The Original Tomato Pizza: How to Make the Classic Tomato Pie at Home

The simplest pizza you'll ever make, and one of the best.

If you've never had a tomato pie, let me tell you what you're missing. No mozzarella. No toppings fighting for attention. Just thin, crispy dough, crushed tomatoes, a pinch of sea salt, a sprinkle of dried oregano, and a drizzle of olive oil. That's it. And it's absolutely perfect.

This style of pizza goes all the way back to 1925, when Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana opened its doors in New Haven, Connecticut. When Pepe's first fired up that coal oven, there were only two pizzas on the menu: the original tomato pie and the original tomato pie with anchovies. No mozzarella. No pepperoni. Just tomatoes on dough, baked until the crust was charred and the sauce was bubbling.

Nearly 100 years later, it's still one of the greatest pizzas ever made. And the good news? You can make it at home on a Baking Steel, and it's honestly one of the easiest pizzas you'll ever bake.

Why Tomato Pie Works

There's a reason this pizza has survived for a century. When you strip away all the toppings, there's nowhere to hide. The dough has to be good. The sauce has to be good. And the bake has to be right.

That's where the Baking Steel comes in. A traditional coal-fired oven like Pepe's runs at 600°F or higher. Your home oven maxes out at 500-550°F. But the Baking Steel closes that gap,it absorbs and conducts heat so efficiently that your crust gets that charred, blistered, coal-oven character that you just can't get from a pizza stone.

The thin crust on a tomato pie means it bakes fast. We're talking 4 minutes total. The bottom gets crispy and charred from the steel, the sauce caramelizes on top, and the edges puff and blister. It's the kind of pizza that makes you wonder why you ever bothered with complicated toppings.

The Sauce: Keep It Stupid Simple

Here's the thing about tomato pie, the sauce IS the pizza. So use good tomatoes and get out of the way.

I use Jersey Fresh crushed tomatoes straight from the can. No cooking. No simmering. No garlic, no basil, no nothing. Just crushed tomatoes and a pinch of sea salt. That's your sauce.

Why Jersey Fresh? Because Jersey tomatoes are some of the best in the country. They're sweet, they're bright, and they don't need anything added to them. If you can't find Jersey Fresh, use any quality crushed tomato — San Marzano works great too. Just make sure they're crushed, not whole, not pureed. You want some texture.

The no-cook sauce is key here. When the pizza hits that screaming hot Baking Steel, the raw crushed tomatoes concentrate and caramelize in the oven. If you cook the sauce first, you lose that fresh tomato brightness and it can taste flat. Trust the process — raw sauce, hot steel, let the oven do the work.

The Dough: Thin and Light

For tomato pie, I use about 150 grams of my 72-hour pizza dough. That's less dough than a typical pizza, and that's intentional. You want this rolled out thin, about 1/8 of an inch. We're not going for a puffy Neapolitan here. Think cracker-thin in the center with just enough edge to get some char and chew.

Don't have time to make dough from scratch? Our Baking Steel Dough Packs use the same 72-hour recipe with organic Central Milling flour. Just add water, mix, wait, and you've got pizza dough that's ready to roll.

The shape doesn't matter. Round, rectangular, whatever happens when you stretch it out, that's the shape of your tomato pie. Pepe's doesn't stress about perfect circles, and neither should you.

Recipe: The Original Tomato Pizza

Servings: 1 pizza (serves 2-4) Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 4 minutes Total Time: 9 minutes (plus 1 hour oven preheat)

Ingredients

• 1 ball of 72-hour pizza dough (150 grams)  or use a Baking Steel Dough Pack
• 3 oz. Jersey Fresh crushed tomatoes (or any quality crushed tomato)
• Pinch of sea salt
• Pinch of dried oregano
• Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
• Flour and semolina for dusting your peel

Equipment

• Baking Steel Original — placed on the top rack of your oven
• Pizza peel
• Rolling pin (optional — you can stretch by hand too)

Directions

1. Preheat your Baking Steel.

Place your Baking Steel on the top rack of your oven. Set oven to 500°F and preheat for a full hour. Don't rush this, the steel needs time to fully saturate with heat. This is what gives you that coal-oven char on the bottom of the crust.

