It took me an eternity…
…To to find a pizza crust recipe we really liked. So many of the other pizza dough recipes I tried were too dry, or too crumbly, or lacked that perfect chewiness we craved.
I’m pretty sure angels sang when I made this dough recipe for the first time. It’s so perfect we don’t even miss restaurant pizza anymore, (which is a good thing when you live 40 miles from town…)
I make pizza dough recipe with a variety of flours- sometimes unbleached all-purpose, sometimes hard white/red whole wheat, and sometimes a mixture of both. I’m sure you could experiment with souring or soaking this recipe, but I have not. After an attempt to make this with sprouted flour that ended up being a d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r, hubby made me promise to leave this recipe just the way it is.
Best Pizza Dough Recipe
(this post contains affiliate links)
Yield: One 12″-13″ round pizza
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil or melted butter
- 2 Tablespoon sucanat (where to buy) (or granulated sweetener of your choice)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt (where to buy)
- 1 Tablespoon dry active yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon each of basil, oregano, and garlic powder (optional, but make for an even more flavorful crust)
- 2 3/4 cups flour (see note above. If using 100% whole wheat, try adding a pinch of citric acid to help soften the dough)
- Tomato sauce, shredded cheese, and toppings of your choice.
In a mixing bowl, combine the oil, sucanat, salt, seasonings, and yeast. Add warm water all at once and stir thoroughly to dissolve. Gradually add the flour until you have a workable, but not dry, dough. Take care if using 100% whole wheat flour not to add too much, as that will result in a dry crust.
Knead on a clean, floured surface for around six minutes. Place back into the mixing bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for one hour or until nearly doubled.
Remove from bowl and press onto your pizza stone or baking sheet. Cover with desired toppings (our favorites are homemade mozzarella cheese, homemade sausage crumbles, and mushrooms. Yum!).
Bake a preheated 400 degree oven for 18-20 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the crust is just starting to turn golden brown.
Kitchen Notes
- Try realllly hard not to overbake the crust. Pull it out of the oven when it’s just turning toasty brown, but not dark brown.
- Really want to wow your friends? Make homemade mozzarella to top your homemade pizza dough!
- Mix up pizza night by using this crust recipe to make homemade calzones instead.
- Wanna know the secret to perfect homemade pizza every time? Get a pizza stone. Seriously, having a stone has made all the difference in the world for us. They aren’t that expensive, and NEVER use anything else to bake my pizzas. Try it once and you’ll never go back to a regular cookie sheet.
Our Most Favorite Pizza Crust. Ever.
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil or melted butter
- 2 Tablespoon Sucanat (or granulated sweetener of your choice)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 Tablespoon dry active yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon each: basil, oregano, and garlic powder
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- Tomato sauce, shredded cheese, and toppings of your choice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
- In a mixing bowl combine the oil, sucanat, salt, seasonings, and yeast
- Add warm water all at once and stir thoroughly to dissolve
- Gradually add the flour until you have a workable, but not dry, dough
- Knead on a clean, floured surface for around 8 minutes
- Place into mixing bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour or until nearly doubled
- Remove from bowl and press onto your pizza stone or baking sheet
- Cover with desired toppings (our favorites are mozzarella cheese, antelope sausage, and mushrooms)
- Bake 18-20 minutes until cheese is melted and crust is just starting to turn golden brown
Sounds like you have a good recipe. Always use fresh ingredients and you can never go wrong! – Ken
Our pizza stone is indispensable since we don’t have a microwave the stone is used to heat up all sorts of leftovers and other things. Oh, and sometimes its even used for pizza! I have a recipe for pizza crust using honey from an old (late 1980s) Country Living magazine.
Carpe Diem- yes, they are awesome for so many other things too!
Thanks for the recipe, I’m always looking for a great pizza crust recipe. We too have pizza on Fridays, it’s our “family night” with pizza, popcorn and a movie.
Hi , this is Neha here from India .i tried making this recipe and it came out so well .My family , husband n my kids , all loved it . I had tried using whole wheat flour and now trying again with all purpose flour. Since it does not require too many fancy things …it’s easy to make and BAKE?.
So glad you hear that your family enjoyed this recipe!
We love pizza and I have been looking for a great pizza crust recipe. Thank you so much for sharing because I have never been very pleased with the others that I have used. Can’t wait to try this one.
Sarah- you will have to let me know after you try it and what you think of it!
Do you preheat your baking stone prior to baking the crust?
