38 Best Pizza Toppings Ever Ranked

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While there are plenty of pizza toppings available, most of us are stuck in our ways and tend to choose the same standards, especially with most pizzas needing to appeal to multiple people rather than individual tastes. But there's a world of pizza topping options out there when you decide to branch out a bit.

We'll tell you a secret: You can put anything you want on your pizza. The only limit is your personal taste. If you're ready to explore all the possibilities, we've created a list of the best pizza toppings ever. That doesn't mean that there aren't other possibilities out there or that we expect you to like everything on the list. If you're one of those people who think pineapple doesn't belong on pizza, then skip it and try another topping that does sound good. Some of these toppings may already be lurking in your fridge or cupboard waiting for you to add the next time you make a pizza at home from scratch or even from the freezer.

It may seem a little odd to consider a leafy green vegetable (other than spinach) for a pizza, but arugula is a pretty common pairing when you start branching out to more gourmet-style pizzas. It's a beautiful and fresh finishing touch to a pizza that you add after you've taken it out of the oven. You can add quite a variety of salad greens atop your pizza from romaine and radicchio to even shredded cabbage. However, arugula is a gourmet favorite because of its spicy, tart, and peppery flavor. It adds an extra kick to stronger flavors like pork-based toppings and softer flavors like veggies with white sauce (via Pizza Today).

Eggs have their place on pizza. You just have to put them on the right pizza. We're not necessarily advocating for adding an egg on top of your pepperoni pizza. While you'll find egg pizzas that are meant for eating any time of the day, the most common place you'll find egg as a topping is on a breakfast pizza.

If you've ever stumbled into a convenience store like Casey's on your way to work or school in the morning, you've likely encountered their breakfast pizzas that come with egg and your choice of bacon, sausage, ham, or veggies. You can even choose between cheese sauce or sausage gravy for the base. So, as you can see, eggs are perfectly at home on pizza with the right toppings.

Adding vinegar to pizza might sound a little odd, but it can be a beautiful final touch for Caprese pizzas and other pizzas topped with fresh basil, like Hideaway's Da Bomb pizza. The trick is that you need to use thick, sweet balsamic vinegar glaze as the topping. And you'll want to add it after cooking instead of during the cooking process.

You can use ordinary balsamic vinegar glaze or a flavored one like fig balsamic vinegar glaze that pairs well with your other pizza ingredients. You can easily make your own sweet balsamic vinegar glaze with honey and your favorite balsamic vinegar. It's important to cook it for around 15 minutes to reduce it and make it thick like syrup.

Despite being a pizza topping in Italy for centuries, U.S. pizza eaters are only just recently discovering pancetta (via Pizza Today). This salt-cured meat comes from a pig's belly, just as bacon does. As such, it can be an excellent substitute in pizzas that taste good with bacon. Just keep in mind that you're going to experience saltiness but not the smokiness you get with bacon. Its rich, nutty flavor pairs well with tomatoes, tomato sauce, onions, hard cheeses, garlic, jalapeños, and even pineapple (via Howstuffworks). Food Network star Giada de Laurentiis lists pancetta among her top three pizza toppings (via YouTube).

If you've not experienced pickles on a cheeseburger pizza, you're probably feeling dubious about whether pickles belong on pizza. However, most pickle lovers find the experience impressive. Similar to taco toppings, you will find pickles either cooked into the pizza or added after baking as a fresh, crunchy topper.

Hungry Howie's has gone a step further by making its pickle bacon ranch pizza with a crust that also tastes like dill pickles. Hungry Howie's vice president of research and development Jeff Rinke says, "We know it sounds crazy and it may be the next controversial pizza topping since pineapples — but if you're a fan of the salty-sweet combo, pickles and pizza is a winning flavor combination worth trying" (via Franchising).

Green basil pesto pizzas make a striking visual and flavorful difference when compared to ordinary pizzas that come with red or white sauces. Because of the strong flavor profile of the basil in the pesto, you're more likely to see it with chicken than spicy meats.

