Friday-Night Pan Pizza
Friday night pizza used to mean waiting 45 minutes for a lukewarm box. Now it means this: a no-knead dough I stir together in five minutes, press into a screaming-hot-later cast-iron pan, and bake until the bottom sounds like a knuckle on a door. My kitchen, my rules, and the crust wins every single time.
The move that makes this special: cheese all the way to the edge of the pan, past where the sauce dares to go. It melts against the hot iron and forms a lacy, crackly wall of frico — the caramelized cheese crown that makes people go quiet mid-bite. That, plus a generous slick of olive oil under the dough, is the whole secret. No stone, no peel, no stress.
Why you’ll love this one
A few ingredient notes
Bread flour gives the chew; all-purpose works but the crumb will be a touch softer. Buy low-moisture mozzarella in a block and grate it yourself — the pre-shredded stuff is dusted with starch and melts worse. Sauce is just crushed tomatoes, raw garlic, and oregano stirred together; cooking it first is one pot too many for a Friday.
Friday-Night Pan Pizza
Ingredients
Instructions
Stir the flour, yeast, and salt together, then add the water and 1 tbsp olive oil. Mix with a spoon until no dry flour remains — it’ll be shaggy and sticky, and that’s correct. Cover and let rise somewhere warm for 45–60 minutes, until puffy.
Pour 1½ tbsp olive oil into each of two 10-inch cast-iron skillets. Divide the dough in half, drop one piece into each pan, and press it toward the edges with oiled fingertips. If it fights back, wait 10 minutes and press again — it always gives in.
Heat the oven to 500°F with a rack in the bottom position. Stir together the crushed tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and salt. That’s the sauce. Done.
Top each pizza backwards: mozzarella first, edge to edge and right up against the pan wall, then spoon the sauce over in dollops. Finish with parmesan and pepperoni if you’re using it.
Bake on the bottom rack for 12–14 minutes, until the top is blistered and the edges are deeply browned. If the bottom needs help, set the pan over medium heat on the stovetop for 1–2 minutes — peek with a spatula until it’s golden and crisp.
Let it sit 2 minutes, then run a knife around the frico edge and slide the whole pizza onto a board. Tear the basil over the top, slice, repeat with pizza number two.
The one mistake: skimping on the oil in the pan — it’s what fries the bottom crust, so use all of it. The dough holds in the fridge up to 3 days (it actually gets better); cold dough just needs an extra 15 minutes of pressing patience.
Dan started Otoko Cooking in 2019 to prove weeknight food could taste like weekend food. Every recipe is tested at least twice — usually because he ate the first batch. More about Dan →
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