Crispy Thin Crust Supreme Pizza » the practical kitchen (2024)

What makes a pizza supreme? A supreme pizza is all about the toppings, imo. Just like your favorite delivery supreme pizzas, this one is topped with earthy mushrooms, grassy bell peppers, salty black olives, and has just a bit of mild heat from both pepperoni and sausage.

Thanks to a scorching hot baking steel, this homemade supreme pizza bakes up in less than 10 minutes in a standard home oven. It's great as a party food or, with a little planning ahead, as an easy weeknight dinner.

Want to make a perfect pizza? Check out my guide to hand stretching pizza dough, my explainer about when to put fresh basil on pizza, my no-cook red pizza sauce, and my basic overnight thin crust pizza dough!

About This Recipe

This supreme pizza recipe was inspired by two things. One, I realized that despite having so many unique pizza recipes on my site, I didn't have a good, classic red sauce and toppings pizza. That needed to be fixed immediately.

And two, I was recipe testing my bagel bites recipe and loved the supreme pizza bagel bites so much I wanted to do a full size pizza version! And yes, this is basically a loaded version of my classic homemade thin crust pepperoni pizza.

Not feeling all the supreme pizza toppings? You can also use this as a base recipe to for making veggie pizzas, or any other red-sauce-and-toppings pizzas you like.

Ingredient Notes

Here are the ingredients that you'll need to make this supreme pizza recipe at home! See recipe card for quantities.

Pizza Dough - I used my overnight thin crust pizza dough recipe here, as usual. You can use any pizza dough you like, but you will get better results with a homemade pizza dough that has a longer rise time because the gluten has more time to relax so it can be stretched thinner, which will bake up crispier.

Other common supreme pizza toppings include: Bacon, meatballs, onions, ground beef or pork, ham cubes, and red, yellow, or orange bell peppers.

Preheat Your Pizza Steel

Start by preheating your oven to 500°F with a baking steel or pizza stone (read my baking steel review to know why I recommend a steel over a stone!) arranged as close to the heating unit as possible.

In most ovens, you'll want it about 7 inches below the broiler unit at the top of your oven. In ovens with a bottom drawer broiler, just get the baking steel as close to the heating unit as possible, and place an inverted sheet pan in the broiler area.

Give the steel 45-60 minutes to preheat, take your pizza dough out of the fridge, and use this time to prep the sauce and pizza toppings.

How to Make Red Sauce for Pizza

There are a few different ways to make my favorite quick pizza red sauce.

• Food Processor: Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
• Zester or Garlic Press: Combine all of the ingredients except garlic in a small bowl. Use a fine microplane zester to grate the garlic into the bowl and whisk well to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
• Knife: Combine all of the ingredients except garlic and salt in a small bowl. Use a knife to make a garlic paste with salt, then add it to the sauce and whisk well to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

This sauce recipe makes enough for 3-4 medium (10-16") pizzas. The sauce will stay good in the fridge for up to 7 days, or can be frozen for up to 3 months.

Prepping Supreme Pizza Toppings

Here's how to prep all your supreme pizza toppings so everything is ready when you're ready to assemble your homemade supreme pizza! (You can do all of this while the oven preheats.)

1. Cook the sausage. Remove the sausage from its casing (if it has one). Heat a medium skillet over medium heat (remember: preheat your pans before adding oil or food), then add the sausage. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to crumble it up as it browns. Remove from the skillet once cooked through and set it aside.
2. Grate the cheese. Use a coarse grater (the big holes on a box grater) to grate the mozzarella cheese. You may want to pop the cheese in the freezer for 10 minutes first to make it easier to grate, particularly if your kitchen is warm from the oven preheating.
3. Chop the peppers. Remove the seeds and ribs (the white bits inside the pepper the seeds are attached to) and dice the peppers. You could also slice the pepper into rings or matchsticks, it's really up to you!
4. Chop the mushrooms. I don't like mushroom texture so I usually mince mine very small. If you love mushrooms, go ahead and do thick slices. This pizza cooks very quickly, so the chunkier your mushrooms are, the less cooked through they'll be.
5. Drain the olives. This is self explanatory. Open the can, press the lid into the opening and drain the liquid into the sink.

How to Hand Stretch Pizza Dough

To get the signature bubbly crust and crispy bottom of this homemade supreme pizza, you'll want to hand stretch your pizza dough.

Pre-shaping before you stretch is key to getting a perfectly round pizza dough. I've written all about how to do this in my guide to hand stretching pizza dough so head there for more detail.

As always, make sure you use plenty of flour, let gravity do most of the work, and always stretch on the backs of your hands so that you don't poke through the dough!

If at any time the dough seems like it's going to tear or it's fighting you and doesn't want to stretch, let it rest for a few minutes (even just 60 seconds!) on the counter.

