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Street Food

Panuozzo
The double-baked pizza sandwich from Gragnano

Pizza dough baked twice — first to puff and char, then stuffed and returned to the oven. Invented in 1983 in Gragnano (near Naples), now PAT-recognized. This is not an ancient Neapolitan tradition; it is a 40-year-old idea that became one.

Panuozzo stuffed with mortadella, burrata, arugula, and crushed pistachios

The panuozzo is a pizza sandwich. Not a calzone, not a filled roll — a sandwich made from pizza dough, baked in a wood-fired oven, sliced open while still hot, and filled with whatever is behind the counter. The process is what makes it: the dough goes into the oven first as a plain oval, baking until it puffs and takes on char from the heat, then it comes out, gets split through the middle while hot, receives its filling, and goes back in for a brief second bake that melts the cheese and warms everything through. Two passes in the oven. The result is crisp on the outside, airy and slightly charred inside, and wrapped tightly around its filling.

This is a relatively recent invention, not an ancient Neapolitan tradition. The panuozzo was created in 1983 by pizzaiolo Giuseppe Mascolo in Gragnano, a town in the hills south of Naples best known for its pasta — the same town that gave Italy many of its best dried pasta shapes. Mascolo's idea was to use pizza dough in a different form, a long oval rather than a round disc, and to turn it into a sandwich vessel. It spread quickly through the pizzerias of the area and eventually through Campania. Today it has PAT recognition (Prodotti Agroalimentari Tradizionali, Italy's protected traditional foods list), which is unusual for something invented within living memory, but the designation reflects how thoroughly it embedded itself into local food culture.

The panuozzo belongs to the pizzeria, not the rosticceria. If you are in Naples and you want a stuffed baked roll, the rosticceria gives you the panino napoletano. If you want this — charred, airy, twice-baked — you ask the pizzaiolo.

The fillings are modern and abundant. Mortadella, stracciatella, burrata, arugula, pistachios — combinations that would have been unthinkable in a traditional context but work precisely because the dough is neutral and strong enough to hold anything without collapsing. Sausage and friarielli (the bitter rapini greens that the Neapolitans pair with almost everything pork-adjacent). Prosciutto and fior di latte. Caprese: tomato, basil, mozzarella, olive oil. Some shops add salami or fried eggplant. The basic principle is that it can take any filling you would put on a pizza, plus some you would never put on a pizza, because the pocket shape contains it differently.

Panuozzo — step by step infographic by Giuseppe Astarita
Panuozzo — dough, bake, fill, second bake. Click to enlarge.

Dough

500 g 00 flour — or strong bread flour
325 ml water — room temp
7 g active dry yeast
10 g fine salt
15 ml olive oil

Classic filling — mortadella, burrata, arugula

200 g mortadella — thick sliced
1 burrata or 150 g stracciatella
handful arugula
crushed pistachios — optional
olive oil, black pepper

Method

1
Dissolve yeast in a little water. Combine flour, remaining water, yeast, salt, and olive oil. Knead 10 minutes until smooth and slightly tacky. Cover and cold-proof in the refrigerator 18–24 hours, or at room temperature for 2 hours until doubled.
2
Divide dough into 3–4 portions. On a lightly floured surface, shape each into an oval roughly 25 cm long and 1 cm thick. Do not roll too thin — it needs structural walls once filled.
3
First bake: bake on a preheated steel or stone at 250°C / 480°F (hottest your oven goes) for 8–10 minutes until puffed and lightly charred on the surface. Remove from oven.
4
Immediately slice each oval open through the side, leaving a hinge on one long edge. The interior will be airy and hot. Fill with mortadella and any melting cheese (if using). Fold back closed.
5
Second bake: return to oven 3–4 minutes until cheese melts and the outside crisps again. Remove, open, add arugula and burrata or stracciatella. Drizzle with olive oil. Eat immediately.
On provenance: The panuozzo was invented in 1983 by Giuseppe Mascolo in Gragnano (Campania). It is genuinely local — made with the same dough and technique as Neapolitan pizza, embedded in the pizzeria culture of the region — but it is not an ancient tradition. If you are making it for someone who has never had it, they are experiencing a 40-year-old invention, not a centuries-old recipe. That context does not diminish the food. It just places it correctly.
More from the street
La Rosticceria Napoletana
The full world of rustici and fritti — street food culture the panuozzo comes from.
Panino Napoletano
'O pagnuttiello — the stuffed baked roll, the rosticceria counterpart to the pizzeria panuozzo.
Pizza Fritta
The fried pizza dough of Naples — different method, same street food spirit.
Calzone Napoletano
The classic folded pizza — the original stuffed bread from the same tradition.
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