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Looking to amp up your pizza night? This spicy pizza diavola is a fan favorite starring Kalamata olives, spicy peppers, and gooey mozzarella cheese.
This spicy pizza diavola recipe is pretty special to me. I discovered the basic premise on a trip to Rome with Alex at a brew pub, of all places. It wowed us enough that I knew I’d have to try to recreate it at home.
This one is meatless, so it’s a variation on the classic, but I don’t think you’ll miss it with all that heat. It’s become a regular in the pizza rotation at our house for sure!
What is pizza diavola?
In Italian, pizza diavola means “deviled” pizza. In this case, deviled means one thing: spicy. I tasted my first spicy pizza diavola at L’Osteria Birra del Borgo, one of my favorite restaurants on our trip to Rome. The man behind this restaurant is known as the King of Pizza in Rome, Gabriele Bonci.
Everything Bonci makes turns to gold, but on this visit, it was the spicy pizza diavola from his new brew pub that was memorable for all the guests at our table.
Making this spicy pizza
There is some variation in what constitutes a spicy pizza diavola. Here are a few common denominators I’ve found that match up with our experience of the pizza in Rome:
- Spicy chili peppers: Chili peppers on pizza are what give the spicy pizza diavola its name! A fresh red pepper, like a Fresno chili pepper or Calabrian chili pepper, is traditional. (Calabrian chili peppers are used often in Italian cuisine and are a favorite at my house. I grow them in my garden! You can also find them canned by Dellalo.)
- Spicy sausage: The spicy pizza diavola I had in Rome had spicy sausage as a topping, and a few other online resources use sausage as a typical ingredient. For this recipe, I left it off to make it vegetarian. Of course, meat lovers could absolutely add it back!
- Black olives: Olives seem to be optional, but the pizza I had in Rome had black olives, so I’ve added them here. They add just the right amount of saltiness to the pizza, especially since this version is vegetarian.
- Margherita pizza base: I’ve seen spicy pizza diavola described as a margherita pizza with spicy peppers and sausage added. Here I’ve used my Perfect Neapolitan Pizza recipe as a base.
Related: Homemade Pizza for Beginners | What’s the Best Pizza Stone?
Do I need a pizza oven?
If you want those lovely char marks on the crust, you’ll want a pizza oven. A pizza oven can get much hotter than a regular oven. While your standard oven tops out at 550 degrees Fahrenheit, a pizza oven can get up to almost 1000 degrees!
I didn’t own one until recently, but it’s been a game-changer since. Powered by wood pellets, ours heats to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit in just 10 minutes! It takes a bit of practice, but it’s revolutionized my homemade pizza.
Dietary notes
This recipe is vegetarian and refined sugar-free.
Spicy Pizza Diavola
Looking to amp up your pizza night? This spicy pizza diavola is a fan favorite, starring Kalamata olives, spicy peppers, and gooey mozzarella cheese.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 6 slices 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 1 ball Best Pizza Dough (or Food Processor Dough or Thin Crust Dough)
- ⅓ cup Homemade Easy Pizza Sauce
- 4 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese (or about ¾ cup shredded mozzarella
- Kosher salt (optional)
- 8 to 10 Kalamata olives
- 1 Fresno or Calabrian chili pepper
- 2 basil leaves
- Semolina flour or cornmeal, for dusting the pizza peel
Instructions
- Follow the Best Pizza Dough recipe to prepare the dough. (This takes about 15 minutes to make and 45 minutes to rest.)
- Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 500°F or preheat your pizza oven.
- Prepare the Easy Pizza Sauce.
- Slice the mozzarella into ¼ inch thick pieces. If it’s incredibly watery fresh mozzarella (all brands vary), you may want to let it sit on a paper towel to remove moisture for about 15 minutes, then dab the mozzarella with the paper towel to remove any additional moisture.
- Slice the olives in half and thinly slice the chili pepper, keeping the seeds.
- When the oven is ready, dust a pizza peel with cornmeal or semolina flour. (If you don’t have a pizza peel, you can use a rimless baking sheet or the back of a rimmed baking sheet.)
- Stretch the dough into a circle, then gently place the dough onto the pizza peel.
- Use the back of a spoon to spread a thin layer of pizza sauce across the dough.
- Top with mozzarella cheese, saving a small bite for tasting. Taste a bite of the mozzarella cheese; if it does not taste salty, add a pinch or two of kosher salt to the pizza. (The pizza has olives, which also adds saltiness.)
- Top the cheese with the sliced olives and chili peppers.
- Transfer the pizza to the pizza stone using the pizza peel, then bake until the cheese is melted, about 7 minutes in the oven (or 1 minute in the pizza oven).
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for minutes, then top with torn basil leaves. Slice into pieces and serve immediately.
More pizza recipes
This spicy pizza diavola is one of my favorite artisan pizzas, but pizzas are a staple at our house. Here are a few more of my favorite pizza recipes:
- Artichoke and Cherry Tomato Pizza
- Homemade Vegan Pizza
- Italian Pizza Recipe
- Mexican Pizza
- Neopolitan Pizza
I appreciate the fact that: 1) You had very interesting pizza recipes 2) I could print them out without having to enroll in some website! 3) I will come back to your website to look for other recipes when I’m interested in other things.
Bravo and God’s blessings.
Diavola is one of my favourite types of pizzas (except with the black olives) and adding some spice into it sounds good! Great recipe!
Just picked the last of the fresh basil from my garden!! This would be the perfect recipe to use some of it on! :)