Easy Pizza Dough Recipe

You can check out my easy pizza dough web story here if you’d like.

The Importance of Pizza

One of the first things The Beloved and I do when we move to a new place is to find the best local pizza place we can and Buy From Them.

We’d rather support a local, stand-alone than a Crazy Big Chain operation. The place we have found in NC is a little place called Papa’s Pizza and Subs.

We order from Papa about twice a month, and we have been Very Pleased–even their delivery guys are really good. Yay.

There was a time though–a Sad and Dark time–when we didn’t have a good local pizza place near us.

The only thing to do was make our own.

Even now, with Papa’s down the road, we might have a hankering for pizza brushed with truffle oil sometimes, and then we’ll just make some.

Why You Should Make This Pizza Dough

This the recipe we used at one of the restaurants I worked at, scaled down so you don’t have to make a billion pizzas.

Since it’s a restaurant recipe, it has an easy-to-remember formula. Memorize it, and you can make your own pizza dough no matter where you are.

This dough is made to be baked into thin-crust pizza, but you can also use it to make a thicker crust.

All you have to do to make a thicker crust is to cover the topped pizza and let it rest for maybe 30-45 minutes before baking. Easy!

The crust that bakes up from this recipe is nice and chewy, but not so chewy that it gets in the way of enjoying your pizza.

This is a relatively lean dough with only a Tablespoon of oil in it. It’s also a relatively low-hydration dough with a hydration of about 50%.

This makes it very easy to work with.

How to Make Homemade Pizza Dough

This is a user-friendly dough, and it is not hard to make.

If you have a stand mixer, it is super easy to do.

If you don’t, it’s still a straightforward process that you can make in a bowl and then knead by hand.

Ingredients and Substitutions

• Bread flour: Together, the two flours make up the bulk of the dough and provide the gluten for strength and stretch. You can substitute all bread flour or all all-purpose flour if you don’t have both on hand, but you will probably need to adjust the amount of water. See the QZ&A for more information
• All-purpose flour:
• Salt: Adds flavor and controls yeast growth
• Yeast: Provides the rise, and a long, slow rise also contributes to flavor
• Water: You can use cold water here, and filtered water if you have it
• Olive oil: Just a touch to add a bit of richness and fat to tenderize the gluten and provide a hint of fruity, olive oil flavor

Procedure

If you have a stand mixer, the procedure for making this pizza dough is very easy indeed:

1. Get out your stand mixer and fit it with the dough hook.
2. Put all the ingredients into the mixer bowl.
3. Mix on medium-low speed for 8 minutes and medium speed for an additional 4 minutes.
4. That’s it. Dough: made!

If you don’t have a mixer, start with all your ingredients in a large bowl.

Bring it all together by stirring with a wooden spoon until you have a pretty shaggy dough.

Scrape the dough out onto a clean work surface–no need for flour–and work the dough until it is smooth, soft, and stretchy.

Once you have your dough made, there’s a bit of a process to turn it into the pizza of your dreams.

Nothing about it is hard, and you’ll be able to do it without thinking about it after a while.

For now, especially if this is your first time making and shaping dough, here are all the steps so you know what to expect.

How to Know When It’s is Ready

I understand that, even with times for kneading, you may still be unsure if your dough is ready.

Here’s what to look for:

• You dough will start out “bumpy” and kind of rough. As you knead (or your mixer kneads) the dough will become smooth and stretchy.
• It will be soft and barely sticky at all.
• If you grab a piece of it and stretch it out, it will stretch out easily.
• If you take a piece of the dough and work it into a small disc, and then stretch it out, it should be translucent when you hold it up to the light, and it shouldn’t tear (at least not until it is very, very thin).

Shaping Pizza Dough, Step by Step

Once you make your dough, and especially if you weigh all your ingredients, you’ll have right around 13.2 oz dough.

Split the dough in two so you have two pieces that each way about 6.6 oz.

Take each piece of dough, pat it out a little bit so it’s in a rough disc shape.

Then, tuck all the edges of the disc under and into the center, gathering the whole piece of dough into a ball.

Tighten the ball up by placing it on the counter and rolling it between your palms.

Place your dough on a lightly floured sheet pan, spray the top with pan spray or brush it with a little oil, cover with plastic wrap, and repeat with the other round of dough.

If using the same day, allow the dough to rise until about doubled, which, depending on how cool it is in your kitchen, could take anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to about 2 1/2 hours. (See image below)

Shaping the Dough

Once your dough has risen, it’s time to shape your pizza.

Lightly flour your work surface, and plop one of the risen dough balls in the middle.

Begin by using your fingertips to “dimple” out the dough into a fairly thick disc about 6″ in diameter. (See photo collage below)

Once you have your dough thinned out into a disc, you can start stretching it.

It’s a pretty sturdy dough, so you should not have any issue with it tearing as long as you don’t jam your finger or fingernail through it.

Since I only make pizza occasionally, I do not have the technique down pat, but it doesn’t prevent me from making a tasty homemade pizza!

