Pizza Marinara Recipe: Tomato, Garlic and Oregano

The recipe at a glance

Pizza marinara is a cheese-free pizza topped with crushed tomato, thin garlic, dried oregano, and extra-virgin olive oil. For four 12-inch pizzas, use four 250 g dough balls, 360 g crushed peeled tomatoes, four small garlic cloves, 2 g dried oregano, 28 g extra-virgin olive oil, and 3.6 g fine salt. Top lightly, launch onto a fully heated floor, turn as the oven maker directs, and remove when the rim is risen and the base is set.

This formula is built for a regular home pizza session, not presented as restaurant certification. It sits inside the ingredient pattern in the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana's 2024 regulations, which list peeled tomato, 6–8 g extra-virgin olive oil, one roughly 3 g garlic clove, and 0.5 g oregano for a marinara. The house formula uses 90 g tomato and 7 g oil per pizza so every batch can be weighed and repeated.

Ingredients for four 12-inch pizzas

• 4 pizza dough balls, 250 g each, fully fermented and ready to stretch
• 360 g whole peeled tomatoes, drained only if unusually watery, then crushed by hand
• 3.6 g fine salt
• 4 small garlic cloves, about 12 g total
• 2 g dried oregano
• 28 g extra-virgin olive oil
• flour for handling, used sparingly
• optional fresh basil leaves

The total topping load per pizza is deliberately light: 90 g tomato, about 3 g garlic, 0.5 g oregano, and 7 g oil. The arithmetic also makes the four-pizza batch auditable: 360 + 12 + 2 + 28 + 3.6 = 405.6 g of sauce and seasoning, or about 101.4 g per pizza before optional basil.

Use the site's Neapolitan dough recipe if you need the dough as well. Make it on its own schedule; the active recipe below begins when fermented dough balls are ready to open.

Scale the topping without guessing

This is straight multiplication, not a new ratio at each size. If your garlic cloves are large, weigh or use less; "one clove" is not a stable unit. Keep each dough ball and its topping allocation separate during service so the first pizza does not receive the sixth pizza's oil.

Prepare the tomato without cooking it

Put the peeled tomatoes in a bowl and crush them with clean hands until the largest pieces are small enough to spread. The AVPN regulations prefer hand crushing because it produces a different consistency and avoids breaking seeds in a way the document associates with bitterness. Do not blend the tomatoes into foam.

Stir in 3.6 g salt for this 360 g batch. That is 10 g per kilogram, the lower end of the regulations' 10–12 g-per-kilogram guidance for generic peeled tomatoes and the upper end of its 7–10 g range for San Marzano tomatoes. If the can is already heavily salted, make a small test spoonful before committing the full amount.

Do not simmer this sauce. In a very hot pizza oven, reducing it first can leave the finished marinara dry and overly concentrated. If the can contains excessive free liquid, lift out the tomatoes and crush them, then add only enough juice to make a spoonable sauce. Record the drained weight so the next batch is repeatable.

Divide the finished tomato into four 90 g portions. A scale is faster than trying to remember whether the previous spoon was generous.

Slice the garlic for even cooking

Peel the garlic and slice each clove into thin, even pieces. The formal AVPN technique spreads thin slices over the tomato rather than mixing raw garlic into the sauce. Even thickness matters because a paper-thin piece at the rim can blacken while a thick piece in the centre stays sharp and nearly raw.

Keep the sliced garlic and oil separate until topping. Do not make a jar of raw garlic in oil to leave beside the oven. The National Center for Home Food Preservation warns that homemade garlic-in-oil mixtures stored at room temperature carry a botulism risk; it directs refrigeration at 40°F or below for no more than four days. This recipe needs no infusion at all.

Heat the oven and verify the floor

Follow the oven manufacturer's lighting, fuel, clearance, and operating instructions. A live flame and a pale dome do not prove that the floor has recovered. Measure the launch area with an infrared thermometer using the device's distance-to-spot guidance, then check again between pizzas.

For a compact high-heat pizza oven, a floor around 750–850°F (400–455°C) is a practical starting band, while the AVPN's formal standard is narrower and uses separate floor and dome conditions. The site's wood-fired oven temperature guide explains those standards and a three-point measurement routine. Use the temperature that the dough formula and oven manual support rather than chasing the largest display number.

Place the oven outdoors on a stable, non-combustible setup with the clearances required by its manual. Keep children and pets away, use the approved turning tool, and wear suitable heat protection. The U.S. Fire Administration's outdoor-fire guidance says grills belong outdoors and away from structures or anything that can burn. If the oven, fuel, or weather conditions fall outside the manual, do not light it.

