I like lots of different pizzas.

Broccoli raab + goat cheese + garlic
Pesto + ricotta + sliced black olives
Caramelized onions + brie (not a lot and not with tomato sauce)
Margherita (just crushed tomatoes with slivers of basil and garlic - use fresh mozz)
Crumbled italian sausage or soysage with ring-sliced green and red peppers and onions (Known as a 'Special' in NJ)
Gorgonzola + sundried tomato sliced small + spinach sauteed with garlic

Here's my only tip and I recently learned it: I make 2-lb chunks of pizza dough in the bread machine, divide them into 4 small chunks, stretch/roll on the counter, and then freeze them. So you have homemade pizza dough crusts whenever you want - without any defrosting time.

I used to eat the absolute best pizzas when I lived in Barcelona. When I'd lived in Madrid many many years ago (and about 7 years before living in BCN,) the only pizza I was aware of was horrid take out telepizza.

When I moved to Barcelona, I was excited to find a restaurant that had thin crust, wood-fired pizza at a reasonable price for a poor grad student. I ate the same combo of toppings every time I went to this particular restaurant, but for some reason I can't remember what all was on it. I know it had both artichokes and capers.

thinly sliced Virginia ham and gruyere, no sauce
tandoori chicken, corn, and mayonnaise
bottarga (pressed mullet roe), parmigiano reggiano, and egg (sunny side up, still runny)

I sometimes make a pseudo-pizza at home using satay sauce instead of marinara sauce, and top with chicken, red peppers and pineapple.

That's so not a pizza though. But it's delicious.

It does raise the question though of what defines a pizza. Is it the crust? The sauce? (can't be, because you have white pizzas). Hrm.

I used to live in one of the many Lands of Pizza. Sadly, that was one of the compromises that I had to make moving to a tiny town in the mid-Atlantic region. I have YET to have a good slice of pizza since I moved here. When I can get a good pizza, a margherita will set me straight anytime.
*sigh*
Now I want pizza that I can't have.

The normal one I make at home has a simple approach. I found a canned sauce that I really like, and I usually top with genoa salami instead of store bought pepperoni, (cos I find store bought pep to be super LAME). I would use proscuitto sometimes, but found the quality/flavour varied more than I liked. So now...I use thinly sliced pancetta, which crisps up nicely in the oven. That's SUPER tasty. I also like to add lots of thinly sliced sweet onion as well.

My brother will often top his with arugula, or rocket, as he calls it...I like that too.

And, I am also getting VERY hungry!

Any homemade pizza tips you'd like to share?

If you don't call before 10pm, you're gonna be stuck with Pizza Hut or Papa John's. :(

I like simple, so I usually get margherita, but I sometimes get major cravings for broccoli on pizza. Really the only things I don't like are onion and green/red peppers.

I live near this joint, a vegetarian pizza joint with some wicked vegan options, which is great... although, now that I look at their site I see they say they're moving! Oh noes!!! My favourite from them is like a margherita but with oregano, arugula, mozarella and, after cooking, parmesan shavings. It's kinda spicy... so good.

Oh yeah! Fresh oregano on pizza is a deeeeelight. I usually pick some from the garden come summertime!

no sauce, fresh basil, mix of motz and ricotta, sliced tomatoes, garlic... heaven.

I know this marks me as a complete pleeb but I love sweet chili chicken thai pizza. Sweet Thai sauce, broccoli, mesquite chicken, broccoli, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese and mozzarella cheese.

Miko, does your onion and brie pizza have ANY sauce? I just can't eat a pizza without sauce but yours sounds so good.

Seconding fresh oregano on pizza. An idea so profoundly beneficial I had to include it in my silly-ass 25 Things To Know About Me meme in Facebook.

Eggplant! Sliced thin, breaded and fried like it was going into an eggplant parmesan.

my sauce is awesome

I want to know about this. My wife makes the bestest homemade pizza in the world. I'm the token sauce maker ... which usually just means opening a can of whatever tomato paste/sauce we have and spicing it up a bit. It's a shame considering everything else in the 'za is usually homemade/organic/locally-grown, but other than re-appropriating her (occasionally available) homemade spaghetti sauce, I have no idea.

