By Brian Hernandez
This is part 2 of a 3-part series on balsamic pearls as a pizza ingredient. Click here to read part 1.
As explained in part 1 of this series, balsamic pearls add a touch of spherical, marble-like beauty and, more importantly, an explosion of flavor to artisanal-style pizza. Now that you’ve entered the realm of spherification, it’s time to shift from curious experimentation to real-world application. If Part 1 laid the groundwork, this is where you take the controls and put it into practice. If you can’t grasp it right away, pretend like you’re playing Marble Madness during an earthquake and just roll with it. It will come.
But first, let’s get technical for a brief moment. The process is simple in theory but demands precision. Oil is chilled, vinegar meets agar, and temperature control is everything. Too hot, and you’ll get streaks. Too cold, and it congeals into blobs. But dial it in just right, and you get clean, consistent spheres, like locking in the perfect line on a Tron light cycle grid.
And there’s so much more. Hot honey pearls on a Calabrese pie? Soy pearls on a rogue sushi-inspired LTO? Lemon pearls for seafood pies? You name it, you can pearl it… within reason.
“I have used balsamic pearls both in competitions and on my menu,” said Dan Uccello, owner of Flo’s Pizzeria in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a member of PMQ’s U.S. Pizza Team. “They played a key role in balancing the flavors and elevating the presentation. I continue to use them…because they add a unique visual and textural element that customers remember.”
The pearls aren’t just pretty. They’re precision flavor delivery systems. “For example, you can nest them in crevices in tomatoes or other toppings,” said David Jacobson, owner of Cheezy’s Artisan Pizza in San Francisco.
It’s not a garnish; it’s more like guided-missile flavor targeting. Think Missile Command, but with balsamic balls or honey orbs instead of ICBMs.
The next boss levels are foams, gels and powders. “You can dehydrate things like mushrooms or tomato skins and make powders to add unique umami to your spice blends,” Jacobson said. “It’s as easy as making Jell-O.”
Ready, player one? Jacobson has shared the cheat code for creating balsamic—or nearly any liquid—pearls. Here’s the power-up recipe for using agar-agar.
- Chill the oil: Pour olive or vegetable oil into a tall container and place it in the freezer until it’s very cold, about 30 to 45 minutes. Don’t let it freeze solid. This creates your playing field—slick, cold, and ready to catch the drops.
2. Mix your liquid and agar: Combine 1 cup of vinegar (or other flavorful liquid) with 1 teaspoon of agar-agar in a small saucepan (typically 1.5–2g per 100ml). Bring to a light boil, stirring constantly until the agar dissolves completely—no clumps, no glitches.
3. Cooldown checkpoint: After boiling, let it cool for about one minute (to around 120°–130°F / 50°–55°C). This ensures the temperature’s just right for dropping—not so hot that it breaks the oil, not so cool that it starts to gel early.
4. Precision drop: Using a squeeze bottle, syringe, or dropper, carefully drip the mixture into the cold oil. The pearls will form on contact—tiny orb power-ups landing perfectly like a Pac-Man bonus fruit.
5. Scoop, rinse & store: Use a slotted spoon to collect the pearls and rinse gently in cold water or store lightly coated in oil. Just like that, you’ve crafted edible flavor spheres worthy of a bonus round. Refrigerate in an airtight container.
Brian Hernandez is PMQ Pizza’s associate editor and coordinator of the U.S. Pizza Team.
