Pie in the sky: Our 20 favorite pizza toppings

Truth be told, we’re not actually huge fans of mushrooms on pizza. Maybe—maybe!—if they’re really good shrooms, but definitely none of the canned variety. We don’t hate them, though, so they still earned a spot at the bottom of this ranking.

We’ve had a grudge against tomatoes on pizza ever since we saw some restaurants selling white pizza with tomato slices and calling it “margarita,” (In Italy, a Margherita pizza is simply a cheese pizza with tomato sauce.) However, we’ve been known to occasionally enjoy some sun-dried tomatoes on our pizza.

Basil is a divisive topping, and personally, we’re a little conflicted. We don’t hate it, but we don’t love it either. Still, it’s safe to put some basil on pizza once in a while, as a little bit still packs a powerful punch of flavor for people who like it, but it’s also easy enough to take off if you’re not a fan.

Steak in the morning, steak in the evening, steak at supper time—when steak is on a pizza, you can eat steak anytime. Okay, that’s not how the song goes, but it’s still true. Sliced steak makes an excellent topping, but be sure to give its prep as much care as you do for the pizza as a whole. Tough steak makes for a rough meal!

Onion on a pizza never wows us, but it’s a good complement to other toppings, and there are multiple types of onions that work. White onion adds the strongest flavor, red onion gives it some bite, Vidalia onions are sweet & mild, and caramelized onions are soft and buttery.

Are you a fan of eggplant parmesan? We are, and it’s actually our second-favorite meal featuring eggplant. The first, of course, is eggplant on a pizza. You can also make little pizzas with eggplant as the crust, but we’ll save that one for a different list.

We know a few folks for whom black olives are their go-to pizza topping. We’re not that fanatical about our olives, but they’re a great addition to nearly any pie and are often thrown in as an additional option when there are already a few toppings on the pizza. For instance, the one pictured includes spinach, cherry tomatoes, and feta.

Pulled pork isn’t one of our top meat toppings—the competition is just too fierce—but it’s still ridiculously tasty, and deserving of the No. 13 spot. Between the pork, the BBQ sauce, and the red onion that always finds its way onto pulled pork pizza, this topping makes one protein-packed, drool-inducing pie.

Bacon is good on everything, and thus bacon is good on pizza. We rank bacon very highly in terms of its importance as a topping for sandwiches, burgers, and other foods, and we’re not about to compromise our principles—especially when it comes to pizza.

Stuffed shells feature ricotta, and so does lasagna, ravioli, and numerous other Italian dishes. Ricotta even occasionally appears on pizza—especially if we’re the ones making/ordering it! You can’t have too much cheese on a pizza, and that goes for the number of kinds of cheese, too!

Remember all that talk about cheese? It’s continuing here, as we also need to show some love for buffalo mozzarella, a.k.a mozzarella di bufala. As the name suggests, this cheese comes from the milk of Italian buffalo, and it can add some creaminess to your next pizza concoction. Unlike ricotta, most pizzas that feature mozzarella di bufala use it as the sole cheese on the pie.

Spinach is an exceptional pizza topping, and we’re not talking about it as just a garnish, but instead the star of the show. Spinach is also fine with sharing the spotlight alongside other veggies and meat toppings, but we prefer to keep it simple with just spinach and a little ricotta. 

Garlic is one of our favorite things to add to many, many foods—and pizza is no exception. Although some minced or chopped garlic (the bigger the pieces the better!) can complement nearly any fellow toppings, our favorite use of it is on a white pie sans tomato sauce.

Red peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers, and the like all have their place on pizza from time to time, but green pepper pizza is something we never tire of. A little chopped green pepper can pep up a simple cheese pizza, slices of green pepper pair well with pepperoni, or it can just be included as one of many toppings on a specialty or “supreme” pie.  

We enjoy meatballs with our pasta as well as our pizza! With apologies to steak pizza and cheeseburger pizza, meatballs—whole, sliced, or ground—are our favorite beef topping because of the added breadcrumbs and Italian spices. Plus, if you combine meatball with ricotta, you’ve essentially made a lasagna pizza!

When we’re feeling fancy, prosciutto is our go-to topping. This uncured Italian ham complements mozzarella cheese extremely well, and the saltiness of the prosciutto balances the sweetness of the tomato sauce. Apologies to regular ham, because this is the only ham we allow near our pizza—we even use it on Hawaiian pies!

Yes, buffalo chicken pizza is unconventional, but it’s our absolute favorite variety of unconventional specialty pizza. For the record, we prefer our buffalo chicken with no tomato sauce base (the buffalo sauce is instead the base) and topped with blue cheese crumbles with blue cheese dressing for dipping. Pickled celery is optional.

Save your critical comments and don’t send us any angry letters: We are absolutely unapologetic when it comes to our love of pineapple on pizza. The only reason we didn’t rank it higher is that we don’t usually order pineapple by itself, but instead pair the sweet taste of pineapple with the saltiness of nearly any meat topping.

In the sliced sausage vs. crumbled sausage debate, we prefer the latter, but both varieties are fine in our book. In fact, they’re better than fine—they’re one of our favorite toppings! And we also don’t discriminate between sweet sausage, Italian sausage, or spicy sausage either. 

Pepperoni on pizza is as classic as you can get—other than just cheese with no toppings, of course. We like classic pepperoni, or the kind of pepperoni that curls up into little cups when they cook, or even turkey pepperoni. And the more the merrier; if we can’t even see the cheese because there’s so much pepperoni, we will absolutely not complain.