Easy Homemade Pizza Dough

Learn the secrets to make the perfect pizza dough. This easy recipe is the base to your creation of awesome pizzas, flatbreads, garlic knots, stromboli, fried dough an much more!

Pizza is a hands-down favorite, anytime, anywhere.  My house is no exception!  The kids love eating pizza in between meals as a snack, after school and sports, and on the go.  Making my own pizza at home has been on my mind for quite some time.

Here is the reason why

I’ve come to accept that making pizza at home is a lot easier (and cheaper) than running to two different pizza shops and buying at least 3 pies to satisfy our four kids with uncompromisingly different taste.  To top it off my hubby does not eat cheese, but yet he loves pizza.  So he scrapes off the cheese, just to be able to eat… uhhh, pizza dough?!

You see, it just made sense for me to start making my own pizza.  So I did!

While you get good pizza when eating out, truly great pizza is much easier to find at home.  Mostly because you can customize it exactly the way you want.  This dough is a good starting point of your creations and can be stored in the refrigerator for 24 hours, or frozen for up to a month

This is seriously such a fun recipe to make!  While I get all excited cooking and creating all of my recipes, making pizza {dough} is like finding extra cash in an old jacket pocket… so cool!  Perhaps because I’ve mastered the art of making the ultimate take-out food or simply because it saves me time and money, and I can’t help but to consider how satisfying it is playing with a giant dough.

Getting the dough to perform right is the key point of an amazing pizza pie.  But there are a couple secrets that one must learn in order to make this dough a success, and I shall share my secrets with all of you fine people.  Okay, listen closely… the secret is to gently “wake up” the yeast from it’s dormant state, by bathing in warm water. Give the yeast it’s time to wake up and activate it’s ability to perform.  That extra 1/4 cup of water that you see in the recipe index, needs to be warm and comfortable to touch to wake up the yeast.

This next special ingredient I use whenever I make a double batch and I know I will end up freezing some.  {Any guesses?}  It’s sugar! In any form but I prefer honey.  This special ingredient is not needed if you plan on making pizza that day, but certainly a good option because it will give the crust a nice color, specially if your oven temperature can only go as high as 450F (as most home ovens do).  Also if you plan on freezing some or all of the dough, it’s important that you add a little bit of honey, as sugar is a source of nutrient for the yeast to feed upon.

As you can see, it all comes down to Mr. Yeast, if he is happy… we are all happy eating delicious pizza!

But let me not stop you short, as this dough can be used as a base for many other delicious recipes, such as  Stromboli, garlic knots, flatbreads, fried dough and more!

5 from 3 votes

Easy Homemade Pizza Dough

by Silvia Ribas

Prep: 15 minutes mins

Total: 15 minutes mins

Servings: 2 (12-inch)

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Ingredients 

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• ▢ 3 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• ▢ 2 1/4 tsp saf-instant yeast
• ▢ 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
• ▢ 1 cup water + 1/4 cup warm water
• ▢ 3 tbsp olive oil + 1 tbsp for brushing
• ▢ 1 tbsp brown sugar OR honey

Instructions 

• Fill a measuring cup with 1/4 cup of warm water and add yeast. Cover with a plastic wrap and let stand for 3-5 minutes.
• In a large bowl combine the flour and salt and mix briefly.
• Add the yeast, water, oil + honey and mix with a wooden spoon to combine.
• Hand knead the dough on a floured surface for about 8-10 minutes.

Notes

This dough can be used immediately but for best results shape the dough into a smooth ball, place it on a floured surface and cover with a damp cloth. Let rise at room temperature for about 1 hour or until doubled in bulk

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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