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Good pizza starts with good pizza dough. This homemade pizza dough makes the best crisp pizza crust that is soft, airy, chewy, and flavourful. It is a perfect recipe for beginners to make because it is so easy with just 5 simple ingredients and 15 minutes of actual hands-on prep work. Once you try homemade pizza dough, it will be hard to go back to store-bought dough or even pizza delivery.
This recipe seriously makes the best yeast-based pizza dough. If you bake sourdough and have a batch of sourdough starter going, you can also try our sourdough pizza dough and make some pretty amazing pizza too.
Ingredients
To make homemade pizza dough, you will need the following pantry staples:
- all-purpose flour
- yeast - I used instant yeast but active dry yeast works as well. You just have to let it sit in the water for a few minutes to activate it first.
- all purpose flour
- water - use lukewarm or cold water. Hot water will kill the yeast.
- salt- adds flavour.
- olive oil- adds flavour.
How to Make the Best Homemade Pizza Dough
- Make the dough. Whisk together flour and salt in a largemixing bowl. Combine water, yeast and the olive oil in a smallmixing bowland pour it into flour mixture. Stir well with asilicone spatulato combine until no dry flour is visible in the bowl. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl with the spatula.
- Knead the dough. Transfer the dough mixture onto a clean and lightly greased surface. The oil will help keep the dough from sticking to your hands initially. You can even lightly oil your hands too.Knead with your hands until the dough is smooth and not sticky at all, about 5-10 minutes.
Tips for Kneading Dough
- How to knead dough:Knead the dough by pushing it down and outward using the palms of your hands. Fold the dough in half toward you and press down. Repeat this motion by pushing the dough down and outward, and then folding over towards you. This helps build up gluten strength in dough that is responsible for making the bread fluffy.
- How to test if dough is well-kneaded: A well-kneaded dough is smooth and can hold its shape. You can test the dough by giving it a firm poke with your finger. The indentation should bounce right back. If it doesn’t bounce back and stays like a dimple, keep kneading for a few more minutes.
- Shape the dough. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and shape each into a ball. Lightly brush some oil over a large glass container and place each dough spaced apart. Lightly brush oil over the dough ball to prevent from being too sticky and losing moisture.
- Let the dough rise. Cover the glass container and let the dough rest and rise for 2-3 hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. You can leave it in the refrigerator up to 2 days before use. However, you might find the dough starts to smell like alcohol from over fermentation but it's still edible. The dough balls will almost double in size.
- Turn the oven broiler to high, and heat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat.
- Transfer pizza dough onto a floured surface. Gently press the pizza dough with your fingers into an 8-inch circle. Sprinkle some flour if needed to prevent stickiness. Once the skillet is hot, carefully place the flattened dough onto the skillet. Stretch out the dough a bit more to let it spread over the entire skillet.
- Immediately add the pizza sauce and spread evenly over the pizza crust. Place sliced fresh mozzarella cheese and basil leaves evenly on top. Leave the pizza to cook on the skillet for 5 minutes or until the bottom of the crust starts to brown. Transfer thecast-iron skilletto the preheated broiler and cook for 3 minutes or until the crust is blistered and slightly charred. Keep your eye closely on the broil, because the intense heat can make pizza crust burn quite quickly.
How to Use Pizza Dough
You can use this homemade pizza dough to make any pizza that you can think of. Once you are ready to make your pizza, take the dough out of the refrigerator and transfer it onto a floured surface. It is unnecessary to bring the pizza dough to room temperature before cooking because cold dough is much easier to handle and shaped into pizza.
You can also bake entirely in the oven as in our BBQ Chicken Pizza recipe.
Some of my favourite pizzas to make are Easy Skillet Neapolitan Margherita Pizza,30-Minute BBQ Chicken Pizza, Mushroom and Arugula Skillet Pizza, Butter Chicken Pizza, Salami and Mushroom Skillet Pizza and Classic Roman Herbed Potato Pizza. Check them out for full instructions on how to cook the pizza dough.
How to Scale Up or Down (Baker's Percentage)
If you are planning to make more (or less) pizza dough, the easiest method to find out how the quantities of each ingredient that we need is what is known as baker's percentage. It's a quick way to helps us to immediately understand the type of dough or bread that we are working with, and to adjust quantities to easily scale the recipe up or down.
Each ingredient in a formula is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight, and the flour weight is always expressed as 100%. Simply multiply the total amount of flour to the percentage of each ingredient to get the amount you need for each ingredient.