Looks so yummy! We get take out but I want to start making our own. What kind of pizza stone do you have? When I looked for one there were so many different types I didn’t know what to choose.
This looks just like the pizza we make (http://homesteadingatredtailridge.blogspot.com/2011/03/pizza.html), but I will have to start using the pizza stone! The crust recipe is very similar.
Yes, definitely try the stone. It made all the difference for us.
I have looked for a great pizza crust for years. This sounds like a wonderful one to try. Thanks!
Jill, Looks great. We’re gonna try this. I just posted an entry about pizza today.
We’ve struggled finding a good crust recipe as well, but have loved the doughs from Trader Joes. Not sure if you have a store near you. Unfortunately we don’t anymore since moving.
Keep up the great work.
Robert
Hope you like it, Robert! I sure wish we had a Trader Joe’s here, but unfortunately, we don’t. 🙁 The folks around here still think Walmart is the greatest thing since sliced bread… *sigh*
Wow! I tried this recipe the other night and it was delicious!!! I have tried a lot of pizza crust recipes, but this one tops them all. In fact my husband said it was the best pizza he had ever eaten. This is our new favorite!
I’ve made this dough a couple of times and love it–thanks for the recipe! I’ve actually only made it without the seasonings, but currently have a batch rising with the seasonings and am looking forward to trying it.
I have a question for you about storage–do you always make a batch up an hour or two before baking it? Or do you have suggestions for storing it for later use? FYI, I did successfully freeze a risen dough (after the one-hour rising time) for about a week, and it cooked up beautifully after defrosting about a week later. But if I make this in the AM for a dinner meal, would you recommend leaving it out on the counter covered with a dish towel, or refrigerating? What about for a dinner a couple of days later? Fridge or freezer? Love to make things from scratch but with twin two-year olds and one bun in the oven (about eight months along), I sometimes find it difficult to plan ahead to make this when a couple of mini pizzas would make a great, quick dinner. Thanks for any insight!
Glad you like it! If I made this dough in the morning, I would definitely keep it in the fridge until dinner. Especially if my house was warm. As far as making it several days in advance, I think I might just freeze it, then leave it out on the counter to thaw all day for dinner that night.
If you have a gas oven, I find it works great if you place the stone right on the bottom of the oven. It heats the professional ovens from my pizza chef days.
When you write a upper case T is that a tablespoonabd when you write a lower case t is that a teaspoon?
Yes, that is correct Jessica- T = tablespoon and t = teaspoon.
I have never tried to make homemade pizza dough, but have always wanted too, but have never seen a post where someone raved about how good theirs was. I love making homemade noodle and such, so Im gonna try this.. we LOVE..Love Love pizza around here and I usually buy the frozen kind ( i kno..gross)..but Im given this a whirl..Thanks for the post and for sharing the recipe !!
Hope you like it Carrie! Yes, we really, really like this recipe- I searched for a long time, but after finding this recipe, I’ve stopped looking entirely. 😉
I have made homemade pizza before for our youth minister and his family. But it has been awhile since I have made any and a house move in there as well. So I didn’t have a clue where my recipe was. And I was reminded the other day by the youth minister that it has been awhile since I have fixed any homemade pizza. So I remembered that you had your recipe on here. I pulled it up and away to work I went! I have to say thank you very much! It turned out wonderful. It was really easy to work with and the flavor and texture was perfect. I wish I knew how to download a picture to here so you could see. Anyway it was a huge hit so thank you for sharing. I am so thankful to have found your site it has been such blessing in so many ways! Thank you again 🙂
Wahoo! SO happy that you liked the recipe! We sure do. 🙂 Glad that you’ve found the blog helpful!
Thank you for this recipe! I made a couple of pizza’s today using my 2 new pizza stones and they came out great!
I tried your pizza dough recipe today, and we agree with your family that it is the best! I’m tossing my old, boring recipe. I cant wait for my fresh herbs to be grown to add instead of dried. Thanks for sharing, and thank you for your blog. I find it extremely helpful!
Wahoo! Adding fresh herbs sounds delish! SO happy that you like it! 🙂
any chance you know what flour I can substitute to make this gluten free?
Sorry Vickie- I have no experience with gluten-free stuff. 🙁
I’m not sure about completely gluten free, but I did add about 2 tablespoons of coconut flour to a recipe. Actually made the texture better, and my wife was able to eat two slices and her levels were ok after. Coconut for supposedly helps process gluten, apparently worked in my case. Don’t add too much, though, because coconut flour by itself becomes like mashed potatoes. Not a substitute by itself for regular flour in the case of pizza dough.
