Cheesy 5 Pepper-oni Napoletana Pizza - Pepper Month Special

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Happy National Pepper Month! To be honest with you, I’ve never heard of this month until now, but I’m in full support of it, especially by sharing this 5 Pepper Pepperoni Pizza recipe! The purpose of National Pepper Month is to highlight the health benefits of peppers and how versatile they can be! Whether sweet, spicy, or both, peppers can fit the bill and not only add amazing flavor to your cooking, but can promote a well-rounded diet with the Vitamin A and Vitamin C they provide, in addition to their antioxidants that promote a strong immune system.

As I describe in my free motivational guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, having a theme can be an excellent source of inspiration when you’re not sure what to cook! In this case, you can definitely have a theme of incorporating peppers throughout the rest of November. I definitely love including peppers in my recipes, such as in my Jamaican Jerk Pepper Steak, 20-Minute Beef and Vegetable Couscous Bowl, and Vibrant Argentinian Salsa Criolla. Now, if you’ve followed the blog for awhile, one of the best ways to highlight an ingredient is through a mouthwatering homemade pizza, and this 5 Pepper Pepperoni Pizza recipe is my special contribution to National Pepper Month in 2024!

If you want to put your heart on a plate for dinner and you want to celebrate the love of peppers, then be sure to make this 5 Pepper Pepperoni Pizza recipe as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge. Get started for free by signing up to my email newsletter, plus you’ll get all of my easy to follow and tasty recipes sent straight to your inbox!

Now, you may be wondering what are the 5 peppers in this pepper pepperoni pizza recipe? Be sure to comment your guesses below, but as we go through the ingredients, you’ll see where they come from!

Be sure to follow along with me as we prepare this incredible 5 pepper pepperoni pizza recipe by checking out the video! If you’re not already, it would mean a lot to me if you could please subscribe to my YouTube channel, and don’t forget to press the bell button so you always know when a new recipe video is live! Let’s get cooking!

What Pizza Dough Are We Using for This Pepper Pepperoni Pizza?

I’m using a Napoletana Dough for this 5 Pepper Pepperoni Pizza. We’ll quickly walk over the steps to make the dough, but if you want more details, I strongly encourage you to check out the complete recipe.

Allowing the dough to rise for 48 hours will give you the most flavorful crust. On the other hand, if you have limited time, then 24 hours works fine as well! If you’ve stumbled upon this recipe and you’ve got the urge to prepare 5 Pepper Pepperoni Pizza quite literally as you’re reading this, then substitute the instant yeast with quick rise yeast. If you’re in the biggest pinch for time and you really cannot wait to get this pizza in your belly, then you can definitely follow the toppings outlined in this recipe and use a store-bought pizza dough instead.

Prepping Tips for Pepper Pepperoni Pizza

As we’ll discuss later in this post, you can certainly store leftover pizza. However, if you’re going to serve this pizza for friends and family, no one wants to eat a reheated pizza! Give your guests and yourself the best experience by serving the pizza hot and fresh out of the oven! However, in order to have a seamless cooking experience when you’re making the pizza, there are plenty of actions you can take to make the process efficient, quick, and not too time-consuming! Here are my must-follow prepping steps whenever I’m going to make a pizza:

• Keep the dough at room temperature for one hour.
• While the dough is out, preheat the oven. It is crucial for the pizza stone to be hot for one hour before the actual baking of the pizza. As an example, if your oven takes half an hour to preheat, ensure to carve out an hour and a half just for preheating before baking.
• I recommend that you make your pizza sauce during this time, but even earlier is recommended.
• Grate the mozzarella cheese and store in an airtight container or on a plate covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator until it’s time to cook the pizzas.
• Slice your peppers and portion the pepperoni.

Tools Needed to Make 5 Pepper Pepperoni Pizza

• Baking steel and/or baking stone
• KitchenAid
• Wooden pizza peeland ametal peel
• Bench scraper
• Pizza wheel cutter
• Mixing bowl
• Whisk
• Garlic press
• Cutting board
• Basting brush
• Paring knife
• Ramekins

Ingredients for 5 Pepper Pizza

For all ingredients and their quantities and to save the recipe for later, scroll to the bottom of this post or press the “Jump to Recipe” button to see the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD. You will also be able to scale the recipe based on how many pepper pepperoni pizzas you want to make. The amount of dough in this recipe will yield 3 pizzas by default.

For the Pizza Dough

• 00 flour or bread flour: The preferred choice is 00 flour, but if for whatever reason you can’t find it, then feel free to substitute with bread flour.
• Instant Yeast
• Salt
• Lukewarm water (60-70F) + ~200 g/mL lukewarm water (60-70F)
• Extra virgin olive oil

For the Pizza Sauce

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Passata
• Garlic cloves
• Calabrian chili peppers (Bomba)
• Dried oregano
• Tomato paste
• Chilli flakes
• Salt to taste

For the Pizza

• Mozzarella cheese: You really need some good part skimmed mozzarella to get a cheesy pizza and some great cheese pulls! We’ll be grating our mozzarella.
• Pepperoni: Did you know that there are technically peppers in pepperoni? Pepperoni is seasoned with either cayenne or paprika, among other spices.
• Thai green peppers: My favourite kind of pepper! These add the little bit of heat to our pizza.
• Peppers: You can use any variation of colours you want, but I went with yellow and orange peppers that are thinly sliced.
• Chili oil: To brush on the crust when the pizzas have finished baking. It is made with olive oil, garlic, and crushed red peppers.
• Semolina: As required for dusting

How to Make the 5 Pepper Pepperoni Pizza

For the Pizza Dough

Add yeast and 1/4 Cup of lukewarm water to a bowl and whisk until water is bubbly. Mix until you see no granules of yeast floating on the water. If the yeast doesn't dissolve, the yeast is likely dead and you will have to start over with fresh yeast.

