EASY PIZZA DOUGH RECIPE
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Easy Pizza Dough. Making homemade pizza not only allows you to control the ingredients and create something unique, but it’s also incredibly delicious and fun. I’ll give you the lowdown on making basic pizza dough from scratch, from the ingredients you’ll need to the baking time.
Making pizza dough might seem intimidating, but it is simpler than you think. With just a few basic ingredients and a few simple steps, you can easily make delicious, tender, homemade pizza dough.
Remember when I told you I was intimidated by two things in the kitchen – making cheesecake and anything containing yeast? (Refer to my Traditional cheesecake recipe) Well, in the last year, I’ve overcome both fears. Now, I enjoy making cheesecake and yeasty bread. Funny how that happens.
Most importantly, I recommend you have a good instant-read thermometer when cooking with yeast. You’ll need it to get an accurate temperature reading of your water. Water too hot will kill the yeast, and water too cold will not activate it accurately.
For everything you need to know about cooking with yeast, pop over and read my post Tips for Baking with Yeast. Also, try these whole wheat sourdough bagels.
Easy Pizza Dough
The other beautiful thing about this recipe is you can use it for bread sticks, cheese bread, pizza, calzones, etc. The dough will make one large pizza, two 10-inch pizzas with a thick crust, or 2 batches of breadsticks or cheese sticks in 8 x 11-inch pan.
Furthermore, you can use half the crust and store remaining in the fridge for up to 3 days. When you’re ready to use the dough, set it out and allow the dough to come to room temperature. Next, form it into your pizza or breadsticks and proceed as directed.
Ingredients for pizza dough
All pizza dough start with yeast, water, flour, and oil. These are the basics for any yeasted dough. Here’s a complete breakdown of the ingredients I use.
- Yeast. You can use Active dry or Instant yeast. I typically use Instant with good results.
- Flour. Use
all-purpose flour for this dough. - Water. Warm water between 110 and 120 degrees F.
- Oil. Extra virgin olive oil adds great flavor to your dough.
- Sugar. Sugar helps the yeast to rise as well as helps to make the dough soft.
- Salt. Adds great flavor.
Method
Make the dough. I find it easiest to mix in an electric mixer with the hook attachment.
Knead. Even though I knead the dough in the mixer, I also knead it about 30 seconds by hand.
Rise. Now is when you have to be patient and allow the dough to rest and rise. Set it in a warm, draft-free place such as your microwave or oven. Depending on the heat in your home the dough may take from 30 to 90 minutes to rise. It needs to almost double in size.
Shape. Once the dough has almost doubled in size, punch it down, knead it a few times, and shape it into your pizza (or whatever you’re making with it).
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Whatever size you decide to make, spread the dough out on a lightly floured surface. With lightly floured hands, start stretching the dough into shape, top your pizza, and bake.
For Breadsticks or Cheese bread
For cheese sticks, I stretch it until it’s almost the size of my pan then lay it in the pan pressing with fingers until it covers the bottom of the pan. Then cover with 1/4 tsp garlic powder and grated mozzarella cheese. Bake about 15 minutes until cheese is melted and begins to brown. Remove from oven, allow to cool 2 minutes then slice. Serve with marinara.
For Pizza
For pizza, spread dough on a pizza pan, top with sauce and desired toppings. Cook 12 to 15 minutes until crust is browned and cheese is melted.
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Ingredients
- 2 teaspoon Active Dry or Instant Yeast
- 1 and ½ cups warm water between 110 and 120 degrees F
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Sprinkle yeast in 1 and 1/2 cup warm water (between 110 and 120°F). In a mixing bowl, combine flour and salt. With dough hook attachment, drizzle in oil until combined with flour and salt. Add sugar. With the mixer on low, pour in water/yeast mixture and mix until just combined.
- Coat a separate mixing bowl lightly with oil. Pour dough into an oiled bowl and cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise 30 minutes on the countertop if you plan to use it immediately. Or, (the beauty of this recipe!) refrigerate it up to 3 days. If refrigerated for later use, take out of refrigerator 20 to 30 minutes before you plan to cook it.
- The other beautiful thing about this recipe is you can use it for breadsticks, pizza, calzones, etc. The dough will make one large pizza, two 10 inch pizzas with a thick crust, 2 batches of breadsticks or cheese sticks in 8 x 11-inch pan. You can use half the crust and store remaining in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- Yield: 2 10-12 inch pizza
Nutrition
Nutritional information given is an automatic calculation and can vary based on the exact products you use and changes you make to the recipe. If these numbers are important to you, I recommend calculating them yourself.
I have a friend who freezes balls of dough, but I never have personally. Funny you say that because I actually have half this recipe leftover and was thinking about doing it. I'll let you know if I do. Thanks for stopping by ~ Paula
Hi Paula,
The whole wheat pizza dough sounds good and healthy, but this sounds practical for me since there are only two of us. I've never had luck with pizza dough, but I think I'm going to try again. Can you freeze either of them?
Dawn