Have you ever made this recipe into something else? Breadsticks? or…?
Thank you for this recipe! I have had a pizza stone for a year and have tried various soaked and sourdough recipes using freshly ground while wheat, spelt, kamut, etc. They come out flat and doughy every time. I came across this recipe and was still hoping to make another attempt at a sourdough crust when my husband threatened that this was my last chance to try making homemade pizza or he’d go on strike! LOL. So rather than brave sourdough again, I put my trust in your recipe, and while not the same as his favorite, Papa John’s, my husband said I am allowed to make this again! So you saved homemade pizza night in this house – thank you!
Wahoo! SO happy you liked it! Yes, my hubby put a stop to my *a-hem* inventive pizza crust recipes, too. 😉 This one is definitely a stand-by, although not quite like Papa Johns… I really want to try to recreate their garlic butter sauce, though…. 😉
I think it’s a great recipe. I wish it were soaked, sprouted, or sourdough for health reasons, but I just can’t perfect any of those at this point. Papa John’s tastes so good, but it gives me serious heartburn/indigestion. Don’t tell Sally Fallon, but I ate this pizza with no tummy ache, and I know it’s far healthier than Papa John’s! I still try to soak/sprout/sour where I can, but for now, this is a worthy compromise. Oh, and I bet homemade butter garlic sauce would blow Papa John’s away – they don’t even use real butter in their sauce (it’s made with vegetable oil – yuck!).
I LOVE this recipe! Thank you so much!!!
Hi what is sucanat?
Hi Marcy,
Sucanat stands for Sugar Cane Natural. It’s an unrefined, granulated sugar made directly from sugar cane. It has much more of a molasses flavor, but is definitely a better option the regular white sugar.
I just have to say this pizza crust was amazing!! Thank you!
Yay! You are welcome. 🙂
hi jill,
was thinking of trying out this recipe but just needed to confirm, is the flour 2 & 3/4 cups?
or is it 2 (3/4 cups) which means 1.5cups?
sorry to sound confused but just had to make sure instead of messing up your recipe.
thanks, rakhi
Sorry for the confusion– it’s 2 & 3/4 cups. Enjoy!
thank you for the quick reply, will try out your recipe and post feedback, hopefully soon…
We tried this tonight with all whole wheat and it was fabulous, so soft! We did throw in a bit of ginger to help soften it up and used only 2 cups of whole wheat flour. We topped ours with lots of kale, which crisped up perfectly.
Where did you get this recipe? Because I was wondering what the nutrition facts are, or did you put them and I just missed them? 😛 Anyway, I’ve made this recipe about three times and i LOVE it! Especially because my mom has celiac disease and I can make it gluten free by using corn flour, rather than paying an arm and a leg for already made gluten free pizzas. 🙂
OOH! This looks very good and a bit different from how I do it! PINNING!~ 🙂
This is the BEST pizza dough recipe I have found! I use half white ap flour half wheat. I also add a t of wheat gluten and a T extra water. Yum!
This recipe is delicious! My family loves it and I will never have to hubt for a recipe again!
Instead of a pizza stone, you can use a cast iron skillet to make it deep dish. So very scrumptious. The only way to make a deep dish pizza in my opinion.
Oooh- I love the cast iron skillet idea– yum!
Hi Jill, I’m going to try making your pizza dough this week-end. Two questions…I make pizza dough quite often, Bobby Flay recipe which is good but I feel it could be better and I use a pizza stone but usually heat the pizza stone up in the oven when I’m preheating and make the pizza on parchment paper and then transfer it to the pizza stone with my wooden pizza paddle which works good but it would be nice to make it right on top of the pizza stone instead. I just thought the stone had to be hot. Also, I usually use bread flour which is what a lot of pizza doughs call for. Have not tried the wheat flour. Excited to try your recipe, thank you. Janette
Hi Jill, I love your site. I love to make homemade pizza and just recently bought a pizza stone from looking at your website. My question is how do you cook homemade pizza on the stone? When I first used mine I put my homemade crust directly on the cold pizza stone then put it in the oven and baked. Well the pizza was totally stuck to the stone when I took it out. Do you need to preheat the stone and then the crust won’t stick or how do you get it not to stick? Thanks so much
My advise, would grease the stone with oil and sprinkle corn meal over it. That’s what we do for homemade pizza now. You will notice corn meal on the bottom of pizza you get from take outs. Hope it helps!