The Baker's Percentage for this homemade pizza dough is as follows:
- 66.6% hydration
- 1% yeast
- 2% salt
- 3% oil
Storing and Freezing Instructions
- How to store pizza dough: Store the dough balls in anairtight containerin the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
- How to freeze pizza dough: To freezeunbakedpizza dough, store each dough ball into separate freezer bags. Push out any air in the bags and seal. Store in the freezer for up to 3 months. When ready to use, thaw the dough in your refrigerator overnight or for 10-12 hours.
More Pizza Recipes
- Skillet Neapolitan Margherita Pizza
- Homemade Calzones
- Salami and Mushroom Skillet Pizza
- 30-Minute BBQ Chicken Pizza
- Butter Chicken Pizza
- Mushroom and Arugula Skillet Pizza
- Classic Roman Herbed Potato Pizza
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Recipe
Homemade Pizza Dough
5 Stars4 Stars3 Stars2 Stars1 Star
5 from 2 reviews
- Author: Sam Hu | Ahead of Thyme
- Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 2 (8-inch) pizzas (about 250 grams each)
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This easy homemade pizza dough makes the best crisp pizza crust that is soft, airy, chewy and flavourful. It's a perfect recipe for beginners.
Ingredients
- 300 grams all-purpose flour
- 6 gramssalt(1 teaspoon)
- 200 grams water
- 3 grams instant yeast
- 15 grams olive oil (1 tablespoon), divided
Instructions
- Whisk together flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Combine water, yeast and the olive oil in a small mixing bowl and pour it into flour mixture. Stir well with a silicone spatula to combine until no dry flour is visible in the bowl. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl with the spatula.
- Transfer the dough mixture onto a clean and lightly greased surface. The oil will help keep the dough from sticking to your hands initially. You can even lightly oil your hands too.Knead with your hands until the dough is smooth and not sticky at all, about 5-10 minutes. To knead, push the dough down and outward using the palms of your hands. Fold the dough in half toward you and press down. Repeat this motion by pushing the dough down and outward, and then folding over towards you. This helps build up gluten strength in dough that is responsible for making the bread fluffy. A well kneaded dough is smooth and can hold its shape. When you give the dough ball a firm poke with your finger, the indentation should bounce right back. If it doesn’t bounce back and stays like a dimple, keep kneading for a few minutes.
- Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and shape each into a ball. Lightly brush some oil over a large glass container and place each dough spaced apart. Lightly brush oil over the dough ball to prevent from being too sticky and losing moisture.
- Cover the glass container and let the dough rest and rise for 2-3 hours at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. You can leave it in the refrigerator up to 2 days before use. However, you might find the dough starts to smell like alcohol from over fermentation but it's still edible. The dough balls will almost double in size.
How to Make Pizza:
- Turn the oven broiler to high, and heat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat.
- Transfer pizza dough onto a floured surface. Gently press the pizza dough with your fingers into an 8-inch circle. Sprinkle some flour if needed to prevent stickiness. Once the skillet is hot, carefully place the flattened dough onto the skillet. Stretch out the dough a bit more to let it spread over the entire skillet.
- Immediately add the pizza sauce and spread evenly over the pizza crust. Place sliced fresh mozzarella cheese and basil leaves evenly on top. Leave the pizza to cook on the skillet for 5 minutes or until the bottom of the crust starts to brown. Transfer thecast-iron skillet to the preheated broiler and cook for 3 minutes or until the crust is blistered and slightly charred. Keep your eye closely on the broil, because the intense heat can make pizza crust burn quite quickly.
- You can also bake entirely in the oven as in our BBQ Chicken Pizza recipe.
Notes
How to store pizza dough: Store the dough balls in an airtight containerin the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
How to freeze pizza dough: To freezeunbaked pizza dough, store each dough ball into separate freezer bags. Push out any air in the bags and seal. Store in the freezer for up to 3 months. When ready to use, thaw the dough in your refrigerator overnight or for 10-12 hours.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes (+2-3 hours rise time)
- Category: Pizza
- Method: Fermentation
- Cuisine: Italian
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Reader Interactions
Comments
Helen says
I made it and all my family love it! Thank you for sharing. We aren’t buying pizza anymore 😊
Reply
Cindy says
At what temperature do you cook this? How long do you cook them?
Reply
Sam Hu | Ahead of Thyme says
Hi Cindy, this is just the pizza dough recipe. For instructions on making pizza, you can check out: Skillet Neapolitan Margherita Pizza for a skillet-style pizza or BBQ Chicken Pizza for a baked pizza.
Reply
Katie says
Looks so good, can't wait to try this with my family!
Reply
Sam Hu | Ahead of Thyme says
Thank you Katie! Let me know how it goes!
Reply
Lisalia says
Yummy! What an easy-to-make crust. It turned out perfectly. Just like your photos! Thanks!
Reply
Sam Hu | Ahead of Thyme says
That makes me so happy to hear! Thank you Lisalia!
Reply
