14 Types Of Pizza
Neapolitan
Neapolitan pizza can be considered the grandfather pizza style and it’s one that remains incredibly popular. It’s also known as Naples style pizza, given that it hails from Naples.
The style is characterized by being light, tender, moist, and well-balanced. The pizza also cooks incredibly quickly, often spending less than 2 minutes in an oven of around 750°F to 800°F.
Such pizzas typically only use a few ingredients. The most famous variations are margherita (with mozzarella, basil, and tomato), marinara (with tomato, oregano, olive oil, and garlic), and bianca (with garlic, olive oil, and rosemary).
When cooked well, the pizza has a crisp base and small sections of black char. The charring adds flavor, without making the pizza taste burnt.
Neapolitan pizzas are widely admired and often mimicked. However, not all variations are considered authentic. Some are better described as neo-Neapolitan, which retain some features of Neapolitan pizza while changing others.
Sicilian
Sicilian style pizzas are quite different. They have a thick and fluffy crust that is crunchy around the edge. The tomato sauce is flavorful and distinct, and often added above the cheese to stop the pizza base from getting too soggy.
Also, notably, the pizza is often a square rather than circular. Common toppings include tomato, herbs, onion, and anchovies. While cheese isn’t essential, it is often included.
Roman Style
Roman style pizza is frequently served in square or rectangular cuts as well, but isn’t pillowy in the way that Sicilian pizza is. Instead, Roman style pizza is much more like focaccia bread.
The pizza tends to be crispy and can have a wide variety of toppings. One famous version is capricciosa, which includes artichokes, mushrooms, olives, and ham. Regardless of the combination, Roman pizzas generally use fresh and vibrant ingredients, which make them taste amazing.
Interestingly, there’s also a second type of pizza known as Roman style. This also goes by the name pizza basa and is a round pizza with a thin base. While this style is different from the by-the-slice Roman pizzas, you still end up with a delicious treat.
Greek Style
Greek style pizza is also known as New England Greek style pizza, as this style of pizza was developed in New England by Greek immigrants. The pizza is stretched and baked in a pie pan.
The pizza ends up being fairly thick, greasy, and cheesy – a combination that often isn’t amazing, but is certainly comforting. There’s also a touch of chewiness to the crust that can be very appealing.
This type of pizza can be a little confusing, as the term Greek pizza or Greek style pizza is also used for pizza that has Greek ingredients, like olives, feta, and tomatoes. However, the New England Greek style pizza we’re considering here tends to focus more heavily on American ingredients than Greek ones.
New York Style
New York style pizza should be instantly familiar. It’s a large hand tossed pizza base, which is often cut and sold in large slices. The crust is thick at the edges and thin towards the center. The thinness in the center of the pizza makes it easy to fold the large slices (doing so is almost essential if you want to eat the pizza slices by hand).
The most basic version relies on tomato sauce and plenty of mozzarella. Pepperoni versions of the pizza are also common. Beyond this, herbs and garlic powder are often used to improve the flavor profile.
Chicago Deep Dish
Chicago deep dish pizza stands out from other types of pizza, as the crust is more than an inch thick. This allows for more sauce and toppings than any other pizza style, along with a delicious crunchy crust.
Not surprisingly, this style of pizza isn’t well suited to eating with your hands. This is one of the few times where eating with a knife and fork is almost essential. After all, the dish has as much in common with a pie as with a pizza.
Common fillings for the pizza include ground beef, sausage, mushrooms, onions, and green peppers, plus plenty of cheese. These are all best considered fillings rather than toppings, as the pizza is topped with a rich tomato sauce.
California Style
California style pizza has a thin base, with some similarities to New York and Neapolitan pizzas. However, most of the fame doesn’t come from the pizza base but from the toppings.
Notably, California style pizza breaks the mold, including almost any combination of ingredients imaginable. Potential ingredients include artichoke, egg, chicken, red pepper, and ricotta… to name just a few.
The wide variety of ingredients means that California style pizzas vary considerably in flavor, with some combinations of ingredients tasting much better than others. That said, having so many ingredients makes the pizza pretty ‘busy’, which doesn’t appeal to everyone.
St. Louis Style
St. Louis style pizza is famous for being incredibly thin. Indeed, the base is almost like a cracker, largely because it is made without yeast. The cheese is distinct too, as the pizzas traditionally rely on a cheese blend called Provel (consisting of provolone, white cheddar, and Swiss). This blend has a slight sweetness that works well with the tomato sauce on the pizza.