I can’t wait to try this! My husband and I moved from Northern Virginia/DC to Utah a little more than a year ago and we really really REALLY miss east coast pizza. I have not been able to get the hang of baking at this altitude so I have fingers crossed this works…thanks for sharing.
Hope it works for you! It’s definitely one of our favs!
I’m excited to try this crust! Do you have a link for your tomato sauce on the blog? Would love to try a new recipe! Thanks!
I don’t…. but hopefully soon! 🙂
Was actually looking for a good beef broth and found your website 🙂 Made french onion soup with “canned” beef broth and it was…well, ok but was missing that “rich” beef flavor. Am definately going to try your recipe…So, that brings me to your Pizza Crust and I’m going to definately try it. Believe it or not if I had pizza once a year it was enough for me…I know, I’m odd but, my boyfriend loves pizza, of course and I came across a crust recipe that was pretty easy and now we’re probably having pizza at least 2-3 times a month. Already had a pizza stone that I purchased from “Magic Chef” years ago but since making pizza’s have purchased 2 more…one rectangler and a larger round, also have the pizza peel which makes it alot easier as well. Like I said, am going to try your crust…looks like a keeper. Think the one thing I like about “Homemade” anything is…You know what’s in it and it’s all fresh ingredients. Thanks for your posts! Cindy
Have you froze this pizza with toppings for quick dinners ever?
No I haven’t– sorry! Good idea tho.
I froze the dough without toppings and turned out good, would have been better if I could have used my some but it was wet. I think it would be fine with toppings. Frozen homemade pizza is one of the easiest quick meals to make. And who doesn’t like pizza. Thank you for am awesome recipe.
Hi Jill – just discovered your blog. Thanks for what you do. I’ve a question about your pizza stone. We have one that we use for cookies and such (and for reheating pizza) but we’ve never done pizza outright (though we just started milling our own flour and such and plan to soon). I was curious if you’d ever tried building the pie on a pizza peel and then transferring it to a preheated stone. I have it in my head that it would do a lot to serve as a “quasi brick pizza oven” type thing. From what I understand, the baking stones help pull some of the moisture out of the dough (which makes it crispy and crunchy on the outside and still chewy on the inside) much like a brick pizza oven. Anyway – just curious as I notice that your recipe says to build on the cold stone itself. Again – thanks for what you do and God Bless!
I don’t use a peel (just b/c I don’t have one) but it would definitely work for this recipe! And it’s slightly more authentic that way too. 😉
I made your dough recipe last night – it was awesome and I will not be changing a thing. I did have one issue, though and I hope you can assist me in addressing it. I made the pizza directly on the stone as you suggested and when I pulled it out of the oven, it was stuck to the stone! How do you keep yours from sticking? I usually use a peel and cornmeal and transfer to the stone from there, but I did like the idea of shaping the pizza right on the stone…. If only it wouldn’t stick!
Oil the stone throughly by rubbing olive oil on it and sprinkle with cornmeal to cover entire stone before placing dough on it. I stretch out the dough as much as possible into a circle form by lifting it up and rotating it. You could also try wax paper to spread dough out and flip it over onto the stone and peel off. (This is the trick I use for pie crust). Hope this helps!
Jill,
Have you found a great pizza sauce recipe? I usually use canned spaghetti sauce (cheapest), but recently found a deal on pizza sauce and the pizza is so much better with the pizza sauce. But, I’ve tried several homemade recipes and they’re not as good. Any ideas? Thanks!
I don’t really have a recipe–I just end up canning my own sauce every summer and throwing in a lot of basil, oregano, and garlic. 😉
How can you can without a recipe??? The canning books (Ball blue book, etc) always warn about following recipes exactly. Makes it sound like we’ll die if we don’t do it their way. I know, however, that food poisoning is a real danger. Do you just always use a pressure canner instead?
I still follow the Ball Blue Books guidelines for headspace and canning time, but I still season my sauce to my own preferences/taste.
Helpful hint: put a cup of water in the microwave till hot, then when you are ready to let the dough rise put in the microwave close the door and wait one hour. Comes out perfect every time.
I am going to try this recipe…probably tomorrow.
I use a Pampered Chief stone. Seldom take it out of the
oven. I heat the stone to 475, put the crust and pizza on parchment and
slide it on to the hot stone with a peel. If I am making a BIG pizza, I put the
parchment on a rimless cookie sheet and slide it on the stone.
Can regular sugar be used as the “sweetener” if that’s all you have at the time? Thanks
I will try this recipe, but I feel I need to point out your procedure violates a principal rule of dough making. Never, I’ll say that again: never, dissolve the salt with the yeast.
