Friday night pizza has been our family tradition for over a decade. From buffalo chicken pizza to cast iron skillet pizza to pizza on the grill – we’ve made them all!
Unfortunately, we stopped having pizza while working through the Whole30 and during re-introduction, we learned that both my husband and my daughter are sensitive to gluten.
Pizza night is truly an event in our house, so we’re finding workarounds where everyone can enjoy the night together – starting with this overnight einkorn pizza dough recipe!
If you just freaked out a bit at the idea of making your own pizza, let me reassure you – it’s not as hard as it sounds.
Yes there’s yeast. Yes there’s kneading (just a TEENY TINY bit) and yes there’s rising. But aside from my no-knead overnight artisan bread and my husband’s foolproof man bread, this is going to be THE EASIEST pizza dough recipe you ever come across.
As I mentioned, my husband and daughter are sensitive to gluten. They’re not allergic, but they experience enough side effects that it’s just easier to avoid it.
Right off the bat, it means that whole wheat and all-purpose flours are off the table. (At least for now.)
That’s one of the reasons I’ve been baking more with oat flour… peanut butter oatmeal cookies, 5-ingredient banana bread muffins and blender cinnamon waffles are just a few of the “winners” that have come from my non-gluten kitchen experiments.
And while oatmeal has some great health benefits, it’s not the best fit for things like fluffy dinner biscuits, homemade birthday cakes and pizza dough.
Enter einkorn.
A Very Brief Lesson on Einkorn
I wrote a thorough article on einkorn here, and I highly recommend clicking over and reading the entire article if you or someone in your family is sensitive to gluten, or if you think there is a sensitivity. The history and research is really interesting!
For the purpose of this einkorn pizza dough recipe though, here’s what you need to know:
- Einkorn (rhymes with “fine corn”) is an ancient grain that hasn’t been modified by modern farming techniques.
- It has 14 chromosomes and has never been hybridized. To compare, modern wheat (including spelt) has 42 chromosomes.
- Those extra chromosomes are the result of farmers adding “traits” to wheat that aren’t necessary, like resisting cold weather or resisting spoilage in transport.
- This modified DNA structure prevents the body from digesting gluten properly.
This means that because einkorn is not hybridized, many people who are sensitive to gluten can tolerate einkorn.
(Note: I am NOT saying that if you have an allergy diagnosis to gluten, or have Celiac disease, you can eat einkorn. Being sensitive to gluten and being allergic to gluten is not the same thing.)
The only downside of einkorn is that it bakes just a teeny bit differently than the whole wheat and all-purpose flours we’re used to. It takes much longer to absorb liquid, and the best way to account for this is to let the batter/dough sit for awhile before baking.
That’s what makes this overnight einkorn pizza dough recipe so perfect – the dough comes together overnight, literally while you are sleeping!
Not sure where to buy Einkorn?
- I buy whole einkorn berries from Young Living because they have the cheapest price! Just $2.93 per pound.
- The second best price are these einkorn berries on Amazon.
- If you shop at Vitacost, einkorn berries are $4.49/lb. (Crumbs readers get 20% off when you sign up for their newsletter!)
- If you don’t have a grain mill to grind your own flour, you can buy whole wheat einkorn flour. Thrive Market has it for $2.99/lb (Click here to see the Exclusive Offer for Crumbs readers!) or this 3-pack on Amazon.
I took the concept behind my super easy no-knead overnight artisan bread, along with pointers from the cookbook Einkorn: Recipes for Nature’s Original Wheat, and came up with a delicious, EASY einkorn pizza dough recipe that is rapidly becoming one of our family favorites.
And believe me when I say we don’t say this lightly!
My husband grew up in the Northeast, where pizza is called pie and you can buy it by the slice. The slices are triangles as big as your face and they fold in half and it’s totally normal to use a paper napkin to mop up the extra grease on top.
When he moved to Texas and realized his pizza choices were Pizza Hut or Dominos, he set out to create a pizza that was as close to New York style as he could get… and he did it!
That pizza dough recipe has been the one we’ve used every Friday night for all these years, and it’s a hard act to follow.
This overnight einkorn pizza dough recipe is holding its own though, and it’s allowing us to keep up our Friday pizza tradition!
This einkorn pizza dough recipe is pretty hard to mess up, so it’s perfect for anyone who is new to yeast, new to baking or new to einkorn in general. Just read the recipe and follow it as-written and you’ll be fine!
A few things to help as you making this recipe:
This dough needs to sit for a minimum of 2 hours, but it can sit for up to 24 hours. It requires just one bowl, so either mix it up before bed and let it sit while you sleep, OR mix it up in the morning before you go about your day.
You need to be gentle with the dough since the gluten structure of einkorn is a little more delicate than modern whole wheat or all-purpose flour. Yes, knead it well and proper, but you don’t have to beat the counter with it or even knead for a full 10 minutes like many traditional dough recipes call for.
This pizza dough recipe makes four 8-9” pizzas instead of two 15” pizzas like our go-to pizza dough recipe. It’s perfect for the family where every person wants something different on their pizza!