Dust a pizza peel with semolina flour and plop your stretched pizza dough on top. It's now ready for sauce and toppings!

Why semolina flour? Semolina flour is coarser and rounder than all purpose flour and will help your pizza slide off the peel and onto the baking steel easily. This is another tip I picked up from Andris, the founder of the Baking Steel company. He uses a 50/50 blend of all purpose and semolina flours, but I find I prefer just the semolina.

Supreme Pizza Assembly & Baking

One you stretch the pizza dough, we're following your standard pizza assembly process. First, a thin layer of red tomato sauce, spread with the back of a spoon.

Then a generous blanket of shredded mozzarella cheese, followed by your meats, then your vegetable toppings.

Finish with a dusting of very finely grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheeses. You could also add a little more mozzarella on top of the toppings to help hold them in place.

Why do you spread pizza sauce with the back of a spoon? The curved back of the spoon glides gently over the delicate pizza dough. Because the edges of the spoon are curved away from the dough, they won't catch or tear it the way a knife or spatula would!

Give the pizza a little shimmy back and forth on the pizza peel to make sure it isn't stuck. If any parts seem to be sticking, carefully lift them up and dust additional semolina flour underneath.

Bake for about 2-3 minutes, then use the peel to help rotate the pizza and bake 2-3 minutes more.

To finish, broil the supreme pizza for 1-2 minutes, until the cheese and crust are as browned as you like. Then remove from the oven with the peel. Slice and serve immediately!

Note: Broilers are VERY hot and their power can vary widely from oven to oven. Once you switch to broiling, check on your pizza every 30 seconds to make sure it doesn't burn!

Every oven is different, but pizza does cook quickly —after the first 5 minutes on the steel, the pizza dough will be cooked through. What you're really looking at to determine if it's "done" is the browning on the crust and cheese. Some of that comes down to personal preference!

Substitutions and Variations

Customizing a homemade supreme pizza is easy; it's a classic red sauce and toppings pizza, so all you need to do is change up the toppings to suit your taste. Here's some ideas to get you started.

• Spicy Supreme Pizza - Use spicy pepperoni and hot Italian sausage. Use a poblano or jalapeño pepper instead of a green bell pepper. Sprinkle crushed red pepper flakes over the pizza when it comes out of the oven.
• Deluxe Supreme Pizza - Add meatballs, onions, ham cubes, other colors of bell pepper, or bacon to your supreme pizza.
• Meat Lovers Supreme Pizza - Add crispy bacon and ham cubes.
• Chicken Supreme Pizza - Use cooked cubed or shredded chicken (rotisserie chicken is a great choice here!) and chicken sausage instead of pepperoni and Italian sausage.

Remember: Pizza toppings should always be pre-cooked (or ready-to-eat) before adding to your pizza!

Suggested Equipment

• Pizza Steel - I use the Original Baking Steel (note: I bought my Baking Steel with my own money but love it so much I became part of their affiliate program; use code TPK10 for 10% off!) to make all of my pizzas. A pizza stone will also work if that's all you've got, but it may take slightly longer to cook.
• Pizza Peel - A wooden pizza peel is the best tool for getting your pizza in and out of the oven. If you don't have a pizza peel, an upside down sheet pan will work for sliding it on to the steel. To remove it from the oven without a peel, use tongs (gently) or two spatulas to slide it off of the stone and onto a sheet pan.
• Pizza Cutter - You'll want a good, sharp pizza cutter to slice through all the toppings on a supreme pizza. There are plenty of trendy, unique pizza cutter designs out there but you really can't beat one like Winco's 4" pizza cutter which is less than $10 and was designed for restaurants and the food service industry. If style is as important to you as functionality, however, Mercer Culinary makes a great pizza cutter with a "millennial purple" handle.

Storage Notes

Because of all the toppings, homemade supreme pizza is best same day, eaten as soon as possible after it comes out of the oven. (Don't burn your mouth!)

That said, you can wrap any leftover supreme pizza slices in foil or plastic wrap and store them in the fridge for about 3-4 days.

Reheat day-old or cold pizza in a dry skillet over medium heat, or on a foil-lined baking sheet in the oven at 350F for 10-15 minutes (or until the cheese is melted again).

Practical Tips and Recipe Notes

• Once you add the sauce, you'll want to work quickly to add the toppings and get the pizza into the oven. The longer the pizza sits on the peel with the moisture from the sauce and the weight of the toppings, the more likely it is to stick to the peel!
• Store bought pizza dough has LOTS of yeast in it to help it stay active longer. I really don't recommend using it as it's almost impossible to get a truly thin and crispy crust with it. If you DO use store bought pizza dough, you'll want to divide it in half or thirds when you get home, pre-shape it into balls, and let it rise in the fridge (if not using immediately) or at room temperature if using within an hour or so.

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