The way you’re supposed to do this is mix the oil with the flour in a bowl. Seperately, dissolve the yeast and the sugar/sweetener in the water. In your bowl of flour, dig a hole in the middle and sprinkle the salt on the flour around the outside. Then add the dissolved yeast and start mixing your dough. That way more of the yeast survives and your dough rises quicker.
I am going to try this.. Do you have a favorite pizza sauce that you use?? Homemade or other?? Thanks..
This is amazing! I’ve tried so many pizza crusts & this is a winner. Just as good as the restaurants if not better and so much cheaper!!!!!
My whole family says THANK YOU. I’ve tried a lot of pizza dough recipes and this one is by far the best and is now going to be our go to recipe for pizza night. Thanks so much! AWESOME pizza reminiscent of pizzeria style pizza. Mmmmmmmmmmm!
Wahoo! That’s what I like to hear!
Thank you so much for posting this recipe. I have tried several dough recipes over the years, but none have passed my husband’s taste test. This one is a keeper, though! It is a huge money save and much healthier than buying frozen or delivery pizza. I am interested in doubling or tripling the recipe so that I can freeze the dough. Have you ever done this? Would I freeze it as soon as I make it, then allow it to rise when I need it? Thanks again.
Stop wasting time scraping list, focus on building links!
Another great recipe from Jill! I used 1 cup of whole wheat then gradually added part of another cup of all purpose. When it got very sticky/gluey, I stopped kneading it and let it rise. I wasn’t sure that it’d turn out, but after a quick trip to town, I came home to perfect dough just waiting to be rolled and topped! My daughter, who is not especially fond of my homemade versions, called it a “Success!”
I regularly use several of your recipes: granola, yogurt, tortillas, biscuits, gravy, peanut butter. Thank you for enriching our family’s meals–even my children who don’t know it yet!
Wait… add cheese sauce to that list. Just made it last night. WOW! Topped a baked yellow potato with it and spaghetti sauce with meat. Loved every bite! And bonus! Still have more cheese sauce leftover to eat by itse… with other stuff, of course!
I love this crust & will keep using it. Not all Pizza Dough recipes are created equal. Haha.
I also use the Pampered Chef stone & pizza & bread bake great on it.
I love those stones!
Hi! Just found this recipe and want to try it! I am wondering if you use instant yeast because you don’t let it foam before mixing? Also, have you had any luck by stuffing the crust with mozzarella sticks?
I just use regular active yeast– I always skip the foam step, though. And I haven’t tried stuffing the crust yet, but that sounds amazing!
I have tried many pizza dough recipes from the web and I must say, this is by far my favorite recipe. The crust is crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside. And, the flavor is anything but boring. Thank you for sharing. It was delicious!
Did not have success, not sure what I did wrong. I read that you shouldn’t mix in the oil initially, could that be my problem?
I wonder what kind of flour you used bread flour or all purpose flour ? Thanks ! Brenda Chan from Hamilton Ontario Canada.
Do you think you can make t his dough ahead of time to freeze?
Oh….my…..word! This is by far the best pizza crust ever!!
I wanted a homemade pizza crust recipe so my kids could make their own personal pizzas because it’s Friday. My son made pepperoni and cheese and my daughter and I made a white pizza with kale, mushrooms with homade Alfredo sauce. Yum…I’m not suppose to have carbs this high, but I’m glad I did. It was worth it.
To those that have theirs stick to their stone, use olive oil or whatever you have on hand and grease your stone and pans and pour some cornmeal over it. Spread it over the entire surface. I’ve never cut pizza so easy than this crust!
do you use ap flour or bread flour
I love pizza and looking for better recipe which can explain me well and I have found your post as you truly explains the entire points well and I admire your instructions that you have teach in every points well and in last I would like to say thanks for such a great tips.
I love this recipe! I am also in Wyoming and as you know, anything baked has to be slightly adjusted for our high altitude. I’m so happy to have found your website with tried and true recipes that work here! This is so tasty and EASY, I love that it’s a from-scratch pizza crust that I can whip together after work.
One question – can you add a “print this recipe” button so this can be printed in a nice format? Right now, printing splits the recipe into two. Silly little first-world problem.
Thanks!
Is it possible to freeze the dough so it’s ready to use at the drop of a hat? If so, do you have instructions on how to do that?
Yes! You could freeze the dough! I would either freeze the dough as shaped pizzas, or freeze it as a dough ball after it rises.