August 31, 2026 · bakery-pizza
Rhode Island Bakery Pizza (Red Strips)
Regional guide — we haven't cooked this one yet
The thick, cheeseless, room-temperature tomato strips sold in every Rhode Island bakery case — the most misunderstood pizza in New England.
- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 22 min
- Total
- 3 hr 47 min
- Rest / Ferment
- 3 hr
- Servings
- 12 strips
Explain Rhode Island bakery pizza to someone from away and watch their face: it’s thick, it has no cheese, and you eat it cold. They’ll tell you that’s not pizza. Rhode Islanders will tell you they’re not wrong, and they don’t care.
The strips live in bakery cases from Providence to Westerly, fuel every graduation party in the state, and are genuinely great — sweet, herby, bready, and better the day after.
This is a kitchen-oven pan pizza — a half-sheet pan won’t fit a compact outdoor oven like the Ninja Woodfire.
Ingredients
Instructions
-
Make a focaccia-style dough
Mix everything for the dough and knead until smooth. Rise 90 minutes, then stretch into a well-oiled half-sheet pan and proof another 60–90 minutes until pillowy.
-
Cook the sauce down
Simmer the sauce ingredients 15 minutes until thick and spreadable. Bakery pizza sauce is denser and sweeter than pizza-shop sauce — it has to sit on the bread without soaking in.
-
Dimple and sauce
Dimple the proofed dough with your fingertips, then spread the thick sauce edge to edge. No cheese. At most, some bakeries dust a whisper of grated romano.
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Bake
Bake in your kitchen oven at 425°F for 20–22 minutes until the bread is golden underneath and the sauce has darkened at the edges.
-
Cool completely — really
This is the step everyone refuses to believe: bakery pizza is served room temperature. Cool it fully, cut into strips, and stack them like they do in the bakery case.