How to Make Our Family’s Favorite Pizza Dough Recipe

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Who doesn’t love pizza?! Well, my dad, but even he eats this pizza (as long as we load it with toppings).

One of the reasons why my family loves pizza is because you can make it in so many different ways. There’s Neopolitan pizza, Sicilian pizza, Greek pizza, the list goes on. And the part most people like the most, are the toppings. You can get creative with what toppings you add to your pizza, making it a meal that can taste different every time you make it (if that’s what you choose).

Lastly, the sauce. You can make your sauce (check out how to make our family’s favorite pizza sauce!), use canned pizza sauce, or even pasta sauce. But who said your pizza has to be decorated with a red base? You can use Alfredo sauce, BBQ sauce, Ranch, and the list goes on and on.

It may sound like I’m talking up pizza, but the fact is that it’s become a tradition in our household. My husband and I started experimenting with different pizza dough recipes when we were dating. After many tweaks and modifications, we landed on one we love (this one!) and we have been making it every week. What’s even more special is that our two little girls are now a part of it, too.

When my toddler was old enough, she started helping us add the toppings to the pizza. I can’t wait to continue this tradition over the years.

So, now that I’ve talked up this famous pizza dough that you knead to try (see what I did there), let’s dive into how to make it!

Gather your ingredients

You only need 6 ingredients for this recipe – water, sugar, yeast, bread flour, salt, and oil.

Bloom the yeast

First, you bloom the yeast. You don’t always have to do this step, but we like to make sure the yeast is alive so the dough can rise. You do this by filling a cup with warm water (about 110°F, but I just turn my faucet to its hottest and use that). Mix some sugar in the cup with warm water and then add the yeast and stir. You’ll know the yeast is alive if you see bubbles form on top of the water within a couple of minutes.

Form your dough

While you are waiting for the bubbles to form, put some bread flour and salt in a separate bowl and mix.

Now you can check on your yeast. If there are bubbles – great! If there are no bubbles, discard the water and sugar mixture and repeat this step with some new yeast.

Pour the wet mixture into the bread flour and add some olive oil. Now it’s time to mix. You can start with a wooden spoon to get things going. Once it is all mixed well and the dough is sticky, you can start to knead the dough by hand.

Add more bread flour if the dough is too sticky to work with. Add a little at a time – it should be sticky but workable. Once you’ve reached this point, you can weigh the dough. We usually aim for about 740 grams for our ball of dough.

Next, do a stretch test. Pull off a piece of your dough and stretch it using both hands. If the dough is thin enough to see light through without tearing, it’s ready!

You then separate the dough in half to make two balls of dough (if you are choosing not the weigh the dough, these will look about the size of large oranges).

You’ll put these two balls of dough in two separate containers. We use two round glass 4-cup Pyrex containers. Drizzle oil into both of these containers and place the ball of dough inside (we roll the dough around the container to ensure it gets coated in the oil). This will prevent the dough from sticking to the container and also help make your crust crispy when cooking.

Cover the container tightly with a lid or saran wrap. The dough will form a skin if the container is not properly sealed.

Let the dough sit in the refrigerator overnight, or at room temperature for at least 2 hours before using.

The dough should rise and look similar to this.

When you are ready to cook your pizza, take out a baking sheet and lay parchment paper on it. Sprinkle some cornmeal onto the parchment paper and place the dough on it. Press down on the dough and begin stretching it out to form your pizza. It’s helpful to use your knuckles to stretch out the edges.

Add sauce and toppings

Now you’re ready to add your sauce and toppings! We also make a homemade pizza sauce that uses San Marzano-style tomatoes. It only takes 5 minutes to make and requires no cooking!

Since this recipe makes two dough balls, we typically add a red sauce to one and an oil base to the other.

For the oil base, we pour olive oil and oregano into the small container and use a silicone brush to spread it over the dough. If you like your pizza extra crispy, this is the base for you!

The sky is the limit when it comes to pizza toppings! We typically use whatever we have leftover in the fridge – chicken, meatballs, and any vegetable we want.

Baking the pizza – Using a pizza steel

We’ve experimented with different pizza pans and stones, but our favorite one is this pizza steel. Compared to the pizza stones we have tried, the steel creates a crispier crust. We personally like our pizza to hold up on its own once sliced, without being too crispy, and this steel makes that possible.

The most important step when using a pizza steel is to let it preheat. We let ours preheat in the oven at 500°F for 1 hour. This may seem like a long time, but trust me, it makes a difference in the way the dough cooks.

We slide the parchment paper with the pizza on top right onto the pizza steel and let it cook for a couple of minutes. Once the dough has cooked a little, we slide the parchment paper off and use it to start making our second pizza while the first one cooks.

Check on the pizza in the oven after about 7 minutes. You can use tongs to rotate the pizza around in the oven so it cooks evenly. Wait another 7 minutes (or until the cheese bubbles and the crust is golden) and then take the pizza out of the oven. We use tongs to slide the pizza onto a baking sheet to take it out of the oven.

We use this pizza slicer that makes cutting even slices quick and easy.

*Remember that the pizza steel gets extremely hot. Do not try to remove the steel from the oven until it has completely cooled down. Even oven mitts will not protect your hands.

Baking the pizza – Using a baking pan

If you are not using a pizza steel, you can bake it on a baking sheet. We recommend using parchment paper to avoid the dough sticking to the sheet.

Preheat the oven to 400°F and bake the pizza for about 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is golden.

Storing the dough

You can store the dough in the fridge for 2-3 days, or you can freeze it for up to 6 months.

When defrosting, put the dough in the fridge 24 hours before using.

Share the goodness!

My family hopes you enjoy this recipe!

Share your pizza pics on social media and use my hashtag #thejugglingmama so I can see what you create!