This homemade pizza dough recipe is SO EASY! Make a classic New York Style pepperoni pizza or use this pizza crust with your own favorite toppings. Pair with this pizza sauce recipe or make buffalo chicken pizza!
Our search for the perfect pizza started several years ago, many miles away.
Mr. Crumbs was born and raised on the East coast, home of floppy, foldable (yet still crispy) pizza. When we got married, he relocated to a state where Tex-Mex and BBQ tied for first place cuisine. Of course you could get pizza. But 9 times out of 10, fajitas or steak won out for dinner plans.
After a few months of being away from the coast, Mr. Crumbs started going through pizza withdrawals. We tried the typical pizza chains, but according to Mr. Crumbs’ standards, they weren’t very good (for numerous reasons).
We used the internet to search for “New York style pizza” in our area and one by one, made our way through the results. Several of them were “okay,” but none of them earned the title of “I’ll eat here again.” Until one day, we accidentally found a shop that wasn’t on our list.
Mr. Crumbs gave it two thumbs and after just a few bites, he said (with a mouth partially full) that he would eat there again. Pizza for lunch on Mondays became our new tradition.
That is, until the pizza shop unexpectedly closed.
Unfortunately, they never re-opened.
So now years later and literally hundreds of homemade pizzas made, as we’ve worked on perfecting our own recipe, we have fine tuned both the pizza dough recipe AND the pizza sauce.
The Best Pizza Dough Recipe
Besides the fact that this recipe is so tasty, and super quick & easy, it’s also:
- Healthier. With only a few ingredients, this recipe is simply free of anything artificial.
- Made from scratch. By making real food pizza dough from scratch, we avoid all of the yucky additives and sweeteners commonly found in pre-made, processed doughs.
- Frugal. Making real food from scratch saves a ton of money for now and in the long run.
- Freezer-friendly. Pizza dough can be made ahead and refrigerated or frozen for longer term meal planning .
What is the best flour for pizza dough?
I think pizza crust is best when the ingredients are simple. That’s why this pizza dough recipe uses all-purpose flour, which is readily available in any grocery store.
However, other pizza doughs can use Einkorn whole wheat flour, which is an ancestral grain. Even some people with gluten sensitivity can enjoy Einkorn flour. Here’s my recipe for Einkorn flour pizza dough if you’d like to try it out!
Another popular flour for pizza dough is bread flour, but I haven’t used it for this recipe.
What are the ingredients for pizza dough?
With only 5 ingredients, this dough is super simple and delicious!
- Warm water
- Active yeast
- Granulated sugar or honey
- All-purpose flour
- Salt
What types of toppings go with homemade pizza crust?
Pizza sauce (here is my easy and delicious recipe), mozzarella (fresh or shredded), diced vegetables (we like onions and bell peppers), and pepperoni/meats as desired.
Note: When it comes to cheese, we’ve found that fresh mozzarella sliced thin makes for the best cheese. Other than that, fresh, unprocessed toppings always taste best.
Applegate Farms makes a nitrate-free pepperoni that is good. Of course, pepperoni is one of the few foods that fall into the 80/20 rule, so it’s not always a necessity for good pizza.
How do you make pizza dough from scratch?
Making your own pizza dough is quicker and easier than you might think!
- Combine warm water, yeast and sweetener. Allow it to sit and bloom for five minutes.
- Add all-purpose flour and salt and knead for 10 minutes.
- Cover with a towel and allow the dough to rise in a warm place.
- To make your pizza: pound or roll out dough one pizza at a time. Top as desired with sauce, mozzarella, vegetables, and pepperoni.
- Bake in a hot oven on a hot pizza stone or preheated pan for 4-6 minutes.
How do I get a crispy pizza crust?
To get a crispy crust, you need an exceptionally hot oven and a pizza stone (I have this one).
I preheat our oven to 550F when I start making the dough. This creates a great warm environment for the dough to rise, plus plenty of time for the stone to get piping hot.
Note: Using a pizza peel like this one makes moving the pizzas super easy!
What if I prefer a thick pizza crust rather than New York Style?
New York Style (East Coast) pizza isn’t every one’s favorite so if you prefer more of a Sicilian type pizza (thicker, more doughy crust), try my focaccia bread spread out over a 10″x13″ cookie sheet, then topped with this sauce and your favorite toppings.
