Naturally leavened Neapolitan pizza dough

This is the dough we've made every day since 2017: soft Caputo 00, water, salt, and a live sourdough starter, slow-fermented in the cold for a day or two, then opened by hand and fired in a 900°F wood oven. Below is the working recipe scaled to four 250-gram dough balls, enough for four 12-inch Neapolitan pizzas at home, plus the why behind each step. None of this is secret. The work is in the patience.

What naturally leavened actually means

"Naturally leavened" means the dough rises on a live sourdough starter instead of (or alongside) commercial baker's yeast. The starter is a flour-and-water culture you feed regularly; it carries wild yeasts and lactic-acid bacteria from the air and the grain. Those bugs do two jobs: they push gas into the dough so it rises, and they slowly break down the flour, which is where the flavor, the aroma, and the easier digestibility come from. A 24- to 48-hour cold ferment gives them the time they need. There is no shortcut for time.

At the restaurant we run a 100%-hydration starter, refreshed twice a day, and we use it as the only leaven. At home, most cooks find it easier to use mostly starter with a tiny pinch of instant yeast as insurance, so the timing is forgiving. Both are honest Neapolitan-style doughs.

The ingredients (and why we pick them)

• Flour: Caputo 00 "Pizzeria" or "Chef's Flour." 00 refers to how finely the flour is milled, not its protein. Caputo's pizzeria blend sits around 12-13% protein, strong enough to hold gas through a long ferment, soft enough to open into a tender disc. King Arthur Bread Flour or any Italian Tipo 00 around 12% protein will work; avoid high-gluten "bread" flours over 14% — they'll fight you when you shape.
• Water: 65% hydration. That is 650g water per 1,000g flour. We run 62-65% at the restaurant; 65% is the sweet spot for home ovens that take longer than a wood oven to set the crust. Higher hydration is harder to handle but gives a more open crumb in the rim.
• Salt: 2.8%. Fine sea salt. Salt slows fermentation, tightens the gluten, and seasons the crust. Add it last — direct contact with a live starter can stun it.
• Leaven: an active sourdough starter at 100% hydration. Refreshed within the last 6-8 hours, doubled in volume, and floating in water when you drop a spoonful in. If your starter is sluggish, the dough will be too.
• Optional: a pinch of instant dry yeast. 0.05% (about a quarter-teaspoon for a 1 kg batch). Use it only if your starter is young or your kitchen is cold. The classic AVPN dough uses brewer's yeast; we'd rather use a strong starter, but a tiny boost won't hurt the flavor over 24+ hours of cold ferment.

Home recipe: four Neapolitan pizza dough balls

Total batch about 1,025g, which divides into four ~250g balls. Each ball opens to a 12-inch pizza.

• 600g Caputo 00 flour (Pizzeria or Chef's blend)
• 390g water at 18-20°C (cool tap)
• 17g fine sea salt
• 60g active 100%-hydration sourdough starter
• Optional: 0.3g instant dry yeast (a small pinch)

Method

• 1. Mix. In a wide bowl, whisk the starter (and pinch of yeast, if using) into the water until milky. Add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon or by hand until no dry flour remains, a shaggy mass. Cover. Rest 30 minutes (an autolyse — the flour finishes hydrating and gluten starts to form on its own).
• 2. Add salt and develop the dough. Sprinkle the salt over the dough with a splash of reserved water if you held any back. Wet one hand and do a series of stretch-and-folds in the bowl: grab one edge, pull it up and over to the opposite side. Quarter turn. Repeat 6-8 times. The dough will tighten. Cover.
• 3. Bulk ferment. Let the dough rise at room temperature (21-23°C / 70-74°F) for 3-4 hours, doing one more set of stretch-and-folds at the 45-minute mark. You're looking for the dough to grow about 50% in volume, smooth on top, with a few visible bubbles at the surface.
• 4. Divide and ball. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured bench. Cut into four equal pieces (a scale helps: ~256g each). Ball each piece by tucking the edges underneath and rolling on the bench under a cupped hand until the surface is tight and smooth. Place seam-side down in a lightly oiled covered container, leaving room for each ball to double.
• 5. Cold ferment, 24 to 48 hours. Refrigerate. 24 hours gives you a clean, lightly tangy dough; 48 hours gives you more flavor, more aroma, and a more digestible crust. We run 36 hours at the restaurant. Past 72 hours, the dough starts to over-proof and loses spring.
• 6. Final proof. Pull the dough balls out 2-3 hours before you want to bake. They should warm up to about 18°C and look puffy and domed.
• 7. Open by hand. Flour the bench. Use your fingertips to press the dough from the center outward, pushing gas into the rim — never the middle. Lift, drape over your knuckles, let gravity stretch the disc to 12 inches. Do not use a rolling pin. Ever. The whole point is the gas in the rim.
• 8. Bake. Top quickly and minimally — a 60-90 second pizza punishes anything heavy. In a wood oven, 430-485°C (810-905°F), 60-90 seconds. In a home oven on a steel or stone at 290°C (550°F), 4-6 minutes, with the broiler on for the last 60 seconds. In a backyard pizza oven (Ooni, Roccbox), 450°C, 90 seconds. Rotate halfway through so the rim chars evenly.

Common questions

• How long can the dough sit in the fridge? 24-72 hours is the safe window. 36-48 hours is the sweet spot for flavor and handling. Past 72, expect a slacker dough that's harder to shape.
• My starter isn't very active. What do I do? Feed it twice a day for two days before you bake (1:5:5 ratio — one part starter, five parts each of flour and water). If it still drags, lean on the optional pinch of yeast for this batch and keep building the starter.
• Can I skip the sourdough starter and use only commercial yeast? Yes — use about 1g instant dry yeast per kilo of flour and the same long cold ferment. You'll lose some of the tang and complexity but gain reliability. It's still a fine Neapolitan-style dough.
• What if my home oven only goes to 250°C? Bake on a preheated steel (better than stone for home ovens), as close to the top element as it will fit, with the broiler on. Aim for 6-7 minutes total. The crust won't blister exactly like a wood oven, but the flavor of the dough will carry the pizza.
• Is this AVPN-compliant? No. The AVPN spec calls for brewer's yeast (not sourdough) and forbids the dough from being refrigerated. We use the technique we believe makes the best-tasting pizza, which is a long cold ferment on a live starter. Naples technique, New England hands, zero dogma.

If you'd rather skip the 48 hours and just eat a pie someone else made, the Margherita on our menu is built on this exact dough. See the menu →