Simple Pizza Dough

Everyone needs a pizza dough recipe to make some bomb ass pizza at home. Because sometimes, you just don’t have good pizza near you.

That might sound just plain wrong if you live somewhere that’s a major city or suburban area. I spent a good chunk of my life in Phoenix, which has everything like 10 min away, tops. But I’ve also lived on an island, and another desert city that was more than 2 hours away from another town with much else than a gas station and maybe a motel. I spent a good 5 years without access to good pizza. So, I made my own pizza dough and started making pizza at home.

Pizza dough isn’t hard to make. It’s actually pretty simple with minimal ingredients. You also don’t need special tools or a special oven. But, if you have those, your pizza might turn out a little closer to what you might get from a pizza place.

Baking Tips

This may be a simple pizza dough with very few ingredients but when you have so few ingredients you want to make sure you use the best ones. I recipe tested this recipe with several kinds of flour, and it can work with other types but I highly recommend using 00 pizza flour. 00 flour is very finely milled making it very soft, which helps the crumb of your pizza crust be chewy but the exterior is crisp. The protein levels are usually less than bread flour but more than AP. 00 flour also does not absorb as much water as bread or AP flour, so you can use less. This dough has a 75% hydration level.

Let your pizza dough sit on the counter (preferably in a warm spot) for at least 8 hours. Because we aren’t kneading the dough, we need to give it time. It only takes a few minutes to make the dough so I suggest making it first thing in the morning, and then it will be ready by dinner time.

However, this pizza dough CAN be an overnight recipe as well. I tested leaving this to proof (covered) in the refrigerator for about 60 hours and it turned out just as great! I would say don’t surpass about 72 hours, but leave at least 24 hours. It will rise slower in the fridge.

In my recipe card I say to bake this in your oven at 550F, but if your oven gets hotter you can bake it at a higher temp or if you have an Ooni or another type of pizza oven, definitely do that. Additionally, a pizza stone in your oven will also help improve the crust. Make sure your pizza stone is in the oven while it is preheating so it can get super hot.

Here are some other pizza bakes you might enjoy: Pizza Star Bread, Focaccia Pizza.

Pizza Dough Key Ingredients

• Pizza flour – I personally use King Arthur 00 Flour because I like their flours, but it also seems to be pretty readily available. I’ve bought it at Costco, and seen it at target and several grocery stores. However there are other brands and I’ve seen it on amazon as well.
• Salt – Sea salt is going to be the main “spice” of your dough. Can you add garlic or other herbs, sure. But, done right, this dough won’t need it.
• Yeast – Compared to a lot of my recipes, this uses very little yeast. However, we don’t need a lot of yeast because you want the dough to rise slowly. Time = flavor and the longer it takes to rise, the more flavorful your crust will be.

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