If you've ever tried Schlotzsky's grilled chicken pesto pizza, it will instantly convert you to the wonders of pesto as an alternative pizza sauce. The combination of chicken with pesto, mozzarella, parmesan, green onions, olives, and tomatoes is a pizza revelation. Other topping options for a pesto pizza include sun-dried tomatoes, sauteed spinach, ricotta, bacon, mushrooms, Greek olives, feta cheese, and salami (via Reddit).

Soppressata is a spicy cured sausage usually filled only with lean cuts of pork. Italian soppressata contains seasonings like cinnamon, cloves, rosemary, chili peppers, and peppercorns, so it has a flavor that begs for a sweet accompaniment (via La Cucina Italiana). Enter hot honey. 

Hot honey is like regular honey but is infused with hot chili peppers and often a little vinegar. And it absolutely belongs on your soppressata pizza. Holt's in Park Ridge Illinois says that while both the sausage and honey bring a little bit of heat to the party, but not so much that you'll blow out your palate (via Instagram).

Jalapeños roasted on top of pizza are entirely different beasts than eating them fresh or pickled. They can add a happy heat to an otherwise ordinary pizza. The trick is not to overdo it unless you're a hardcore jalapeño fan and heat seeker. You can start with fresh or pickled jalapeños. Then add the appropriate toppings. Jalapeños taste great with toppings like pineapple, ham, onions, bacon, and pepperoni. They're also excellent on straight-up veggie pizzas (via Reddit).

Jalapeños rate medium (2500 to 8000) on the Scoville scale. If they seem a little too hot for you, you should remove the inner white veins before cooking or try a milder pepper like a poblano (1000 to 2000) instead (via Isabel Eats).

We rank barbecue pulled pork pizza below barbecue chicken pizza mainly because you're less likely to find it on a pizza restaurant menu than chicken. Plus, pork is less popular among smoked barbecue meats than chicken in the U.S.A. (via BBQ Revolt).

If you can't find barbecue pulled pork at a pizza parlor near you, you can always smoke your own and add your favorite BBQ sauce or buy some from of your grocery store. It's also a great way to use up leftover barbecue from your favorite barbecue joint the next day. For a little extra pizzazz, try it with red onions and bacon.

You eat meatballs with spaghetti all the time, so why not try meatballs on your pizza? While adding plain ground beef to your pizza provides an umami flavor that blends into the dish, meatballs can provide a flavor explosion, especially if you use flavorful, spicy meatballs for your pizza.

For New York-style pizza, you would slice the meatballs into rounds that look like pepperoni rounds. But there's no shame in just smashing half meatballs — or even whole ones — directly into your pizza sauce. While you can go spaghetti-style with a red sauce, white sauce also tastes great with meatballs (via Pizza Making).

Along with pepperoni, sausage, and bacon, ham is among the leading pork toppings for pizza. It's especially popular paired with pineapple for a Hawaiian pizza. While both ham and Canadian bacon are common on Hawaiian pizzas, the two types of meat come from different parts of the pig. Canadian bacon comes from the pig's loin, while ham comes from a pig's leg. Ham is cured or smoked rather than brined, but it tends to have more sodium and carbohydrates than Canadian bacon (via MasterClass).

The draw of using ham on pizza comes from the flavors it acquires through the preservation process. Any spices used for curing and any smoke used for smoking become strong pieces of the overall pizza flavor.

You'll find basil in most pizza sauces, but, like adding extra tomatoes, adding fresh basil leaves atop your pizza adds a different flavoring component altogether. When fresh basil leaves grace your pizza, they make a strong flavor statement that can't be ignored. While whole basil leaves work for a bold basil statement, finely chiffonaded pieces of basil work best as an integrated flavoring component.

Hideaway Pizza has perfected adding fresh basil to its pizzas with its fan favorite, the Da Bomb pizza. Fresh basil perfectly complements salami, pepperoni, pineapple, and cheese, with a divine sweet balsamic drizzle on top (via Facebook). And a 2022 study reveals that the favorite pizza in Hawaii is Caprese pizza, featuring cheese, tomatoes, and basil.

