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Recipe
7 min read
Sourdough Pizza al Taglio with Mozzarella, Grilled Courgette & Basil Pesto: The Outdoor Pizza Worth Firing Up This Summer
A light, crispy-edged sourdough pizza al taglio topped with grilled courgette, mozzarella and basil pesto. Perfect for summer outdoor eating with friends.
Delicious Italian pizza with gourmet toppings served on a rustic wooden board.The smell of a bubbling sourdough pizza base catching just slightly on a hot tray is one of those summer evening things I genuinely look forward to. Mates over, sun still going at 8pm, someone's opened a cold beer, and there's a big rectangular slab of dough sitting on the counter getting ready to be absolutely covered in good stuff.
Pizza al taglio , Roman-style pizza baked in a tray and sold by the cut , is one of the best formats for feeding a crowd outdoors. It stretches easily to a full baking tray, you slice it into rectangles with scissors (genuinely, this is the correct tool), and everyone just grabs a piece. Unlike round Neapolitan pizza, which really wants a proper wood-fired oven or a very hot pizza stone, al taglio is designed for a regular home oven cranked up high. The dough is a little more hydrated, a little more open in the crumb, and the base goes crispy without being rigid. Topped with grilled courgette, torn mozzarella and a loose basil pesto, it is exactly what July should taste like.
Dough
- 400g strong white bread flour
- 80g active sourdough starter (at or just past peak)
- 290g warm water (approx. 30°C)
- 8g (1½ tsp) fine sea salt
- 20g (1½ tbsp) extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for the tray
Basil Pesto
- 30g fresh basil leaves
- 20g (2 tbsp) pine nuts, lightly toasted
- 25g Parmesan, finely grated
- 1 small clove garlic
- 60ml (4 tbsp) extra virgin olive oil
- Pinch of fine sea salt
Toppings
- 2 medium courgettes, sliced lengthways into 5mm ribbons
- 250g fresh mozzarella (fior di latte), torn
- 1 tbsp olive oil (for grilling the courgette)
- Flaky sea salt, to finish
- A small handful of fresh basil leaves, to serve
Baker's Tips
- Summer kitchens can be warm, which means this dough moves fast. Keep an eye on it after four hours rather than waiting for the full window , you are looking for roughly 50–70% volume increase with a domed, slightly jiggly surface. If you track your bakes, bulk fermentation time varies significantly with temperature and it's worth logging what works in your kitchen. DoughRise Pro lets you save unlimited bake formulas and keep a full history, so you can actually remember what you did next time rather than starting from scratch.
- Drain your mozzarella on kitchen paper for at least 20 minutes before using it. Wet mozzarella is the main reason pizza bases go soggy in the middle, and it costs you nothing to sort it out in advance.
- Oil the tray generously before stretching the dough. This is not optional , it creates the crispy, almost-fried underside that makes al taglio what it is. A thin scraping of oil will not cut it.
METHOD
- Mix the dough. Combine the flour and 270g of the water in a large bowl. Mix until no dry flour remains, then cover and leave to rest for 30 minutes. This short rest (a loose autolyse) gives the flour time to hydrate and makes the dough noticeably easier to work with.
- Add starter and salt. Add the active sourdough starter to the rested dough and squeeze it in with your fingers until fully incorporated. Add the salt dissolved in the remaining 20g of water and mix that in too. Finally, add the olive oil and work it through. The dough will feel a little slippery at first , keep going until it comes together. Cover and leave for 30 minutes.
- Stretch and fold. Over the next two hours, perform four sets of stretch and folds, roughly 30 minutes apart. For each set, grab one side of the dough, stretch it up firmly and fold it over to the opposite side. Rotate the bowl 90 degrees and repeat four times per set. After the final set, the dough should feel noticeably stronger and hold its shape better when you pull it.
- Bulk ferment. Leave the dough covered at room temperature to ferment for a further 3–6 hours, depending on your kitchen temperature. In a warm July kitchen (24–26°C), this could be done in three hours. In a cooler spot, give it longer. You are looking for the dough to have grown noticeably, feel airy and light when you gently shake the bowl, and have a slightly domed top. Bubbles on the surface and at the sides are a good sign.
- Prepare the courgette. While the dough is in its final bulk, heat a griddle pan or heavy frying pan until very hot. Toss the courgette ribbons in olive oil and a pinch of salt, then grill in batches for 2 minutes per side until you get good char marks. Set aside on a plate and do not pile them up or they'll steam and go soft.
- Make the pesto. Blitz the basil, pine nuts, Parmesan, garlic and olive oil together in a small food processor or with a pestle and mortar until you have a rough, loose paste. Season with salt. Keep it slightly chunky , you want texture, not a smooth green purée.
Why this works
Stretch and folds build gluten structure without the heat and friction of kneading, which matters in summer when warm hands can overheat a sticky dough. Each fold aligns the gluten strands and increases tension in the dough network, giving the eventual base the strength to hold toppings without tearing. The olive oil in this dough also makes it more extensible, so it stretches into the tray without springing back.
INTO THE OVEN
- Prepare the tray. Pour a generous layer of olive oil into a large baking tray (roughly 35 x 25cm). Tip the fermented dough onto the tray and use oiled fingers to gently coax it outward toward the edges. Do not force it. If the dough keeps springing back, leave it to rest for 10 minutes and try again. Once stretched, dimple the surface firmly with your fingertips all over and leave to rest for 30 minutes while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat the oven. Set your oven to its highest temperature, ideally 250°C (230°C fan). Place a shelf in the lower third of the oven. If you have a baking stone or a heavy steel tray, preheat that on the lower shelf , it will help drive heat into the base of the pizza from underneath.
- First bake. Place the tray directly onto the hot lower shelf (or onto the preheated stone or steel). Bake for 10 minutes. The base should be setting and beginning to colour underneath, but the top will still look pale. This two-stage bake is the trick to al taglio , you build the base first before adding toppings, so nothing gets soggy.
- Add toppings and finish. Pull the tray out of the oven. Scatter the torn mozzarella evenly across the surface, then lay the grilled courgette ribbons over the top. Return to the oven for a further 7–8 minutes until the mozzarella is molten and just beginning to take some colour at the edges and the base is deep golden underneath.
- Finish and serve. Remove from the oven and immediately spoon the basil pesto loosely over the top in small dollops , you do not need to cover every centimetre, you want pockets of it rather than a blanket. Scatter fresh basil leaves over, finish with flaky sea salt, and take it outside. Cut into rectangles with kitchen scissors, which sounds like a joke but is genuinely the right move , it gives you clean cuts without dragging the toppings. Eat immediately.
Want to dial in this recipe for a bigger batch or a different flour? Use the free DoughRise Hydration Calculator to calculate exactly the right ratios for your flour and batch size.
Happy baking! Find everything you need at doughrise.store
Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels
