New York Garlic Knots

Garlic knots are a true New York pizzeria staple.  These golden, garlicky knobs of dough are best served alongside a pizza, salad, or soup, but are also great by themselves, or dipped in a bit of sauce.  Our recipe walks you through the process of making the real deal, New York garlic knots you’d find if you walked into any one of the thousands of pizzerias in the metro area.  

Is there anything better than biting into a garlic knot?   

The slightly hard exterior giving way to the soft chewiness inside.  And the garlic, oh the garlic!

For me, making garlic knots at home is even better because it comes with the feeling of accomplishment you get when you create something so perfect. 

Plus I can eat as many as I want with only a little judgment from my kids.  😉

For these NY-style garlic knots, we’ll be using our homemade pizza dough and our pizza steel. 

If you don’t have a pizza steel, you can use a pizza stone or a baking pan, in that order. 

Using a steel will help char the exterior, giving the garlic knots that authentic NY pizzeria style leopard pattern and will only take 6-7 minutes to bake in the oven.  

They will have the quintessential hard outside and the softer, chewier inside you know and love. 

You know, the way it tastes at a pizzeria.

Now, that being said you can still get pretty tasty garlic knots with a baking pan, so if you don’t have a steel or stone, I still encourage you to try this recipe.

If you’re looking for a slightly easier recipe that has similar flavor, try our garlic butter dinner rolls. 

The ingredients

In addition to the pizza dough, you’ll need olive oil, parsley, Pecorino Romano cheese, butter, crushed red pepper flakes, and of course, garlic!

While the dough and the garlic are certainly important, the type of cheese used makes a difference too.  

To get authentic tasting New York garlic knots, or any NY pizzeria style food, you need to use Pecorino Romano.

Pecorino Romano is a sheep’s milk cheese and is integral to the Roman pasta dishes like carbonara and cacio e pepe, but it’s also used heavily by Italian-Americans living in New York.

Many people will just call it Locatelli or Romano.  Locatelli is the most popular brand of this Roman cheese sold in America.

I always have it on hand and serve it with many dishes from Sunday sauce and meatballs to baked ziti or manicotti.

How to make it

Note: Use our pizza dough recipe referenced above and a pizza steel for best results. If you don’t have a steel you’ll want to use a pizza stone and cook for 10-12 minutes.  Alternatively, use a parchment paper lined baking sheet and preheat oven to 450f and set the rack to second lowest level.  If choosing this method, they’ll need to bake for about 15 minutes.

1. Begin by removing 18 ounces of dough (leave covered)  from the fridge 2 hours prior to stretching.  Once ready to stretch, place the pizza steel on the second highest rack in your oven and preheat to 525f for 45 minutes.  While preheating, place the dough ball on a floured work surface and flatten with your fingertips.
2. Stretch the dough into a 12 inch circle then cut into 6 long strips.  Next, cut those strips into 2-3 more strips.  You should have roughly 16 strips that weigh about 35 grams or a little bit more than an ounce each.  If you want bigger garlic knots you could cut less strips or use more dough.  Totally up to you!

3. Tie each strip into a knot.
4. Here we have approximately 16 knots all tied up.
5. Sprinkle semolina flour onto your wooden pizza peel and spread it all around with your hands.
6. Place the tied dough onto the wooden peel and cover with plastic wrap.  

7. Heat a moderate sized pan to medium-low heat.  Add the butter and olive oil.  Once the butter is melted, add the garlic.
8. Sautee the garlic in the oil and butter just until golden.  Place the garlic butter into a large bowl and set aside, covered.  Remove the plastic wrap and slide (launch) the garlic knots onto the hot pizza steel.
9. Remove the garlic knots after 6-7 minutes or once the bottom is charred and the tops are light brown.  Drop the knots into the garlic butter.
10. Mix the knots around by swirling and tossing them in the bowl.  Sprinkle the salt, Pecorino Romano, and hot red pepper flakes onto the oil and butter-coated knots.

11. Sprinkle the parsley and mix once more.
12. Keep mixing then taste test a garlic knot.  If they need a bit more salt, cheese, or olive oil, add it now.  

Serve the garlic knots immediately when they are piping hot.  

A bowl of marinara sauce for dunking is strongly recommended!

Top tips

In my quest to make the perfect NY-style garlic knots, pizza, and calzones, I’ve amassed a ton of information, and a few inches on my waist! 

Here are some of my nuggets of wisdom, curated especially for you:

• cold fermented dough – cold fermenting your dough (this means mixing your dough and leaving it in the fridge overnight or up to 3 days to slow proof and ferment) will yield a superior tasting garlic knot.  
• pizza steel – cooking garlic knots on a pizza steel will duplicate the deck oven that most pizzerias cook their knots in.  Throwing them on a baking pan and cooking them at 450f will yield a garlic knot with a softer more bread-like texture.  If you want a NY pizzeria tasting garlic knot, use a pizza steel!
• fresh garlic – This recipe needs fresh garlic and a lot of it.  Don’t use that jarred chopped garlic or garlic powder, use regular fresh garlic.
• Say no to Italian seasoning – this bad (yes that’s right it’s really bad) ingredient should not go on your garlic knots or any Italian or Italian-American food.  The only dried herb you should ever use is oregano, but for this garlic knot recipe, we’re just using fresh parsley.

Can same day RT (room temperature) dough be used instead of cold fermented dough?

Yes.  You can mix your dough and place into an oiled bowl.  Cover and let the dough double in size before using. 

This should take a couple of hours.  But, if you can, using cold fermented dough will yield more flavorful garlic knots.

Can store-bought dough be used?

I recommend you use our homemade New York pizza dough recipe for these garlic knots. 

Our standard pizza dough recipe works for all of our pizza recipes, and other recipes such as calzone. 

But, if you don’t have the time, buy pizza dough from your favorite place and use it in the same manner outlined above.

Try these other pizza dough recipes

• Homemade New York pizza – This is the largest and most comprehensive post on our website regarding pizza.
• Pepperoni pinwheels – So good and so easy to make with our standard dough recipe.
• NY Sicilian pizza – Thick crust with tomato, mozzarella, Pecorino, and Sicilian oregano.
• White pizza – Mozzarella, ricotta, Pecorino Romano, and garlic.
• Grandma pizza – Classic thin sheet pan pizza from Long Island, that’s now served all other the NY metro.
• Pizza fritta – Fried pizza dough topped with a variety of sweet or savory toppings!
• Stromboli – Pepperoni, ham, and provolone rolled up with pizza dough and baked until golden.

If you’ve enjoyed this garlic knots recipe or any recipe on this site, we want to know so tell us in the comments below. 

Give it a star rating.  We would love to hear how you did and it’s nice to show others as well.  Thanks!

Watch the video below where Jim will show you how to make this recipe with easy-to-follow instructions. 

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