Finally, St. Louis style pizzas are typically cut into squares rather than the more common triangle cut. This style makes the pizza ideal as a finger food for parties or for a quick snack.
St. Louis style pizza is controversial, partly because it is quite different from other types of pizza. But, it can be enjoyable if you try it with an open mind and avoid making comparisons.
Detroit Style
Detroit style pizza has a fairly thick base, with some features in common with focaccia. The pizza also manages an excellent balance of crisp and chewy, partly due to the pans that are used.
One of the notable features is that Detroit style pizzas are typically built in reverse. This means that the toppings are layered onto the crust, starting with pepperoni. Cheese is added next and then sauce, often after the cheese has melted somewhat.
Toppings for the Detroit style pizza are fairly traditional, including pepperoni, mushrooms, and olives. The cheese is notable too, as the pizza relies on brick cheese (often brick cheese from Wisconsin).
Rhode Island Pizza Strip
Cheese is a distinctive feature in most types of pizza. Yet, the Rhode Island pizza strip is completely different.
The dish simply consists of the base and tomato-based sauce. That’s it. There are no toppings, aside from a fine dusting of grated Romano cheese. The pizza strips aren’t even served hot. They’re served at room temperature instead.
Some detractors argue that Rhode Island pizza doesn’t really count as pizza at all. Perhaps not, but it still has some familiar features. It’s also a unique chance to enjoy the complexities of pizza sauce, without the flavors of cheese and toppings getting in the way.
Okonomiyaki
Okonomiyaki is sometimes known as Japanese pizza and has many similarities to the pizza we all know and love. That said, it’s also a distinct dish with its own features. It’s made using a combination of cabbage and batter, which is pressed into a skillet and fried.
Once fully cooked, the cabbage is topped with fresh ingredients. As with pizza, the toppings vary dramatically. Some versions are like our pizzas, including toppings like cheese and meat. Other times the toppings are quite different, including pickled red ginger, wasabi, and seaweed flakes.
Stuffed Crust Pizza
Stuffed crust pizza is a nostalgic dish that had its heyday back in the 90s. It was a great idea in some ways, given that pizza crust can be pretty boring on its own. Adding a cheese filling makes it much more exciting.
Despite being a 90s dish, stuffed crust pizza continues to be available. Stuffed crust can be applied to multiple styles of pizza base, although some work better with it than others. Often, the trick is to simply roll out the crust larger than you normally would, add a roll of cheese (or another ingredient), then seal the dough over.
However, if you’re making stuffed crust pizza yourself, it’s best to look for a recipe. This way there’s no guesswork.
Pizza Made With Alternative Ingredients
Finally, there are many modern pizza recipes that avoid wheat and use other ingredients to create the desired texture and rise. This includes a large number of gluten free pizza crusts, plus some that use unusual ingredients, like chia flour pizza dough and banana flour pizza dough.
Such pizzas can be made to mimic one of the styles on this list, yet are also distinct. This is because alternative flours behave differently to wheat flour, especially if they’re gluten free.
Popular Pizza Toppings
There’s an almost infinite number of pizza toppings, including familiar, creative, and outright bizarre ingredient combinations. While we can’t hope to cover all the options in this list, we can certainly talk about some of the classics. After all, pizza toppings are just as much part of pizza as the base.
Cheese
This is the pizza you order when no one can agree. It’s simply cheese, cheese, and more cheese. The best versions use multiple types of cheese, providing an interesting balance of flavor (parmesan is particularly helpful here).
Many recipes also rely on some form of garlic, like garlic powder or perhaps garlic-infused olive oil. The garlic provides an much-needed boost of flavor and stops the pizza from seeming too plain.
Margherita
Margherita pizza is an Italian creation and distinguished by the toppings. These represent the colors of the Italian flag, with basil for the green, fresh mozzarella for the white, and fresh tomatoes for the red.
These three ingredients complement each other without any dominating over the others. However, because there are only three ingredients, it’s crucial to choose high quality ones.
Most of the time, a margherita pizza is made using the traditional Neapolitan style base. It’s also often the first traditional pizza that people try to make with their own pizza oven.
You can use margherita toppings on other types of pizza bases, including any of the American styles. Of course, it’s up for debate whether the resulting pizza is still a margherita or something else.
Pepperoni
Pepperoni pizza is one of the most popular types of pizza in the United States, one that shows up in almost every pizza shop you visit. You’ll find it in plenty of other places throughout the world as well.