You only need two large cookie sheets to bake an amazing thin-crust pizza, but if you love pizza as much as we do – and bake it as often as we do – you’ll want to invest in a few tools to make your job easier. I recommend this pizza stone, this pizza peel and this pizza cutter (because it doesn’t rip the cheese across the pie). If you like to grill, this ceramic pizza stone works both in the oven and on the grill, and it doubles as an extra surface when you’re making those big 15” pies.
Adding more flour won’t make the dough less sticky because einkorn doesn’t absorb flour quickly. When you’re kneading the dough, try wetting your hands with a bit of water or a tiny drizzle of oil. When you’re shaping the pie, then you can use a sprinkle of flour.
The dough is on the wet side, so you’ll need parchment paper to move the dough from your work surface (either a pizza peel, or the back of a cookie sheet) to the oven. If the budget is tight, you can re-use the same piece of parchment paper for each pizza. For convenience (and to speed up the topping/baking process), I cut a new piece of parchment paper for each pizza.
Savings Tip: Stock up on parchment paper after the holidays to get the best prices.
Overnight Einkorn Pizza Dough
Easy einkorn pizza dough recipe needs little kneading & sits overnight, like it was soaked. Use all-purpose or whole grain flour for a delicious crust!
- Prep Time: 8 hours
- Cook Time: 8 mins
- Total Time: 8 hours 8 mins
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Breads
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast (one packet)
- 2 tsp sugar (I use Turbinado)
- 5 cups einkorn flour, plus more for dusting (I used freshly milled whole grain einkorn)
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 ¼ cups warm water (warm, not boiling)
- 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for handing the dough
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the yeast, sugar, flour and salt. Add warm water and using your hands, mix the dough together as best as possible. It will be sticky and shaggy, but that’s okay.
- Add 3 Tbsp olive oil and knead the dough until it holds together. (Kneading is basically folding the dough over itself, turning the bowl ¼ of the way in between each fold so you’re always folding from a different direction.)
- Continue kneading the dough until it’s mostly smooth, about 1-2 minutes. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to no longer be shaggy.
- Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let it rest for at least 2 hours, or up to 24 hours.
- When you’re ready to make pizza, preheat the oven to 500F. Place a large cookie sheet in the oven OR make sure your pizza stone is on the bottom rack, preheating.
- Meanwhile, divide the dough into 4 pieces. Shape each piece into a round, cover with a towel and let it sit until the oven is ready, or for at least 15 minutes.
- Roll out 4 pieces of parchment paper, each big enough to make an 8-9” pie.
- When the oven is preheated and the dough has rested for 15 minutes, place one piece of parchment paper on the back of a large cookie sheet and working with one piece of dough at a time, shape it into an 8-9” round circle on the paper. Be sure to make a raised edge around the outside, if that’s how you like your pizza.
Tip #1: I have an 8” cast iron skillet that I turned over and outlined with a pencil on the parchment paper. That way I knew how big to aim for when making the crust.
Tip #2: When shaping the crust, it’s best to work starting from the middle of the dough and then outward. I like to use my knuckles to gently press and push the dough outward. If the dough gets sticky, you can sprinkle just a little of flour onto the top. - After you’ve shaped the pizza dough, top as desired. Carefully move the pizza from the current cookie sheet to the one that’s preheated in the oven and bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before cutting.
Our family loves your recipe, made it twice, soon good. Very flavorful crust, a treat for sure!
Thank you!
Could you use whole wheat with this recipe? Just looking to have a soaked pizza crust.
Hi Beth Ann, It should work as a soaked whole wheat recipe but we haven’t tested it. Try it and let us know how it turns out!
We’ve used just shredded cheese baked once to melt, then added more cheese and toppings and nayked again. We’ve also used scrambled eggs cooked into a disc in a frying pan first and a keto coconut flour biscuit recipe spread out onto parchment paper and prebaked.
If you refrigerate the dough overnight, does it need to come to room temperature before baking?
No, but it is better slightly warmed.
How should I freeze it before baking?
You can, but you don’t have to!
I am experimenting with Einkorn flour for just about everything these days. I certainly have found that leaving it for a day or overnight does make a big difference. I wanted to mention something about dairy and cheese, though.
We have our own A2A2 Jersey cows. We couldn’t tolerate dairy, and in particular pasteurized mllk which is standardly A1A2 milk. We learned about casien A2 milk and made a point to get only A2A2 cows. We can drink milk until the cows come home now (pun intended), make mozzarella and a range of cheeses, have yogurt, ice cream, butter, etc all from the raw casien A2 milk. It contains all the enzymes needed to properly absorb the nutrients from the milk and is even recommended on sites that discuss what is good dairy for digestive issues and leaky gut. The thing we like best is that we can enjoy cows milk and all its by products, as we don’t enjoy the strong goaty taste of goats milk.
Hope this might help anyone who thinks they have to avoid dairy due to intolerance (barring those allergic to casein, of course), as it truly is a game changer.
Tiffany, I am excited to try this BUT … I am not gluten sensitive but try to make recipes with Einkorn four for a friend who is. So far, the pasta and the waffles have been a big hit. I need to know how to make this pizza dough and get it to him. Should I
1) make the dough and shape it and freeze it?or
2) make the dough, shape it, par bake it and then freeze? or
3) make the dough, shape it, bake it all of the way and freeze it?
Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Hi Charlotte! I’d go with option 2. You CAN freeze pizza dough, but if you’re making for a friend, I think the dough will be a bit better if it went through the natural rise process completely, and then was baked. If you wanted to gift him extra, you could certainly follow this tutorial: https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/2018/10/freeze-pizza-dough/
I use nutritional yeast to add the cheese flavor to my recipes.
Thank you Lisa,
I live on a small pacific Island near New Zealand and don’t do much online shopping because the postage is prohibitive! Sometimes if the airline refuses to carry parcels over 500g (1 lb I think) to here, we have to wait for the ship to bring it in and if we are lucky is a 2 month turnaround. To be fair though I have not much looked at the possibilities because of these reasons. Maybe I should have another think and try it out.
It is interesting that you are using vodka in sourdough.
I found the chef and the utube I was trying to remember in my post the other day, it is Amanda Cohen of ‘Dirt Candy’, link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi2FV-lxWtA named How to deep fry vegetables. This opens up a new way of thinking about alcohol and eating gluten for me, and if I could get some Einkorn, I would like to try that too, as I found I tolerated Spelt well, (too hard to find a supplier, and get here) and I loved the fact it is mentioned in the bible (Ezekiel 4:9 NIV).
Best wishes and thanks again Lisa for helping me. Thanks Tiffany for being the ‘go-between’. Grace.
Dear Tiffany,
I am gluten sensitive and was intrigued to learn of vodka incorporated into the dough – ‘as gluten doesn’t’ form in alcohol,- see http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/11/cooks-illustrated-foolproof-pie-dough-recipe.html
This was backed up when I watched a utube presentation of a chef using vodka for to ‘overcome the gluten’ in some batter she was making to deep fry broccoli. sorry I forgot to get the link. I can’t get einkorn flour where I live – pity! I used vodka in my pie crust today using wheat flour for a church luncheon. I tried some and my gullet did not complain as usual. Perhaps it really works. The alcohol is cooked off in the heat of cooking. The chef said and use the cheapest you can buy.
Also I have made ‘cheese’ made from sunflower seeds and loved it, but have not put it onto pizza – I have never been fond of them. Plant cheeses and dried yoghurt by dehydrating are found in seed sprouting books.
Very interesting… I’ll have to look more into this – thank you Grace!
Hi Grace – I order Einkorn online. That is so interesting about the vodka – I use some in a sourdough biscuit recipe. It also makes the dough “more forgiving” according to the recipe author. Tiffany – thank you for this recipe! I will try it asap as 2 of my kids are gluten sensitive.
I used the cheapest plain wheat white flour. I was making pizzas 🍕 for the 1st time in my life. My family loved 😍 these. The price of pizza made according to this recipe is exactly 10 times cheaper than the cheapest shops pizzas. I had leftovers in the fridge for toppings, which saved my $$ and our green planet. The quality of this pizza is way better, as in the shop they are not so generous with their pizza toppings 😉 This pizza recipe is great. Thank you, Tiffany! You are a star 🌟 🤩
We don’t have any gluten issues but I’ve been doing Trim Healthy Mama for a couple of years now. I found the “fathead” dough recipe and started making pizza with it and it’s amazing. To this day my family has no idea that it’s not a regular pizza dough made with flour! I use almond and coconut flour and I discovered that adding a tiny bit of yeast gives it that yeasty dough flavor. I also use it to make cinnamon rolls, bread sticks, lasagna… my husband has no idea he’s not eating regular bread lol 🙂 he has no idea he’s been on Trim Healthy Mama for two years and can’t figure out how he’s magically lost over 40 pounds!
How funny!! We’re not doing dairy right now, otherwise that recipe sounds like it would be delicious!
What do you put on your pizza instead of cheese? I’ve yet to find a satisfactory substitute for cheese, so I’d love to hear your thoughts!
We’re okay with fresh mozzarella, as long as it’s not every day. And we’ve drastically cut back on how much we use. We’ve tried the Daiya cheese, but both my hubby and daughter said it tasted like burning in their mouths… not sure what that means, but that got thumbs down for sure, LOL.
We’ve been plant-based (no meat, no dairy) for the past three years and have yet to find a good cheese substitute. We’ve found eliminating it from our pizza is the best option! We do sometimes add “vegan Parmesan.”
Have you tried products from goat milk? I can’t have cow’s milk, but use goat cheese & make my own yogurt from our raw goat’s milk. I grew not putting cheese on pizza. It’s just fine if you put *toppings* on! I’ve also made cheese a flavor accent rather than a main ingredient.
We haven’t brought those in just yet – dairy in general is still sketch with the exception of fresh mozzarella on these pizzas! I don’t think we have a sensitive to dairy as a whole, since we seem to be fine in small amounts now and then (like the accent you mentioned), but we definitely feel it if we have it every day… or if we have a lot of it at one time. So we just don’t eat nearly as much as we used to!
Almond cheese found in frozen section of natural grocers
finkle and einkorn. einkorn and finkle.