How to throw a stress-free pizza party at home

In theory, at least, a pizza party is meant to be fun — I mean, it has party right in the name. But in practice, it can be hard to make it the enjoyable, stress-free gathering you’ve imagined as you sweat over shaping, baking, and serving hot pizza in real time. Here are our best tips for throwing a pizza party at home that everyone, including the host, can enjoy. 

Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne

Organize your setup and select your recipes  

Now is the time for a gimlet-eyed assessment of your setup. If you’re planning to cook the pizzas in your home oven, our recommendation is to consider pan pizzas, like plush, puffy Detroit-style, oversized Grandma pies, buttery Flaky Puff Crust Pizza, or thin, crispy South Shore Bar Pizza. The logic is simple: Those styles of pizza feed a lot of people, and don’t require any last-minute shaping or loading. When your guests arrive, you can already have the dough in pans, so all that’s left is topping and baking.

If you’re baking freeform pizzas in a home oven on a baking steel or stone (our preferred home oven setup), one of the unfortunate truths is that with each pizza you bake, the steel or stone loses some of its heat, meaning that any pie after the first one or two is going to be less crispy and more pale. Yes, you can reheat the steel or stone between each pizza, but then you’re likely to have a lot of hungry people waiting around, which does not a party atmosphere make.

Instead, if you’re set on freeform pies for a crowd, your best bet is an outdoor pizza oven (like a Gozney). You can do almost any style of freeform pizza, from Neapolitan to New Haven, because the oven can get much hotter than a home oven (up to 900°F) and pizzas cook in mere minutes, meaning you can make many pizzas in a short time, without worrying about your baking surface losing heat. Just make sure you have enough fuel for your outdoor oven; nothing like running out of propane mid-bake.

Photography by Danielle Sykes; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.

A day (or two) before your pizza party  

The most successful pizza parties start at least a day in advance. Here’s a checklist to prepare:  

• You can (and should) make your dough ahead; dough that has time to rest in the refrigerator will be easier to work with, brown more readily, and have more flavor. Store each dough ball in its own covered container; for round pizzas we like to use round containers, as it makes it easier to shape the dough into a circle when the time comes. Make more dough than you think you need, just in case a pie gets botched or burned (or dropped).
• Prep your toppings ahead, too. Nearly every pizza topping, save pepperoni, needs some TLC before you drop it on your pie. And while we understand the temptation to offer one million toppings, consider taking a curatorial approach; more is not always better.
• Grate your cheese! Consider offering (at least) two cheese options: a low-moisture whole milk mozzarella (for meltability and stretch) and a harder aged cheese, like Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino Romano, which contributes saltiness and umami. And while it seems convenient, we don’t recommend pre-shredded cheese, which is often tossed with anti-caking agents that impact its ability to melt. 
• Prepare your sauces. A no-cook sauce (a can of whole tomatoes blitzed with some salt) can be made the day-of, but cooked sauces, including marinara, béchamel, or pesto, should be made ahead. (Find directions for our go-to no-cook pizza sauce here.)

Photography and food styling by Liz Neily

The day of your pizza party  

• At least two hours before the party, pull your dough out of the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature, which will make it easier to stretch. If you’ve opted for pan pizzas, get the dough in the pan for its second rise.
• Establish a stretching station. If you’re opting for freeform pizzas, establish a zone for stretching; set out bowls of flour and have some semolina flour ready for dusting your pizza peel. For beginner pizza makers, shaping pies on parchment paper is a good idea; cut out some large circles from half-sheets of parchment and set nearby.
• Set up a topping station. Arrange your precooked toppings, sauces, and cheeses in bowls; provide a small ladle for the sauce(s).
• Create a slicing station. Set out a large cutting board, a pizza wheel or sharp knife, and an array of “finishing touches,” including fresh herbs, red pepper flakes, hot honey, ranch, and pizza oil, for when your hot pies come out of the oven. You can also set out a cooling rack, which helps keep the bottom of the pizza crispy as it cools. 
• At least an hour before guests arrive, preheat your (indoor or outdoor) oven. If baking the pizzas indoors, put a baking steel or stone in the oven while it preheats.

Photography by Patrick Marinello; food styling by Yekaterina Boytsova

Showtime 

As the expression goes, if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. If you’ve followed the tips above, all you need to do when your guests arrive is encourage them to top (or shape and top) the pizza of their dreams. You might lovingly remind people that exercising restraint when it comes to cheese and toppings is wise; an overtopped pie is more likely to become soggy (but pan styles can accommodate a heavier hand with both).  

The job of supervising the bake should fall to the host (that’s you); be prepared to lend a hand when it comes to getting pizzas in and out of the oven and ensuring they are fully baked. We think a pizza party is most successful when everyone eats pizza the minute it comes out of the oven, so encourage your guests to grab hot slices from all the pies, not just the one(s) they had a hand in making.

If you’re inclined to serve dessert, make it easy on yourself by preparing some cookies or bars ahead of time (my favorites include Creamy Key Lime Bars, Raspberry Frangipane Bars, and Marbled Chocolate Chip Cookies); like pizza, they can be eaten out of hand, reducing the number of dishes at the end of the night (one of the best things about pizza night).

And if you really get into pizza parties this summer, consider hosting one for Slice Out Hunger. Their Summer Slice-A-Thon encourages home bakers to host pizza parties, with proceeds raised going to Slice Out Hunger’s Pie it Forward program, which combats food insecurity by delivering pizzas to those in need.

Cover photo (New York-Style Pizza) by Patrick Marinello; food styling by Ryan Salerno.

For more pizza guidance, including dough recipes and topping inspiration, pick up a copy of The Book of Pizza. 

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