It’s a simple pizza, with a classic tomato sauce base, plenty of mozzarella, and slices of pepperoni. Yet, despite its simplicity, pepperoni pizza contains plenty of flavor—largely because pepperoni itself does.
Veggie
Next, we have the huge selection of pizzas that rely on vegetables. Some use the classic pizza vegetables, like bell peppers, onions, and olives, while others get more creative, such as using roasted vegetables instead of fresh ones.
We can’t forget about the gourmet vegetables either, like artichokes or asparagus. These make the pizza stand out even more.
Veggie pizzas often avoid meat entirely and just rely on the vegetables. However, some include meat as well, which makes them more filling and provides an even more complex flavor profile.
Meat-Based
Then there’s the other end of the spectrum, the pizzas that rely heavily on meat. This includes sausage pizza, BBQ chicken pizza, buffalo chicken pizza, Philly cheesesteak pizza, and many others.
For true carnivores, a meatlover’s pizza is hard to beat. It typically includes multiple types of meat, such as bacon, ham, sausage, and beef. Some versions have a rich sauce as well, which makes the entire meal even better.
You’ll sometimes see a few veggies on a meat-based pizza, but these aren’t guaranteed. As a result, you might need to serve a light salad alongside the pizza for some balance.
Supreme
These pizzas go by various names, including supreme, super supreme, and the works. The general theme is that you have a variety of toppings, often including some vegetables and some meat-based ingredients.
Supreme pizzas are essentially a little bit of everything. They’re fantastic when you want plenty of flavors and textures to enjoy.
Hawaiian
Despite the name, Hawaiian pizza actually originated in Canada. It’s also one of the most controversial types of pizza. Some people claim that the combination of ham and pineapple works well, with the pineapple nicely contrasting the savory ingredients.
Others claim that the pineapple clashes with the other ingredients and doesn’t belong on pizza whatsoever. The difference in opinion is so intense that it can lead to people sometimes getting hugely upset if there is pineapple on someone else’s pizza.
Cheeseburger
Surprisingly, cheeseburger pizza is what the name suggests. The ingredients are carefully chosen to mimic the flavors of a cheeseburger as much as possible. This can include brushing sesame seeds onto the base of the pizza and using a special sauce that tastes like a combination of ketchup and mustard.
Ground beef is typically the meat of choice. This is often seasoned, cooked, then crumbled. You’ll sometimes see bacon crumbles added as well. Veggies include pickles, chopped onions, and perhaps tomatoes, although the combo varies depending on who makes the pizza.
Gourmet
Gourmet pizzas are those that try to step things up a level. They often rely on unusual and extravagant ingredients, such as truffle oil, squid ink, escargot, or exotic meat.
The idea is often to create a complex flavor profile and a unique dining experience. While the pizzas are often more expensive than those you find in a local pizza joint, they often taste amazing and can be well worth the price.
White Pizzas
White pizzas are a little different, as they ditch the traditional tomato-based sauce. Doing so allows the other flavors to shine through. This is especially powerful for pizzas with nuanced flavors.
The most common approach is to simply leave out the tomato sauce and add the rest of the ingredients as usual. Moisture from the cheese ensures that the pizza doesn’t dry out. You might also use a little olive oil on the base.
Some recipes use a white sauce, like alfredo sauce, instead of a tomato sauce. This can work well, although it takes work to get the right balance of texture and flavor.
Creative Pizzas
Almost anything can be used as a pizza topping. This sometimes leads to some truly bizarre combinations, along with unusual ones that actually taste good.
For example, mac and cheese pizza is a thing and there’s a surprising number of recipes to help you make this at home. There’s also breakfast pizza, which relies on breakfast ingredients, like bacon, eggs, and mushrooms.
Regional
Some creative pizzas have a regional focus. This includes pizza that are specific to a particular region and those simply inspired by a region. This includes making a pizza that tastes like an Indian curry or one that relies on Japanese flavors.
Dessert Pizzas
Pizzas tend to be savory, but dessert pizzas are the obvious exception. They can be made with pizza dough or with a different base, such as bread dough base, a premade pie crust, sugar cookie, or something else.
Then there’s often some type of spread, such as melted chocolate, fruit curd, or caramel sauce. Sweet toppings finish the whole pizza off.
Dessert pizzas can vary just as much as regular pizza, including simple and complex versions. There are even some that use custard to create a creamy base or ones that simply use chocolate in the base, spread, and topping to create a chocolate lover’s delight.
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