If you're one of those people who always add more garlic to a recipe than it calls for, you're probably going to love adding garlic to your pizza. There may be a little garlic in your pizza sauce already, but if you're ready to take your pizza to the next level of flavor, extra garlic may just do the trick.

You can spread a layer of minced raw garlic directly on top of the crust before adding the other ingredients, or you could mix it straight into the sauce (via Reddit). To avoid peeling and chopping garlic, why not just buy it pre-chopped in a jar?

Yes, we hear those of you in the back shouting that pineapple doesn't go on pizza. And, while it doesn't for you, plenty of people adore it. Cooked pineapple's sweet tanginess melds well with tomato sauce to make a flavor combination that many people crave. In fact, according to our survey, one in 10 people calls it a favorite topping.

The pineapple pizza debate is heated enough to have inspired pineapple pizza hate memes. But perhaps all this negative publicity has inspired more pizza lovers to give it a try. In 2020, Grubhub orders showed that Hawaiian pizza (where pineapple really shines) had increased in popularity by a whopping 689% (via PR Newswire). And a 2022 study shows Hawaiian pizza to be the favorite pizza of three U.S. states.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to adding bell peppers to pizzas. Some people like them raw so that they add a bit of crunch to the pizza, while others like them cooked first (via Quora). 

If you add your bell peppers to your pizza raw, keep in mind that larger pepper slices are more likely to maintain their crispness throughout the baking process. But if you prefer your bell peppers well-done, you may want to cook them before adding them to the pizza. Cooking them first is especially a good idea for Philly cheesesteak pizzas.

Olives are prevalent throughout the Mediterranean and Italy, so it's no surprise that they are commonly featured on pizzas. Everyone has an opinion on olives and which ones they like best (or dislike most). However, these strong, salty, and slightly bitter drupes are here to stay on pizzas. Even some people who don't otherwise like black olives will eat them on pizza (via Reddit).

They work well with various flavor combinations like supreme pizzas and pizzas with pineapple. Most pizza parlors only offer black olives as a pizza topping, but you can certainly try green olives, kalamatas, or other olive favorites instead.

There are several varieties of onions, and they all taste magnificent on pizza. White onions are probably the ones you're most likely to see on pizza, but others have their place as well. Sweet onions like yellow onions are among the best for caramelizing, which works well with white pizzas. 

Red onions are excellent additions to barbecue chicken pizzas. Just add them toward the end of baking to prevent burning and allow them to still release sweetness (via Pizza Chef HQ). However, if you're thinking of putting green onions on a pizza, you'll want to wait until after it's emerged from the oven so that they don't burn (via Quora).

While pepperoni is the king of pizza meat toppings, sausage is a close second. But sausage has been around longer, with Italian sausage dating back to the first century BC in Rome (via Rosati's).

The type of sausage you use on a pizza can completely change its flavor profile. Breakfast-style and Italian sausages are the ones you're most likely to encounter in most pizza restaurants, but chorizo and other types of sausage are also contenders (via Brooklyn Craft Pizza). Italian sausage provides a mildly licorice-like flavor to pizza from fennel and comes in varieties ranging from sweet to hot. Meanwhile, breakfast-style sausage tends to blend in smoothly unless it has an overabundance of sage.

While many people list pepperoni as their favorite pizza topping, it's not necessarily the best pizza topping. How many of your favorite pizzas wouldn't be the same without buttery, gooey, stringy cheese? Even if you're vegan, you've likely located a vegan cheese substitute to make your pizzas complete.

But you don't have to take our word for it. A 2022 study shows that cheese pizzas are the favorite pizza in 29 U.S. states. And, when Grubhub revealed the top takeout orders for 2022, cheese pizza was item number three on its list (only beat out by burritos and cheeseburgers). Cheese pizza was also the fourth most-popular lunch order and the fifth most-popular late-night order. No other type of pizza even made the list — not even pepperoni.