Add flour to the bowl of your kitchen aid mixer and add all of the yeast-water mixture. Then, slowly add most of the cold water while continuing to knead with the dough hook. Add the remaining cold water back in the bowl of yeast water and swirl and add to the dough.

Knead until the dough comes together and you have a soft, pliable dough which is not sticky to touch. Add more flour/water as required to reach this consistency.

Stop the mixer and add the salt. Knead on low speed for 1 minute.

Stop the mixer, add the olive oil and knead on low speed for 1 minute. After 1 minute, remove the dough from the dough hook, place in the bowl of the mixer and knead for 30 seconds to a minute.

Then, transfer the dough to your countertop and continue kneading, stretch and fold the dough for 1-2 minutes.

Then, portion the dough into 2 equal parts and for each portion fold the dough onto itself to create a tight surface tension as you seal/pinch the folds. Be careful not to de-gas the dough too much. The portions should resemble a ball of fresh mozzarella. This is a great time to freeze any dough you are not planning to use right away.

Transfer the dough portions to a baking sheet or plate and cover with 2 layers of plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for at least 24 hours in the refrigerator.

For the Sauce

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients for the sauce and mix well. Adjust with salt for seasoning.

For the Chilli-garlic

Mix all the ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to use.

For the Pizza

Place one baking steel/stone on the second highest rack of the oven and another one at the bottom most rack. Preheat oven at 500 F for 1 hour. Remove the pizza dough and sauce out to come up to temperature while the oven preheats.

Dust your countertop with flour and starting with one portion of dough at a time, add the dough ball over the dusting mixture. Starting from the centre of the dough, press down on the dough and create a rim around the side.

Continue pressing down the centre to stretch the dough. Then, hold the dough from the rim and rotate to let gravity stretch it further. You can also use knuckles to stretch the dough, until the diameter is about 10 inches.

To Cook the Pizzas

Set oven to Broil mode, let top steel/stone heat for 8-10 minutes.

Dust a wooden pizza peel with flour and place the stretched dough on the peel.

Spread 3-4 Tbsp of tomato sauce until the edges of the pizza and then sprinkle on a thin layer of mozzarella.

Add pepperoni, bell peppers, Thai chilli peppers and then top with another layer of mozzarella. Add more pepperoni slices.

In a swift push and pull motion, place the pizza on the top baking steel/stone. Bake for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes or until the crust has some char or brown spots and the cheese has molten.

Then transfer the pizza to the bottom steel/stone to finish off the crust of the pizza, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Remove the pizza from the oven and brush the chilli-garlic oil on the edges of the pizza and sprinkle some on the top.

Serve hot and enjoy!

Tips for a Pepperific Pizza!

• If the yeast doesn’t dissolve after mixing, the yeast is likely dead. As a result, it’s best to start over.
• Avoid degassing the dough too much as you are folding the individual portions onto itself. If you over-work the dough, it will start to resist as you start to stretch the dough for the pizza.
• My recommendation for the pizza sauce is to use passata strained tomatoes because it’s the quickest way of preparing the tastiest raw tomato sauce for pizza.
• While preparing the peppers for the pizza, make sure to remove any white bits since this part of the pepper can be bitter.
• To continue on your pizza-making journey after this recipe, I highly recommend you invest in a baking steel and/or baking stone. They are cheap, and an essential tool for pizza makers.
• You want to preheat your oven to its highest temperature for at least one hour before baking the pizza. This will mean that your baking steel and/or baking stone is hot and ready for pizza, giving you the crispiest crust.
• Use a pair of baking steels/stones if possible, setting up one of them towards the top rack of the oven and the second one at the bottom.
• Turn the oven to the “Broil” mode 10 minutes prior to cooking the pizzas (I do this right before topping the pizza) to make the top steel/stone scorching hot. This will help rapidly cook the crispy crust.
• Finish the crust by transferring the pizza to the bottom stone/steel.
• Brushing the crust with olive oil or chilli-garlic oil is optional, but really recommended!

Storing Leftover Pepper Pizza

While I don’t think that you’ll have any leftover 5 Pepper Pizza, if you do have any, then no worries at all! I wrap each individual slice in plastic wrap and store them in the fridge. I recommend reheating in the microwave or the air fryer.

You only need about a minute for your pizza to be completely warmed through if reheating in a microwave. To reheat your pizza in an air fryer, I would heat at 400 F for about a minute or two. To reheat in the oven, I would follow the same steps as in the air fryer, but the process will take longer since your oven will require time to preheat.

If you can avoid it, I do recommend you avoid microwaving your leftover pizza to prevent a soggy crust, but if that’s your only option and you want your pizza ASAP, then go for it!

Frequently Asked Questions