I'm generally a voracious carnivore, so I am big on the meat toppings, less so on some of the common veggies. I know this will be heretical to a lot of people but I hate, hate, HATE, HATE onions on pizza. Fresh spinach can be awesome. I'm down with pineapple most of the time, if it is fresh pineapple. A properly made grilled chicken and jalapeno pizza is hard to beat.

When I took my father to Italy last year, by the time we had spent a couple days in Venice (and after Genoa and Florence), we were tired of pasta and pizza. Right across the canal from our hostel was a chinese restaurant and we said 'what the hell, let's do it.' Turns out, it was some of the best chinese food I had ever eaten. Because the place was so isolated from a supplier perspective, they had to cook everything from scratch using local ingredients -- no processed egg rolls or crab rangoon there. We ate there twice more.

My favorite pizza now is brushed with olive oil, no sauce, but with good italian salami from a deli and sauted mushrooms, red onions and strips of bell pepper.

Thanks, everybody! Keep 'em coming.

dano, here's my recipe for sauce:

Ingredients:
- 1 large yellow onion
- big glug olive oil
- 4 or 5 cloves of garlic
- 3 cans of whole cooked tomatoes and their liquid (certainly use ripe fresh tomatoes when in season)
- 2 or 3 cans worth of water
- salt and fresh-ground black pepper
- 1 or 2 tablespoons fresh oregano if you have it, dried if you don’t

Mix and match optional ingredients:
- lots more garlic
- fresh thyme
- fresh basil (add towards end)
- little sprinkle of fennel seeds
- dash of cinnamon
- couple of bay leaves
- smoked paprika
- cayenne or red pepper flakes
- fresh bell pepper
- chicken or veg bullion

To cook:
- Finely dice the onion and sauté in olive oil until clear over medium heat.
- Add garlic and spices, cook for one or two minutes only.
- Chop or smush tomatoes and add them and their liquid, and the water.
- Turn up and bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for at least 1 1/2 hours. Stir occasionally and add water if needed.

I like a smooth sauce, so I purée it with a submersible blender (remove bay leaves, if any, beforehand), but if you like a textured sauce, just leave as is.

You can double this recipe and freeze individual portions of it.

Sweet, thanks!

We make our crusts in advance and half bake them and then freeze them until we are ready to use them. Real time-saver.

Yeah, I've been experimenting freezing various types of dough.

We don't have a pizza stone, and I'm wondering if I should put that on my wishlist...

Miko, does your onion and brie pizza have ANY sauce? I just can't eat a pizza without sauce but yours sounds so good.

I haven't made it in ages, but I didn't put sauce. However you could make a light bechamel, which would be great, or a thinned ricotta/white sauce.

As to pizza sauce, again, the Jersey girl in me is very opinionated about this. The best pizza places in NJ don't do a cooked sauce based on tomato paste. It's too sugary and concentrated and complicated.

What they do instead, and what I do now, is open a can of good crushed tomatoes (Cento, Pastene, something flavorful) which still has its seeds. Add minced garlic, basil, a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and you're done. It's pure, fresh, bright, simple tomato taste. I like to have most of the flavor on pizza come from the topping ingredients, and for the sauce to contribute its basic, acidic counterpoint and tomato hit.

If you really like stirring things over a stove this version looks good.

For pasta I love thick chunky sauce with a lot of veggies in it, but the best pizzas, I think, tend to be minimalist - a few, great ingredients, simply put together.

I went to a Pizza Hut in Cairo and damn if it wasn't among the five best pizzas I've ever tasted. I think they paid Pizza Hut workers the same as they pay them here, but in Egyptian Pounds, so everyone working there was very damn professional.

Also Cairo has a KFC run by the hearing impaired, which is delicious and was much quieter when I was there than in this Youtube video. My traveling partner and I were the only customers. I gather they have one in Malaysia as well.

I like pretty much anything on pizza. Sometimes I used to order from Papa John's; if I had my druthers I'd get anchovies and extra sauce.

≡ Click to see image ≡

(oh yeah....sausage, bacon/pancetta, pepperoni, garlic, crushed red pepper etc)