Garlic and Oregano Pizza

Garlic pizza sprinkled with dried oregano makes for a delicious snack or appetizer. Packed full of lots (and I mean LOTS) of garlic. This recipe contains no cheese or butter so is dairy-free and vegan friendly. The combination of the garlic and herb flavor, from the oregano, gives this pizza a real Italian vibe to it.

Garlic Pizza With Oregano

I strongly recommend a homemade pizza dough such as my Easy No Knead Pizza Dough for this recipe. However any pizza dough will work.

This is absolutely a pizza favorite in my family. We power through these garlic pizzas like crazy and have been known to fill up on too many of them before dinner.

Because there is no cheese on this pizza it is almost like it is garlic pizza bread. So soft and warm. But this only makes the dough an even more important part of the pizza compared to normal.

Also, as previously mentioned, because there is no cheese or butter on this pizza it is both dairy-free and vegan.

Garlic Oil Mixture

This pizza is such a simple one, so every component needs to be spot on. This makes the garlic oil mixture very important. The trick to this oil is a lot of garlic and just enough oil for it to spread. Adding a tiny bit of salt to it helps bring out the flavor of the garlic.

To make the garlic oil mixture, just mix together the oil, garlic and salt in a bowl or jar. Making this a bit ahead of time will allow for the garlic flavor to be better infused into the olive oil.

Pizza Shaping

To shape a ball of pizza dough, make sure it is well rested and at room temperature. This will make it easier to work with. Start by flouring your work surface and your dough. Indent with your fingers along the inside of the dough, this will form the outline for the crust for the pizza.

Pick up the pizza and hold it using both sets knuckles (hands should be in fists) in the indent previously formed. Rotate and stretch the dough using your knuckles. Once the pizza is large enough, and not too thin, place it on parchment paper on a wooden chopping board. If needed, stretch out some of the thicker parts of the pizza.

After the pizza has been shaped, press down any bubbles in the middle of the pizza. Because there is no cheese and not much in the way of toppings on this pizza, there is not much weighing it down in the middle.

This can result in large bubbles occurring in the middle while it is cooking. This can be ok to some extent, but you don’t want it going too crazy as it can cause pools of oil to form.

Making Garlic and Oregano Pizza

Once the dough has been shaped, the pizza is super easy to make. Brush the pizza with the garlic oil mixture and sprinkle on some dried oregano. There should only be a light layer of oil on the pizza and a good amount of garlic.

Slide the pizza off the wooden chopping board onto a baking stone/sheet that has been in an oven preheated to 480°F/250°C. The parchment paper should slide in with the pizza.

Because the oven is so hot we don’t want the pizza in there for too long, as the garlic can start to burn. Around 5 minutes is a good amount of time to cook the dough and brown the garlic a bit.

Pizza Storage and Reheating

The garlic oil mixture should last up to a week if stored in clean airtight container in the fridge. The cooked pizza should last up to 4 days if stored properly in a sealed container.

The best way to reheat the pizza is to put it in an oven heated to 360°F/180°C for 8-10 minutes. Alternatively a minute or two in the microwave should do the trick.

What To Put On Garlic Pizza

There are a few different things that you can put on the garlic pizza, besides the garlic and oregano. You can add cheese if you would prefer your garlic pizza with it. I would add the cheese after the garlic oil mixture but before sprinkling the oregano on.

Different herbs can be used with the pizza, dried parsley and dried basil could both work. You can even go real crazy and see what all 3 dried herbs taste like together as a garlic and herb pizza. There is also the option to not add any herbs at all to the pizza and leave it as just garlic and oil.

If you don’t have any pizza dough available and don’t have the time to make some, you could use flatbread or wraps to make the garlic pizza. This would speed up the overall cooking process, although you wouldn’t want to cook them as hot. I think 390°F/200°C for 8-10 minutes would be good.