How To Make the Best Basic Pizza Dough (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to making good pizza dough? ›

The secret to great dough isn't kneading or throwing . . .

It's good old-fashioned H20. “Water, water, water,” says Falco. “Pizza dough made at home should be 50 percent water. Pizza needs to cook longer in a home oven, which means the dough needs to be more hydrated.”

All pizza dough starts with the same basic ingredients: flour, yeast, water, salt, and olive oil. Here's the breakdown of what I use in my homemade pizza crust recipe. The full printable recipe is below.

Flour is the main ingredient in pizza dough, and the type you use can have a big effect on the end result. All-purpose flour will work fine, but if you want a chewier crumb and a better hole structure, you should consider buying yourself some high protein bread flour.

If you're keen to intensify its flavor even more, enhance the dough further – either with infused oil brushed over top, cheese woven into its edges or a combination of herbs and spices kneaded into it or sprinkled on it.

Flavor the dough, if you'd like: This is a great basic pizza dough recipe, but you can spice it up to make it more flavorful by adding a few dashes of garlic powder, dried basil, and oregano.

Pizza dough that has been left to rise for too long, or has been over-proofed, can potentially collapse. The gluten becomes overly relaxed, and the end product will be gummy or crumbly instead of crisp and fluffy.

Water, Sorghum Flour, Modified Rice Starch, Tapioca Starch, Teff Flour, Cage Free Egg Whites, Whey Powder, Shortening Flakes (Palm Oil, Natural Butter Flavor, Soy Lecithin), Quinoa Flour, Amaranth Flour, Canola/Olive Oil Blend, Yeast, Sugar, Brown Flax Seed, Salt, Cultured Brown Rice, Xanthan Gum, Natural Flavors.

Well, I certainly wouldn't add sugar. It's completely unnecessary, and adds nothing to the flavor of the dough. The ingredients you want are flour, water, salt, and yeast, plus time. The secret to really good pizza dough is a rest in the fridge of at least 24 hours, preferably 48, and sometimes as much as 72.

The best flour for making Deep-Dish Pizza Dough is all-purpose flour. In bakeries and pizzerias, Pizza Flour is often used because it is a high-protein flour that produces a light and airy crust. However, all-purpose flour will also work well for Deep-Dish Pizza Dough.

Everything in a good bite of pizza should be balanced. The sauce shouldn't overpower the cheese and vice versa, the crust-to-sauce ratio should be even, and the choice of toppings should work fine together. It's not very often for someone to refuse a good slice of pizza, especially if it fits the general criteria.

What is the secret to the best pizza? ›

The top chefs all agree that the best pizzas are all about the crust, so salt in the dough should never be sacrificed at the altar of salty toppings. “Building a pizza is like building anything else – you have to make compromises and consider the whole when choosing the parts.

The best approach to achieve a light, airy crust is to stretch the dough. Yeast produces gas bubbles, which increase volume and fluffiness. Those air pockets in the dough won't disappear no matter how much you knead it. It will shuffle them about, merging smaller air pockets into larger ones.

My favorite thing to add is lemon zest. You can also add herbs like thyme or oregano - fresh or dried. You might add chopped olives, or chopped sun-dried tomatoes.

The goal is to create a warm and humid environment that gets the yeast moving. The more freely the yeast moves inside the dough, the better rise you get. In cold weather, it's best to let the dough rise in the oven. Preheat the oven to 100°F for about a minute or two, then turn it off.