Set up a four-pizza station

Arrange the work in the order your hands will use it:

1. Four covered dough balls at their ready temperature.
2. Four 90 g tomato portions.
3. Four garlic portions, each about 3 g.
4. Four 0.5 g oregano portions.
5. A scale or four small cups holding 7 g oil each.
6. A clean stretching surface, flour, peel, turning peel, and landing board.

Keep the launch peel dry. Do not build all four pizzas in advance; tomato begins wetting the base as soon as it lands. Stretch, top, launch, and bake one pizza at a time. While one pizza is being sliced, let the floor recover and measure again before opening the next dough ball.

Stretch one dough ball

Dust the dough and work surface lightly. Press from the centre outward, leaving a raised rim. Turn and continue opening until the centre is thin and the round is about 12 inches across. Do not use a rolling pin if you want an airy rim; it presses out the gas retained around the edge.

Move the opened base onto the peel before topping. Give the peel a small test shake. If the dough does not move, lift one edge and blow or flick a trace of flour beneath the sticking point. The full pizza-launching guide covers peel angle, timing, and recovery from a folded edge.

Raw flour is food, not a tasting ingredient. The FDA says not to eat raw flour or dough and to wash hands, utensils, and surfaces with soap and running water or warm soapy water after handling it. Keep the landing board and cutter away from the raw-dough work area.

Top in the right order

Work quickly once the base is on the peel:

1. Spoon 90 g tomato into the centre.
2. Spread it outward in a thin spiral, stopping short of the raised rim.
3. Distribute one sliced garlic clove across the tomato.
4. Scatter 0.5 g oregano evenly.
5. Drizzle 7 g olive oil in a thin spiral.
6. Add a few basil leaves only if using them.
7. Shake the peel once more and launch immediately.

Do not pile garlic in the centre or leave a puddle of oil at the leading edge. A wet, heavy front edge is harder to release and can fold during launch. The marinara should look fully dressed but not flooded.

Bake, turn, and read the pizza

Launch onto the measured hot zone rather than directly beside the flame. Watch the rim rise. Once the fire-facing side has set and begun to colour, turn the pizza as the oven manufacturer directs. In a fast compact oven, that first turn may arrive after roughly 20–30 seconds and the total bake may land around 60–90 seconds, as in Ooni's AVPN-standard marinara method. Those times are observations for that method, not permission to ignore the base.

Remove the pizza when:

• the rim is expanded with browned and dark-spotted areas;
• the underside is set rather than pale and soft;
• the centre supports the sauce without feeling raw;
• the garlic is fragrant and lightly coloured, not black; and
• the oil and tomato look integrated rather than separated into a deep puddle.

Let the pizza rest briefly on a rack or board before cutting. That pause lets steam leave the base instead of being trapped under it.

Diagnose one variable at a time

Change one input on the next pizza and write it down. If you simultaneously drain the tomato, lower the floor, thicken the garlic, and shorten the bake, the result may improve but it will teach you almost nothing.

What makes this different from Margherita?

Marinara is not Margherita with the cheese forgotten. Garlic and oregano are the defining aromatic layer, while mozzarella and its moisture are absent. That changes the topping weight, the way the centre sets, and what you watch during the bake. A restrained tomato layer matters because there is no cheese structure over it.

It is also a useful oven test. With only tomato, garlic, oregano, and oil on the base, floor recovery and uneven turning are easy to see. Make it before a heavily topped pizza when you want a clean read on the oven.

Storage and make-ahead boundaries

Keep opened tomatoes covered in the refrigerator at 40°F (4°C) or below. The FDA's storage guidance says foods requiring refrigeration should not remain at room temperature more than two hours, or one hour above 90°F. Apply the same limit to prepared toppings and leftovers.

For the cleanest service, portion tomato, garlic, oregano, and oil shortly before baking and return unused perishable ingredients to the refrigerator promptly. Store leftover pizza covered and reheat until hot. Discard food that exceeded the time limit; appearance and smell cannot establish safety.

The four-pizza workflow

Use this order when guests are waiting:

• Before heating: portion every topping and uncover only the dough balls needed soon.
• During preheat: crush and salt the tomato; slice garlic; arrange tools.
• At readiness: measure the floor in multiple spots and choose the launch zone.
• Pizza one: stretch, top, launch, turn, remove, and record the result.
• Between pizzas: clear loose flour only with the oven maker's approved tool; let the floor recover.
• Pizzas two to four: repeat the same weights, changing only the one variable the previous pizza exposed.
• After baking: extinguish or close down the oven exactly as its manual requires and keep the area controlled until fully cool.

That is the whole appeal of marinara: very few ingredients, nowhere for sloppy measurements to hide, and a result that gets better quickly when each pizza is treated as evidence for the next one.

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