Here are some of my better moves. You do what works best for you:

• Hold the disc of dough by one edge and gently pull down on the opposite edge. Shift the dough to the next section, and repeat.
• Hold the center of the dough down on the work surface while gently stretching the dough by pulling on the edge with one hand. Repeat all the way around once or twice.
• Hold the dough down on the work surface and use your hands to stretch the dough in opposite directions all the way around.
• Once the dough is stretched to about 8-9″, hold the dough up by one edge and let gravity pull the dough down. Assist by stretching gently.

No matter which combination of stretching you do, keep doing it until you have a round-ish shape that’s about 12″ in diameter and slightly thicker around the edges than at the center.

Topping Your Pizza and Getting It Into the Oven

Now, lightly dust your pizza peel (I don’t have one so I use the back of a pizza pan. It works fine) with flour, cornmeal, or a mixture of the two.

Do this to keep the dough from sticking to the pan so you can transfer it to your preheated stone.

Put your stretched dough on your peel, ladle on about 1/2 cup of homemade pizza sauce (or store-bought) and spread it out, leaving about 1/2″ clear around the edges.

Top your pizza judiciously. Remember what we said about less is more. It’s important.

Every once in a while when you’re topping your pizza, stop and shake the peel back and forth to make sure your pizza isn’t sticking.

Once you’re ready to bake, open the oven, line up the pizza peel with the back edge of your pizza stone, and use a back-and-forth jerking motion to slide the pizza out onto the hot stone.

Tips for Success

To bake, put a heavy baking stone on the lowest rack in your oven and preheat to as high as your oven will go. Mine will heat to 550F. Turn on your oven at least an hour before you plan to bake.

If you get frustrated with stretching the dough, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for 10 minutes. Then come back and stretch some more.

You can spread making the dough over two or even three days. Once you make and shape the dough into rounds, spray it, cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 3 days. On baking day, remove the dough from the fridge, let it come to room temperature for about an hour or so, then shape and bake.

For a chewier, slightly thicker crust, after topping your pizza, cover it and allow it to rest for 30-45 minutes before transferring it to the oven to bake.

Equipment You May Need

First and foremost, if you’re going to be making a lot of pizza, you may want to have a stand mixer.

If not and you don’t mind a good arm workout, you can certainly make it in a bowl with a wooden spoon and then knead it on the counter.

You may also want to invest in a pizza stone or a pizza steel as well as a pizza peel for transferring your topped pizza to the oven and then removing it to a cutting board for serving.

For serving pizza, do get a pizza wheel if you don’t already have one. I have one with a 2″ disc, but sometimes that isn’t deep enough to slice a nice, thick grandma pizza, so I recommend you get one with a 4″ cutting disc.

Tips for Making Great Pizza Every Time

1. Less is more–don’t overload the dough–you want to taste the bread once it’s baked.
2. Use some restraint with the sauce, too, or you will have a soggy pizza. Use no more than 1/2 cup of sauce per 12″ pizza.
3. Bake the pizza on a pizza stone, pizza steel, or quarry tile close to the bottom of the oven.
4. Bake at the highest temperature your oven will go. Mine goes to 525F.
5. If you have a pizza peel, lightly sprinkle it with flour, cornmeal, or a mixture of the two before building the pizza on it. Shake it often to make sure it’s not sticking. When you’re ready to bake, transfer the pizza from the peel to the baking stone by placing the end of the peel at the far end of the stone and shaking/jerking the peel back towards you.

That’s about 1/2 cup of sauce, maybe 18-20 slices of pickled peppers, 6 small cooked meatballs sliced into 3 slices each, and a total of about 6 oz cheese between the two types: 3 oz fresh mozzarella and 3 oz whole milk mozzarella that I shredded with a box grater.

Altogether, we are not talking about a lot of toppings. Still, you get a bit of everything in almost every bite.

See?

New York Pizza Dough

A proper, New York-style pizza slice should fold over so you can eat it as God intended.

I definitely think this counts as a New York pizza dough recipe. I mean, I have evidence. Look:

Other Things to Spread on Pizza Dough Besides Tomato Sauce

As much as I love a good red sauce to dress my pizza, there is no need to limit yourself. So even though “homemade pizza sauce” brings to mind tomatoes, don’t discount the goodness some of these other choices bring to the party.

• Pesto
• Barbecue Sauce
• Sweet and sour sauce
• Steak sauce
• olive oil
• Sausage gravy
• Alfredo sauce
• Aioli
• Plum sauce
• Chimichurri sauce
• Chutney
• Etc.

Questions?

If you have questions about this post or recipe, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can leave a comment on the post and I will get back to you within about 24 hours.

If your question is more urgent, please shoot me an email, and I will respond within 4 hours, unless I’m asleep.

A Note About Measurements

NOTE: Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume, even the liquids.

Even though I try to provide you with volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a kitchen scale for ease of measuring, accuracy, and consistency.

This is the scale I use, love, and recommend. If you’re unsure, please read my post about how to use a food scale.

You can watch my homemade pizza dough web story here.