Best Outdoor Pizza Ovens of 2025
Ready to create restaurant-quality pizza pies in your own backyard? Read on to learn about what our best outdoor pizza ovens have to offer and everything you need to know before buying one!
As appliance designs continue to evolve, consumers are discovering just how many modern innovations in cooking technology are available to prepare restaurant-quality meals right at home. However, these innovations are no longer limited to indoor kitchens. Outdoor kitchens are becoming just as customizable as their indoor counterparts, and a popular addition to outdoor appliance suites that consumers love is the outdoor pizza oven. Outdoor pizza ovens are specially constructed to ensure the perfect cooking conditions for baking fresh pizza, but that’s not the only type of food you can use them for!
As your appliance authority, AjMadison not only wants to offer you the best outdoor pizza ovens for your home, but also empower you to shop our wide selection of pizza ovens like an appliance pro! Let’s go through everything you need to know before committing to a pizza oven purchase and see what our top picks have to offer.
What to Know Before Buying Outdoor Pizza Ovens
Picture this: you shell out a ton of cash to custom build your dream outdoor kitchen equipped with a pizza oven but discover after the fact that something as simple as where you placed it makes it illegal for you to use it. While there are generally no federal regulations specifically restricting the use of outdoor pizza ovens, it is imperative that homeowners check for any local regulations they must comply with before purchasing one. These include zoning laws, local fire department safety regulations, building codes, permit requirements, and homeowner association rules. It’s also polite to discuss your installation plans with neighbors if you think smoke production or other factors may affect your relations with them. For freestanding outdoor pizza ovens, the remedy may simply be to move it to another area of your outdoor space. However, for more permanent built-in pizza ovens, these issues can be quite expensive to fix after the fact, so plan ahead.
Is a Wood or Gas Pizza Oven Better?
When it comes to what powers an outdoor pizza oven, you have two primary options: wood (either as logs or pellets) and gas (either through a direct line or an attached propane tank). Both have their distinct advantages depending on your cooking preferences, so consider the following:
Cooking with a Wood Fired Pizza Oven – Wood imparts a distinct smoky flavor to crusts and toppings as the combustion releases its aromatic compounds. Wood fire can also reach up to about 900°F for quick cooking, enabling you to whip out pie after pie for large groups faster than gas. Keep in mind that combustion intensity and airflow can affect temperature consistency, so a skilled operator will be needed to maintain relatively consistent temperatures throughout the cooking process.
Cooking with a Gas Pizza Oven – Gas is more clean-burning than wood. Thanks to its lack of smokiness, it also allows the natural flavors of your pizza’s ingredients to take precedence. Gas burners maintain consistent temperatures throughout the oven cavity, so you don’t need to attend to it regularly as you would with wood fired ovens. Although they can’t reach the same heat levels as wood fired ovens, well-crafted models still get hot enough to prepare multiple pies in a timely manner (generally from 500-800°F).
What Else Can You Cook in an Outdoor Pizza Oven?
The dome-shaped oven cavity of an outdoor pizza oven creates slow convection air patterns, circulating heat. This means you can use your pizza oven as a regular oven – with an extra smokey flavor infusion if you choose a wood fired model! When you’re not baking pizza pies, your oven can be used to roast meat or fish, crisp vegetables, bake loaves of bread, and even prepare dessert trays!
