How to Make a Simple Italian Pizza Dough

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Ciao Friends,

Well, it’s finally happened.  We have a pizza dough recipe that is simple, easy, quick, and can be used for various types of pizza such as thin, thick or somewhere in between.

My goal is to help YOU make a wonderful easy pizza dough that tastes amazing and is simple to make and which you don’t need a bunch of special ingredients or unique cookware to make it come out amazing!

This recipes uses:

• sugar
• salt
• water
• oil
• yeast
• all purpose flour

It takes about an hour total from start to baking.  This time can vary depending on rising times.  Make sure to cover the dough with a damp cloth to help it rise and not dry out. 

Pizza dough has multiple uses besides homemade pizza however. You can make focaccia from pizza dough, as well as calzones. I’ve even used it for fried dough.

If it isn’t rising then you need a warmer area to help it rise, try heating the oven to 170 with a small pan of hot water, then place the bowl in there with the cloth (turn the oven OFF), and check on it to see how it’s rising. If it’s too moist remove the pan of hot water.

Jump to Recipe

Tips for Baking the Pizza Dough

To avoid sticking to the pan (a common issue), there are various methods which I’ve listed below.

Cornmeal

One method is to use cornmeal on the bottom of the pan and press the dough onto that.  We’ve done in the past, sometimes it worked sometimes not.

Olive Oil in the pan

My favorite and recommended method is using olive oil in the pan.  I don’t measure how much I add but I liberally add it and spread it around.  

If I add too much I don’t mind b/c I love the flavor.  It’s much better than adding too little and having it stick to the pan.  Talk about annoying!!

You can also rub olive oil over the dough itself to add even more flavor.  

Baking the Dough

Temperatures

The default method for us has been to bake it for 15 min at 375F and then add the cheese for 5 minutes longer.

However, keep in mind that the times and temperature should be altered to accommodate thick or thinner pizzas.

Quantity of Pizzas

With this recipe, we were able to make 2 or 3 average thickness pizzas in 9×13 stainless steel pizza pans. Depends on thickness of pizza. 

If I were to make a thick airy pizza where I use a 9×13 baking dish, I would follow my instructions located here, but basically in summary, I let it rise in a bowl, then transfer to a the pan and let it rise a second time, then press it down, add the toppings and let it rise a third time and then bake at 350F for about 25 minutes until done. 

For super thin pizza, I’ve learned the trick is baking it at a very high temperature.   We bought a steel pizza tray that helps increase the temperature of the oven by putting the pizza on that, but also putting a pizza stone on the rack above it.

This traps the heat and increases it to above 500F.   

I won’t go into our experimenting with that because it’s not easy and it’s not quick and although the results on our last attempt were amazing, I can’t confidently repeat it enough to encourage others to do it without giving a full write-up on it.   But if you want to check it out you can here.

Pizza Dough Sauce

For the sauce, we’ve used pizza sauce from a can (most convenient) but we’ve also used our regular pasta sauce and thickened it by cooking it down or adding more tomato paste and then adding in more oregano (this secret to a pizza sauce). 

We use about 7 oz of sauce at least per pizza.  

Other Toppings for Your Pizza

Quick note here, if you decide to use veggies that have high water content like mushrooms and onions or tomatoes, or ones that take a long time to cook, what we have started doing when we have the time is to cook them down on the stove to remove the excess moisture.  

Then we add it to the pizza and spread it around.

This won’t provide the crunchy texture of the onions you might enjoy, but it’s just another way to use toppings.   When using onions directly on the dough and not sautéing them in a pan, make sure to slice your onions very thinly so they can cook more quickly and not taste raw.

Here are some topping ideas that we’ve used (in no particular order):

• Olives
• Green peppers
• Roasted Red peppers
• Sweet peppers
• Yellow Onions
• Red Onions
• Tomatoes (grape, cherry, regular,)
• Mushrooms
• Cheese (any of the following in any combo or individually – Romano, Parmesan, Mozz.)
• Jalapenos
• Banana Peppers

Freezing the Dough

So this part is really cool because you can freeze pizza dough in various forms to make it easier to cook later.   Here are ways you can freeze the dough:

• In a ball before rising.  Take it out of the freezer the day before then let it rise at room temperature. 
• In a ball after rising.  Same as above, you’ll need to take it out of the freezer so it has time to thaw and rise again at room temp. 
• As a baked pizza without toppings.   Meaning, you bake just the dough in the oven initally for a few minutes less than usual, let cool and then store in the freezer.  When the time comes just take it out, add the sauce and toppings and bake.  I basically treat this like a store bought version and it’s very convenient!
• As a baked pizza with raw toppings and sauce.   This is really convenient too. It requires more prep time but it’s so awesome when you’re hungry for a pizza and all the work is already done.  Simply take the pizza out and pop it in the oven frozen.  

There are so many ways to store your pizza dough so it’s handy when and how you need it.  We’ve used all of the above and have no favorite method.  All of them turn out great.