Ooni Pizza Steel Review: Make Homemade Pizzas in Your Kitchen Oven in Half the Time
Updated: Sep. 26, 2023
Want to make homemade pizzas with crispy crusts and have them ready in no time? Here's our full review of the Ooni pizza steel.
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Pizza nights at home in a conventional oven make for a relatively easy dinner. The problem? Typically, baking on a simple cookie sheet produces a crust that’s just so-so. Sometimes, it might even be a bit soggy thanks to all of those delicious toppings weighing it down. Not to mention, it takes 20 to 30 minutes to cook.
While Ooni is known for its outdoor pizza oven options, the brand also has a clever kitchen item for pizza lovers who want a crispy crust—the Ooni pizza steel. I’ve tested multiple pizza ovens, but at a much lower price point than the investment of a pizza oven, we decided to put the Ooni pizza steel to the test to see just how it stacked up.
What is the Ooni Pizza Steel?
The Ooni pizza steel is a great alternative to a pizza stone and can be used in your conventional kitchen oven. Its shape and size are similar to a regular baking sheet, but it conducts and retains heat more efficiently, thanks to its sand-blasted stainless steel. It’s perfect for home pizza cooks who love a great, evenly-cooked crust.
VIA MERCHANT
We Tried It
Ooni Pizza Steel
The Ooni Pizza Steel 13 lets you make pizzas at home without a traditional pizza oven. The stainless steel is an ideal cooking surface for evenly cooked crusts on all pizza varieties and styles.
Ooni Pizza Steel Features
The pizza steel is a light gray color with an exterior texture of sandpaper. At 11.5 pounds, it has a great weight to it, making it incredibly durable. It is easy to use and can be quickly placed on the middle rack of your kitchen oven. Because it’s constructed of stainless steel, it harnesses the heat from a conventional oven and retains it well, allowing you to evenly cook a pizza with a crispy crust.
How We Tested It
Set-Up
To get started on using the Ooni pizza steel, all I had to do was remove it from the box. The steel is an all-in-one accessory, so no assembly is needed. The packaging advised giving the steel a quick wash with light soap and water before cooking with it.
Preheating the Steel
The Ooni pizza steel requires heat from your oven to create a hot surface. Once heated, it mimics a pizza stone in a true pizza oven. Before putting any pizzas in the oven, the first step is to turn the oven on to its highest temperature and allow it to preheat. I let my oven preheat to 500 degrees, placed the pizza steel on the center rack and waited for it to preheat for 30 minutes before cooking. After 30 minutes, I used an infrared thermometer which told me the temperature of the steel was at a surprising 504 degrees.
Cooking
Cooking with the Ooni pizza steel is very similar to using an outdoor pizza oven. Because the steel needs to be left in the oven to properly heat up, it’s important to use a pizza peel to build your pizza and transfer it into the oven. I tested the pizza steel by making numerous pizzas, sliding each onto the pizza steel with a perforated pizza peel.
I found that it took between 8 to 10 minutes to cook each pizza, depending on the toppings used. You could tell the pizza steel helped to set and cook the crust quickly while creating a crispy base. The heat radiating in the oven cooked the toppings and melted the cheese.
Once each pizza was cooked, I used the pizza peel to retrieve it from the oven and allowed it to set and rest for a few minutes before grabbing a pizza cutter and digging in!
Cleanup
Ooni advises that once your pizza cooking session is done, you leave the pizza steel in the oven to cool for two hours. I followed that guidance, switched off my oven and waited until it cooled. Thankfully, I didn’t need to use my oven for anything else during that time, but I could foresee this wait time being an issue if you’re making multiple things throughout the day. Once it cooled, I used light soap and water to clean the pizza steel. There was a bit of a grease stain on it, even after cleaning, but it didn’t seem to affect flavor or performance the next time I used it.
Pros
- Affordable price point
- Durable, stainless steel
- Easy set-up
- Easy to clean
- Cooks pizza with crispy crust in under 10 minutes
Cons
- Requires pre-heating of oven (~30 minutes) to heat steel
- Takes a very long time to cool down
FAQ
Is a pizza steel better than a stone?
If you’re choosing between using a pizza steel or a pizza stone in your conventional home oven, it all comes down to heat retention. Because of its material, a pizza steel conducts and retains heat more efficiently than a stone does. The other benefit of a pizza steel is that it’s incredibly durable and not as easy to crack or break.
Can you cook frozen pizza on an Ooni pizza steel?
If you don’t plan to make your own pizza dough and gather all the toppings, the pizza steel can still be used for cooking pizza. You can grab a thawed, store-bought pizza and cook it on the pizza steel, or even use it for cooking frozen pizzas.
Can you use a pizza steel in an Ooni?
No—if you have an Ooni pizza oven then you don’t need a pizza steel. It should only be used in a conventional home oven.
What Other Reviewers Had to Say
Don’t just take it from us on the benefits of the pizza steel. Verified Ooni buyer Bethany says she loves this option as an alternative. “It cooks our pizza perfectly every time in the oven! This is a great alternative in the super cold winter months when we don’t want to go outside and use the wood-burning Ooni. Definitely recommend!”
Verified buyer Janet noted that this was a great swap from her pizza stone. “Previously used a pizza stone in my indoor oven, but this retains the heat even better for a nice crispy crust. In the winter, this is now my go-to way to make pizza,” she says.
Another reviewer, John, noted he uses it for pizzas and more. “My Ooni pizza steel is awesome—my pizza crusts are MUCH more authentic. I also use my pizza steel for cooking other dishes; overall, the extra heat makes cooking all my dishes easier.”
Product Comparison
Made and sold by Ooni, the pizza steel is a significantly different product than an outdoor pizza oven like the Ooni Koda 16 or Ooni Volt. Pizza ovens are all electric or utilize gas, wood or charcoal fuel to heat up a cordierite pizza stone and radiate heat within the pizza oven, reaching temperatures of 950 degrees. The Ooni pizza steel, on the other hand, is for use in conventional ovens up to 527 degrees.
While the pizza steel helps to create an even bake with a crispy crust, it does not mimic the exact same texture and flavor of a pizza baked in an outdoor pizza oven, like a Solo Stove. However, the pizza steel is significantly more affordable than the purchase of a pizza oven (even if you happen to find a great pizza oven sale!).
Final Verdict
The Ooni pizza steel is a relatively affordable pizza-making tool for leveling up your pizza nights. Say goodbye to soggy crusts! The main key to note is that the flavor will not be the same as it is in an outdoor pizza oven, simply because conventional home ovens cannot reach high enough temperatures to create the reaction needed with the dough.
Because of its heat retention, it eliminates a lot of the baking time a regular baking sheet requires for pizza. Cooking a pizza in a regular home oven in under 10 minutes is pretty impressive. For those who do have a pizza oven, it’s still a great choice for when a craving strikes while it’s raining or snowing outside. If you’re a fan of pizzas with great texture and a crisp crust, this is a worthy addition to your regular pizza nights.
Where to Buy the Ooni Pizza Steel
VIA MERCHANT
We Tried It
Ooni Pizza Steel
The Ooni Pizza Steel 13 lets you make pizzas at home without a traditional pizza oven. The stainless steel is an ideal cooking surface for evenly cooked crusts on all pizza varieties and styles.
The Ooni Pizza Steel 13 retails for $100 and is available on Ooni’s website, Williams Sonoma and Ace Hardware. Snag one now to start making delicious pies for a little dough.