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This homemade pizza dough recipe is SO EASY! Make a classic New York Style pepperoni pizza or use this pizza crust with your own favorite toppings. Pair with this pizza sauce recipe or make buffalo chicken pizza!
- Prep Time: 2 hours 15 mins
- Cook Time: 6 mins
- Total Time: 2 hours 21 minutes
- Yield: 2 pizzas 1x
- Category: Main Meals
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 2 tsp active yeast
- 2 tsp granulated sugar or honey
- 3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (plus 1/2 cup if needed)
- 1 tsp salt
- Toppings, as desired: pizza sauce, mozzarella (fresh or shredded), diced vegetables (we like onions and bell peppers), and pepperoni or cooked sausage
Instructions
- Combine warm water, active dry yeast and sweetener in either a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer (I use a KitchenAid).
- Allow the yeast mixture to sit and bloom for five minutes.
- Add all-purpose flour and salt and knead for 10 minutes, or by hand until the dough is elastic and springs back into place after the thumb test. Add additional flour, 1/4 cup at a time, as needed for the dough to come together and pull away from the sides of the bowl.
- Cover the bowl with a towel and allow it to rise in a warm place until it’s doubled in size, 1 1/2 – 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 550F or as high as your oven will go. Shape into two round balls of dough on a lightly floured surface. Cover with a towel until you are ready to use.
- To make your pizza: pound or roll out dough one pizza at a time with a rolling pin. Top as desired with sauce, mozzarella, vegetables, and pepperoni. Bake in a hot oven on a hot pizza stone or preheated pan for 4-6 minutes.
What kind of pizza do you like? East coast, or Sicilian? What are your favorite toppings?
We tried the dough this afternoon for dinner. My family are big eaters so I did the 3x recipe & we actually had a whole pizza & dough left over for 1 more pizza. Made pizza (made an attempt) sauce the day before out of a #10 can of diced tomatoes, needs more spice in my opinion, but I was a tad conservative on some of them. But it was a hit with my family. So, we’ll add this to our list of meals with tweaking the dough & thing’s a bit more for us.
But so glad for the size options, less work for me to have it pre-done. :o)
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I’ve made this several times, and it is our go-to for pizza night. But my dough always rises again in the oven, making a wonky-shaped pizza. Any idea what I’m doing wrong? It’s hard to spread sauce and toppings on a crust that is not flat!
Here’s a trick I learned in making homemade pizza:
Roll or shape the dough on parchment paper on which you have sprinkled corn meal. The corn meal eliminates sticky dough. Add desired sauce and toppings. Use a pizza peel or pizza screen to slide under the parchment paper and transfer the whole thing, parchment paper and all, onto the preheated stone in the oven. The parchment paper/peel makes the transfer easy-peasy, and I’ve never had anything less than a perfectly crisp crust. We never eat restaurant pizza anymore because we like ours better.
I’ve been making this for years, but I see that you recently updated it to only use AP flour. Did you find that you didn’t notice enough of a difference to justify the cost of semolina? Was that change made simply to reduce the cost or produce a result you like better?
Thanks for the recipes!
Hi Kim! Over the years we “made do” on pizza night with whatever we happened to have, and as much as we like the semolina, it wasn’t so noticeable to keep it on hand all the time. And now with my daughter’s gluten sensitivity, we can’t use it anyway. But you can still use it, if you like that original version!
Thanks for sharing the recipe! Have you ever used instant yeast? I found an online source that said I could sub instant (all I can find around here) at a rate of 0.75 of the required active dry and skip the bloom. Do you think this would work?
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I’ve subbed instant yeast for active dry yeast all the time and just use the same amount. Technically, you don’t HAVE to bloom instant yeast, but nothing is worse than making a recipe and it not turn out because the yeast was bad… so I always bloom, regardless of the type of yeast!
I have tried and enjoyed the crust recipe for the dough and it was great. However, I used jar pizza sauce before and would like to use your sauce recipe this time but cannot find the link. Can you provide it?
Hi Kevin!
Thanks for asking. 🙂 We actually have a new post for the pizza sauce set to publish on the 16th, which is Saturday. Check back with us on Saturday. It will be up on the blog early in the morning. We hope you enjoy it! 🙂
Hey there. How long is leftover sauce good in the fridge? (In a mason jar)