This best flour for pizza dough guide breaks down what actually matters, based on real use.
The flour you use has a significant impact on your pizza dough — affecting extensibility, texture, flavour, and how easy it is to stretch. This guide covers every flour type you’ll encounter and which to use for each style of pizza.
The Short Answer
For Neapolitan pizza in a high-heat pizza oven: use Italian 00 pizza flour (Caputo Pizzeria is the most widely available). For New York style or if you’d rather not source Italian flour: use UK strong bread flour. For everything else: see the comparisons below.
00 Flour: The Neapolitan Standard
Italian 00 flour is the standard for Neapolitan pizza. The “00” refers to the fineness of the grind — it’s the most finely milled flour available, producing a silky, extensible dough that stretches easily without tearing. At 430–480°C in a pizza oven, it gives the characteristic charred, airy cornicione of true Neapolitan pizza.
For high-heat pizza oven cooking, 00 pizza flour (specifically high-protein varieties like Caputo Pizzeria, 12.5% protein) outperforms strong bread flour in extensibility and produces a lighter, more delicate crumb. The difference is most noticeable when cooking above 400°C — at domestic oven temperatures, strong bread flour performs comparably.
Best for: Neapolitan pizza, thin-crust pizza at high heat
Recommended: Caputo Pizzeria (blue bag) for standard pizza ovens; Caputo Nuvola for a lighter, more open crumb
For a full deep-dive into 00 flour — what the grading means, protein content differences, which brand to buy and why — see our dedicated guide: What is 00 flour and should you use it for pizza?
Strong Bread Flour: The Accessible Alternative
UK strong bread flour (12–13% protein) is a very good substitute for 00 flour and is available in every supermarket. It’s slightly coarser, produces a chewier and more robust crust, and tends to have stronger gluten — excellent for long cold ferments of 48–72 hours, where the extra strength prevents the dough becoming too slack.
Many excellent pizza makers use strong bread flour exclusively, particularly for New York style or Sicilian-style thick-crust doughs. It’s also significantly cheaper than Italian 00 flour and produces results most people would consider excellent. The main limitation is extensibility — it’s harder to stretch thin than well-made 00 dough and tends to spring back more.
Best for: New York style, long-ferment doughs, everyday pizza, budget-conscious baking
Recommended brands: Waitrose Strong White Bread Flour, Sainsbury’s Strong White Bread Flour, Allinson’s Very Strong White
Plain (All-Purpose) Flour: Emergency Use Only
Plain flour (9–11% protein in UK supermarkets) will make pizza dough but produces noticeably inferior results. Lower protein means less gluten development — the dough tears more easily when stretching, the crust is less chewy, and flavour development during fermentation is reduced. Use it if it’s all you have, but upgrade to 00 or strong bread flour as soon as possible.
Semolina: For the Peel, Not the Dough
Fine semolina (durum wheat semolina) isn’t used in pizza dough itself, but is essential as a peel-dusting flour. Its coarser grain acts like tiny ball bearings between the dough and the peel surface, allowing the pizza to slide off cleanly. It also absorbs moisture from the dough more slowly than plain flour, giving you more time between building the pizza and launching it. Always keep semolina on hand alongside your pizza flour.
Wholemeal Flour: Blend for Best Results
Wholemeal flour adds a nutty, earthy flavour and more nutritional value to pizza dough. Used at 100% it produces a dense, heavy dough that’s difficult to stretch thin. Most recipes that use wholemeal blend it with white flour at 20–30% wholemeal — this gives some of the flavour and texture benefits without making the dough difficult to handle. Works well in a New York or thick-crust style rather than thin Neapolitan.
Best Flour by Pizza Style
| Pizza Style | Best Flour | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan | Caputo Pizzeria 00 | Non-negotiable for authentic results |
| New York | Strong bread flour | Higher protein handles longer ferments |
| Detroit / Sicilian | Strong bread flour | Thick crust needs robust gluten |
| Sourdough pizza | 00 or strong bread flour | Either works; 00 gives lighter crumb |
| Quick no-yeast base | Plain flour or self-raising | Fermentation quality doesn’t apply here |
Where to Buy 00 Flour in the UK
Caputo 00 flour is available from Waitrose, Ocado, Amazon, Sous Chef, and specialist Italian food shops. The 1kg bag is sufficient for 4–6 pizzas; the 5kg bag (available on Amazon) is significantly better value if you make pizza regularly. Doves Farm also produces a UK-milled strong white flour in the 00 style that’s a good domestic alternative if you prefer to buy British.
For a detailed guide to 00 flour specifically — what the grading means, protein content, which Caputo product to choose — see our guide: What is 00 flour and should you use it for pizza? For how to use semolina on the peel, see our guide on semolina vs flour on a pizza peel.
