Neapolitan vs Roman teglia — the difference
The two most Italian answers to 'pizza' are barely the same food: Neapolitan is a soft, puffy-rimmed round fired in well under two minutes, while Roman teglia is a wet, airy slab baked in a pan and sold by the cut.
Side by side
Every number below is the calculator’s, at each style’s default size:
| Neapolitan | Roman teglia | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Hand-stretched round | Pan pizza |
| Typical size | 260 g ball ≈ 29 cm | 40 × 30 cm pan |
| Dough per pizza | 260 g | 696 g |
| Hydration | 62% | 78% |
| Salt | 2.8% | 2.2% |
| Oil | — | 2% |
| Oven | 450 °C / 842 °F | 250 °C / 482 °F |
| Flour | Pizzeria 00 | Strong 00 or bread flour |
| Protein | 12–13.5% | 13–14.5% |
What sets them apart
Neapolitan. Neapolitan is pizza as an event: a lean ball opened by hand, blasted at ferocious heat, and eaten immediately, while the rim is still puffed and the center still soft enough to fold.
Roman teglia. Teglia is pizza as a counter display: a far wetter dough that goes into an oiled pan as a slab, bakes at a fraction of the Neapolitan's heat, and comes out crisp-bottomed and open-crumbed, ready for the scissors.
Which one to make
Go Neapolitan. Choose Neapolitan when the pizza is the dinner — individual rounds, real top heat, and the soft, blistered classic on the plate in minutes.
Go Roman teglia. Choose teglia when pizza is for sharing or grazing — a tray you can top in stripes, cut into squares, and reheat astonishingly well the next day.
Different formats, same instincts: both are lean Italian doughs that reward strong flour and patient fermentation. The fork is water and heat — teglia carries far more of the first and asks far less of the second, which is why a home oven actually favors the Roman. The calculator re-weighs everything when you switch preset, ball to pan.
For the numbers behind the table, see the hydration and flour guides.
Questions from the counter
Which one is 'real' Italian pizza?
Both, entirely. Naples owns the soft round; Rome owns the crisp pan slab sold al taglio — by the cut. They're regional traditions, not rivals, and an Italian would just ask which mood you're in.
Which is easier in a home oven?
Teglia, by a wider margin than people expect. It bakes at temperatures every domestic oven reaches, the pan does the shaping, and the wet dough is folded rather than kneaded. Neapolitan needs serious top heat to be itself — without it, the rim never gets its blisters.
Is teglia the same thing as pizza al taglio?
Same pizza, two viewpoints: teglia names the pan it bakes in, al taglio the way it's sold — cut to order, usually with scissors, priced by weight. If you've queued at a Roman counter at lunch, that was teglia.
Make either one
The calculator weighs and schedules both — pick a preset and it does the rest.
The clock is a suggestion. The dough is the boss. In bocca al lupo!
Impasto is a free pizza dough calculator for Neapolitan, New York, Roman, Sicilian, Detroit, thin crust and focaccia doughs — flour, water, salt and yeast weighed in baker's percentages, with the fermentation schedule written for you.