Styles · Pala

Pala pizza dough

High hydration like the teglia, but baked straight on the stone. Crisp outside, open and airy within, and good split and filled.

By the Pizza Call · Updated July 23, 2026

Pizza alla pala comes out of a Roman bakery oven half a metre (20 in) long, gets cut with scissors and filled while you wait. That length is the whole point of the style, and it's why the pizza is named after the tool it rides on: the pala (plural pale), the long wooden peel it's baked on. The dough is the teglia's crunchier cousin. Same generous water, same long cold rise, but a different finish: no oiled pan, it goes bare onto a hot stone, and that changes everything. The crust dries out and turns fragrant while the inside stays moist and full of holes.

The recipe, in short

These quantities make two lengths of 350 g, enough for two or three people. Our calculator worked them out.

• Flour, strong 0 or type 1 (W 330): 378 g
• Water: 302 g (80%)
• Salt, fine: 8.3 g (2.2%)
• Oil, extra-virgin: 11 g (3%)
• Fresh yeast: 0.9 g (or 0.3 g instant dry)

A whole pala is about 690 kcal of dough: split between two or three, that's 230 to 345 kcal each before the topping.

Why hydration sits at 80%

A lot of water, and not by accident. Pala lives on its open crumb: the more water the dough holds, the more steam it makes in the oven and the bigger the holes. The Roman disciplinare for the pala names 80% outright, and it's a sane place to be: still workable with a couple of sets of folds. Below 70% the pala comes out tight; above 85% it wants a sure hand and a flour that can take it. What saves you is the semola on the bench, the coarse re-milled durum flour sold as semolina outside Italy. Without it, at this hydration, you won't stretch a thing.

Water doesn't work alone, though. The more you add, the stronger the flour has to be, which is why we suggest a W of around 330 here, in the middle of the 260-350 the disciplinare allows. No W on the bag? W 240-280 is roughly 11.5-12.5% protein, so a strong bread flour is close, and for the pala you want the top of that range or better. North American flours drink more water than Italian 00, so expect to add 2-3% more. There's more in the flour-W guide and the hydration guide.

Pala, teglia or Neapolitan?

Three doughs, three worlds. A Neapolitan sits at the far end from the pala: much less water (58%), no oil in the dough, a shorter fermentation and a violent oven, for a tall soft rim that folds. The teglia is close in the mix but parts ways at the bake, as we said. Here are the proportions side by side.

Read it this way: pala and teglia sit up top, 70 to 90% water, with round Roman and Neapolitan much lower. Salt eases down a little as the water climbs, so the gluten doesn't get too tight.

The method, step by step

1. Start the dough: dissolve the yeast in most of the water, stir in a third of the flour, then the salt and the rest of the water in a stream.
2. Build the gluten: add the last of the flour, then the oil. Knead until the mass turns smooth and wraps around itself. At this hydration it feels like it never will, so give the gluten time.
3. First rest (puntata, the bulk rest before the dough is divided): cover and leave it 20-30 minutes.
4. Folds: two or three sets in the bowl, 20 minutes apart. They're what give a dough this slack any backbone.
5. Cold maturation: covered, about 18 hours. This is where the aroma comes from, and the open crumb with it; the maturation guide has the why.
6. Back to room temperature: pull the mass out and let it warm through to finish the 24 hours. It should be puffed and full of bubbles.
7. Stretch and bake: turn out onto plenty of semola, cut into two lengths, pull each one long from the sides without crushing the edges, load the peel and bake on a blazing stone. In a home oven: 250 °C (480 °F) with the stone, 5-6 minutes, then the mozzarella and 5 more.

The bake, and filling it cold

The secret to a pala isn't in the dough, it's in the floor of the oven. You want a stone or a steel heated hard for at least 40 minutes, so the base leaps up and dries the moment it lands. With a teglia you can get away with a lukewarm oven; here you can't. Cold stone, gummy pala.

Plenty of pale start out plain, just oil and salt, then get split like a book and filled after baking: mortadella, or prosciutto and figs, or whatever you like. It's the Roman way, and there's a reason for it. The fresh toppings never see the heat, and the base stays crisp.

Where a pala goes wrong

• A stone that isn't hot enough. The number-one fault, and it gives you a pale, chewy base. Heat it long and heat it hard.
• Too little semola. At 80% and no semola the dough sticks and tears. Be generous, on the bench and on the peel.
• Crushed edges. Deflate the length as you stretch and the open crumb is gone. Pull it long with flat, wide hands.

Frequently asked questions