Hawaiian pizza — the recipe
The pizza that starts arguments: invented in Ontario in 1962, named after the brand of canned pineapple, and beloved by far more people than will admit it. Sweet pineapple, salty cooked ham, melted mozzarella — the divisive part is also the point, sweet leaning on salt leaning on tang.
Quantities below are per ball and scale with your dough — a 320 g ball stretches to a generous New York pie. The one rule the skeptics are right about: drain the pineapple hard, or the whole thing weeps.
What goes on top
Per pizza, on the default 320 g ball — in layering order:
shredded, edge to edge
tidbits, drained hard and patted dry
Stretching bigger or smaller? The model rescales with the dough:
| Topping | 250 g ball | 320 g ball | 450 g ball |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pizza sauce | 80 g | 100 g | 140 g |
| Low-moisture mozzarella | 85 g | 110 g | 155 g |
| Cooked ham | 45 g | 55 g | 75 g |
| Pineapple | 45 g | 55 g | 75 g |
The dough
Hawaiian is built on New York dough. Big foldable slices. A little oil and sugar for chew and color. For 4 × 320 g balls:
| Ingredient | Baker's % | For 4 pizzas |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100% | 754 g |
| Water | 63% | 475 g |
| Salt | 2.5% | 19 g |
| Olive oil | 2.5% | 19 g |
| Sugar | 1.5% | 11 g |
| Yeast | 0.23% | 1.7 g |
The yeast is weighed for an example 8 h rise at 21°C — your kitchen disagrees, and that’s the point: set your real schedule in the calculator and it reweighs the pinch.
How it’s done
- Make the dough: 4 × 320 g New York balls — the calculator weighs the flour, water, salt and yeast for your schedule.
- Stretch each ball on a little flour, pressing the air from the middle out to the rim.
- Top with 100 g pizza sauce.
- Top with 110 g low-moisture mozzarella (shredded, edge to edge).
- Top with 55 g cooked ham (torn into bite-size pieces).
- Top with 55 g pineapple (tidbits, drained hard and patted dry).
- Bake at 290 °C / 554 °F — on a preheated steel or stone if you have one.
Questions from the counter
How do I stop Hawaiian pizza going watery?
Pineapple is the culprit, and the fix is ruthless draining. Use tidbits or chunks rather than rings, tip them into a sieve, press the juice out, then pat them dry on a towel. Fresh pineapple weeps less than canned but browns more — either way, dry is the watchword, and a slightly lighter hand on the sauce helps too.
Is pineapple on pizza traditional anywhere?
Not in Italy — this is a Canadian invention from 1962, and it's proudly North American, which is why this page weighs it on the New York base rather than a Neapolitan one. That said, a hot-honey or chili-oil finish has quietly made it fashionable again: the sweet-heat-salt triangle is genuinely good.
Ham, bacon or Canadian bacon?
Classic is mild cooked ham, torn so it folds into the cheese. Canadian bacon (back bacon) is the diner version and just as right. Crisped streaky bacon is the upgrade a lot of people quietly prefer — render it first so it doesn't go limp under the cheese, then scatter it over the top.
Get the dough
The New York preset weighs the balls and writes the schedule — mix, rise, ball, stretch, bake.
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.