2. Roll out your dough thin.

On a floured surface, roll or stretch your 150g dough ball into a thin rectangle or round, about 12 inches across and roughly 1/8 inch thick. This is thinner than most pizzas. That's the point. Tomato pie is all about that thin, crispy crust.

3. Prep your peel.

Dust your pizza peel generously with a mix of flour and semolina. This is your insurance policy, semolina acts like little ball bearings and keeps the dough sliding. Place your stretched dough on the peel and give it a shake to make sure it moves freely. If it sticks now, it'll stick when you try to launch.

4. Sauce it up.

Spread 3 oz. of crushed tomatoes evenly across the dough, leaving just a thin border around the edge. Season with a pinch of sea salt and a sprinkle of dried oregano. That's it. Don't overthink it.

5. Switch to broil.

About 2 minutes before you're ready to launch, switch your oven from bake to broil. This gets the Baking Steel absolutely ripping hot from both above and below. This is the move that gives you that char.

6. Launch and bake.

Open the oven, slide the pizza onto the Baking Steel, and immediately switch the broiler OFF. Set the oven back to 500°F convection bake (or regular bake if you don't have convection).

Bake for about 4 minutes total. You're looking for a charred, blistered crust with the sauce bubbling and slightly caramelized. Keep an eye on it, thin crust goes from perfect to burnt fast.

7. Finish and serve.

Pull the pizza out, drizzle with good extra virgin olive oil, and slice it up. I like to cut tomato pie into squares, it just feels right for this style. Serve immediately.

Tips for the Perfect Tomato Pie

Don't overload the sauce. 3 oz. is plenty. Too much sauce and the center gets soggy and won't crisp up. You want a thin, even layer.

The broiler trick is everything. Preheating at 500°F gets your steel hot. Switching to broil right before the launch gets it screaming hot. That initial blast of radiant heat from above combined with the stored heat in the steel is what creates the char. But turn it off right after you launch — leave the broiler on and you'll burn the top before the bottom is done.

Use the right tomatoes. This is a three-ingredient pizza. The tomatoes matter. Jersey Fresh, Cento San Marzano, Bianco DiNapoli, use something you'd be happy eating with a spoon. Cheap, watery tomatoes will give you a cheap, watery pizza.

Go thinner than you think. 150 grams of dough rolled to 1/8 inch. If you're used to making thicker Neapolitan-style pies, this will feel wrong. Trust it. The thin crust is what makes this pizza work, it gets crispy and charred while staying light enough that the tomato sauce is the star.

Pecorino Romano is optional but great. The original Pepe's tomato pie includes grated Pecorino Romano. I sometimes add it, sometimes don't. If you want that salty, sharp bite, grate some on before or after baking. It's not required, but it's a nice touch.

The History of Tomato Pie

Tomato pie isn't just a recipe, it's a piece of American pizza history. Before mozzarella became standard, before pepperoni was king, there was just dough and tomatoes. Italian immigrants in the Northeast brought this tradition from the old country, and bakeries from New Haven to Trenton to Philadelphia made it their own.

Frank Pepe's version, born in 1925, is probably the most famous. But tomato pie has deep roots across the Northeast, from the bakery-style sheet pan tomato pies of Trenton, New Jersey, to the square cuts in Philadelphia, to the thin-crust apizza of New Haven. Each city has its own take, but the idea is the same: let the tomatoes and the crust do the talking.

Making this at home on a Baking Steel is as close as you'll get to the real thing without building a coal-fired oven in your backyard. The steel gives you the heat transfer you need, and the broiler trick gives you the char. It's not identical to standing at the counter at Pepe's on Wooster Street, but it's pretty damn close.

Ready to Make Tomato Pie at Home?

All you need is a Baking Steel, good dough, and a can of quality crushed tomatoes. It's the simplest pizza you'll ever make, and I guarantee it'll become a regular in your rotation.

Get the dough right: Try our 72-hour pizza dough recipe or grab a Baking Steel Dough Pack for the easiest path to great dough.

Get the steel: The Baking Steel Original is what makes this pizza possible in a home oven.