Homemade Pizza Dough Recipe

This homemade pizza dough recipe makes an amazing pizza.

I use this dough to make NY-Style pizza, deep-dish pizza, calzones, stromboli, and even garlic knots.

Why You Should Make Pizza Dough Yourself

What Flour Is Best For Pizza Dough?

Bread flour is best for making pizza dough. This is because it has a higher protein content than all-purpose flour, and the protein in flour is what gives bread its chewy crust. If all-purpose flour or cake flour is used in pizza dough, the pizza wouldn’t have as chewy a crust. A chewy crust is one of the things that makes a great pizza, so it’s recommended to use quality bread flour.

Why You Should Weigh Ingredients For Homemade Pizza Dough

How To Use A Digital Gram Scale

Using a digital gram scale for weighing ingredients is easy. To use a gram scale, place a bowl on top of the scale and press the tare button to set the scale to zero. If you don’t press the tare button to tare the scale, the scale will include the weight of your bowl when you weigh your ingredients. After the tare button has been pressed and the scale is showing zero weight, add your ingredients to weigh them. You can tare the scale each time before you add a new ingredient which can make it easier to measure each ingredient separately, or use separate bowls for each ingredient, whichever works best for you.

How Much Pizza Does This Homemade Dough Make?

This homemade pizza dough recipe makes two sixteen to eighteen-inch pizzas depending on how thick you like your pizza crust. I use this recipe to make 18″ New York Style Pizzas using an 18″ pizza screen and baking them on the center rack of my home oven for about twelve minutes at 550°F or 287°C until the crust is nicely golden-brown and the cheese is cooked enough to form those caramelized brown spots.

You can also make delicious grandma-style Deep-Dish Pizzas with this as well by rolling out the whole batch of this homemade pizza dough recipe to fit an oiled 13 x 18″ rectangle sheet pan.

Why Do You Stretch Pizza Dough Instead Of Rolling It Out?

The reason you stretch pizza dough instead of rolling it out is that pizza dough, and bread doughs in general, have bubbles. These bubbles are important for making bread soft and airy inside. These bubbles are made by yeast which comes alive when added to water with sugar or starch. When the yeast comes alive, it consumes the sugar and starches. When these are consumed, the yeast creates a gas, forming air bubbles in the dough. When you roll the dough out using a rolling pin, the bubbles are popped and the bread becomes deflated if not given enough time to create more.

At A Minimum, You’ll Need:

Not Required, But It’s Helpful To Have:

• A flexible bowl scraper for scraping the dough from the sides of mixing bowls. Super helpful.
• A bench knife is super helpful for chopping dough into smaller portions, cleaning up bits of flour from your work area, and unsticking dough from the counter.

How To Make Homemade Pizza Dough

After whisking the yeast, sugar, and water together; cover this with plastic wrap and let it rest on your countertop for 10-15 minutes until it’s foamy like a beer. If it doesn’t get foamy after 20 minutes, your yeast is probably dead and you’ll need to get new yeast.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and salt in a mixing bowl, whisking for a few seconds until the salt evenly distributes throughout the flour. Then, add the yeast-sugar-water mixture to your flour-salt mixture and mix with a stand mixer until it forms a ball, then add your oil, then knead more.

How To Make Pizza Dough Without A Stand Mixer

To make the dough by hand, measure and mix the ingredients as shown in the above video but add the oil to the liquid mixture as well, then add the liquid mixture to your salt-flour mixture in a large mixing bowl. Mix by hand or with a Danish dough whisk or another sturdy spoon, scraping any flour sticking to the side of the bowl back into the dough as necessary until the mixture forms a consistent dough ball and has collected and absorbed all the flour in the bowl.

It might be sticky at first, but as you knead, the dough will become smoother and less sticky as the proteins develop. You need to knead the dough enough to develop the gluten proteins, otherwise, when you go to stretch the dough into a thin pizza crust it could tear.

For kneading using a stand mixer:

After a minute or two, it’s going to form a ball of dough. As soon as the dough forms a ball and there are no more bits of dough or flour in the bottom of the mixing bowl like in the photo above, add the oil and continue kneading on speed two for at least four minutes.

After the four minutes of kneading with the dough hook, you can store them in baggies or proof them for pizza.

Proofing and storing:

How To Store Homemade Pizza Dough

If you are making this homemade pizza dough to make pizza the next day, just store the dough in a quart baggie in the fridge overnight until an hour or two before you want to make a pizza. The dough will have enough time in the fridge to proof and will be ready for you to make pizza the next day. When you want to make a pizza, just leave the dough still in its baggie out on the counter to come to room temperature before you stretch it out.

Use all the dough within three days, or freeze the dough at least a day after you make it. Waiting a day to freeze the dough gives it time to cold-proof in the fridge so it’s ready to stretch and bake after it’s thawed again. To thaw a pizza dough after freezing, just leave it in the baggie on a plate or wrapped in a towel on your counter until completely thawed, this takes about two to three hours depending on the temperature of your kitchen.

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Homemade Pizza Dough Recipe

Makes enough dough for two 16-18″ pizzas.

Ingredients

• 662 grams of bread flour
• 410 grams of warm water
• 3 grams of instant dry yeast
• 10 grams salt
• 7 grams sugar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

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Instructions

STEP 1

Whisk together the yeast, sugar, and warm water and set it aside to sit, covered, for about fifteen minutes until a foam forms on the top. Note: If you’re making this by hand without a stand mixer, add the oil to the water mixture now instead of to the dough later. It will be easier for you to work the oil into the dough in the beginning.

STEP 2

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the salt and flour.

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STEP 3

FOR MAKING PIZZA DOUGH BY HAND

Pour the liquid mixture over the flour mixture and mix until it forms a consistent dough, then knead the dough in a bowl or on a counter using your hands for at least 15 minutes in order to develop the proteins enough that it won’t tear when you go to stretch out the dough for a pizza.

FOR MAKING PIZZA DOUGH IN A STAND MIXER

Pour the liquid mixture over the flour mixture and mix it on speed two using your stand mixer with a dough hook attachment until it forms a ball of dough. When there are no more visible dry crumbs of flour in the bottom of the mixing bowl, add the oil. Continue to knead with the dough hook attachment for at least four minutes on speed two.

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STEP 4

Divide your dough into two equal portions, each weighing approximately 545 grams. Store each dough in a quart freezer bag or another air-tight container.

NOTES

If making pizza the same day, leave the dough in the bag on the counter for 2-3 hours until the bag expands like a balloon. If making pizza the next day, store it in the fridge and remove it an hour before preparing your pizza to bring it to room temperature. Freeze any dough not used within three days, and thaw to room temperature before use. Frozen homemade pizza dough will stay fresh in the freezer for up to a month.