The Best Easy to Make Homemade Pizza Dough Recipe

I started making this easy to make homemade pizza dough recipe years ago and it is hands down the best recipe ever! We make a large batch so we have extra pizza dough to freeze for future meals, saving us time and money in the long run.

Did you ever have one of those days where you look at the clock and realize dinner time is in half an hour and you haven’t given a single thought about what to make? We occasionally have those days and calling for delivery or going out to eat isn’t really an option for us since we live in the country.

Instead I always make sure I have some quick and easy meal options ready to whip up in less than fifteen minutes. We eat a real food diet so for us this means no frozen processed foods. It means frozen homemade meals. It means frozen homemade pizza dough to quickly thaw out and whip up a delicious homemade pizza that tastes better and costs a fraction of the price of pizza delivery or frozen grocery store pizza. This pizza dough recipe has saved my tail countless times and helped me serve a last minute, easy, healthy meal to our family!

I’ve been using the same pizza dough recipe since 2006. Now that is a long time so this must be the best pizza dough recipe ever!

The recipe is easy to make and so delicious. This makes a thin crust pizza that is easy to roll out on the pizza pan. It’s so easy to make and use my kids can now make this homemade pizza all on their own!

In the early days of using this recipe, I used to make the recipe for just one pizza dough at a time. The problem was, sometimes I wanted to make pizza for dinner but didn’t have enough time to let the dough rise.

I found myself buying frozen pizza dough from a local bakery in town. After using the bakery pizza dough a couple times, I realized I should try making a large batch of my pizza dough recipe and freezing it.

Well, I tried it once and we’ve been making a large batch of pizza dough ever since. Now we always have frozen pizza dough in the freezer to use for a quick and easy meal. I make a large batch of dough that is enough for four pizzas.

I used to use my bread machine to mix up my large batch of pizza dough (read more about why we love our bread machine in this post). Then my husband gifted me this lovely blue stand mixer with a dough hook and it’s become one of my favorite kitchen tools. I now use my stand mixer and dough hook to mix up our large batches of homemade pizza dough.

When making this pizza dough recipe, I just pour all the ingredients in the mixer bowl, turn it on and let the dough hook mix and knead the dough. Since I started out making this pizza dough recipe the traditional way only using my hands and no help from the bread machine or stand mixer with dough hook to mix it all, I’ll share both directions below so you can choose the one that fits for you.

Making the Homemade Pizza Dough Recipe

Making homemade pizza dough is so easy. Basic homemade pizza dough is made of a few simple ingredients mixed together:  yeast, flour, salt, olive oil, sugar and warm water. So easy!

Pizza Dough Ingredients:

-4 1/2 tsp yeast

-6 1/2 cups all purpose flour (can use half wheat flour and half all purpose flour)

-2 TBS unrefined sugar

-3 tsp sea salt

-4 TBS olive oil or liquid coconut oil

-2 cups warm (but not hot) water

Directions for mixing the pizza dough by hand:

1. Combine the yeast and warm water in a large bowl. When dissolved, add in the sugar, salt, oil and 1 1/4 cup of flour. Mix until smooth.
2. Add the rest of the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until a stiff dough forms.
3. Knead the dough for about five minutes. Then place it in a greased bowl and cover with a dish towel. Let it rise until double in size, which takes about an hour.
4. When it is done rising, punch the dough down. Then divide it into fourths.

Directions for using a bread machine to mix the pizza dough:

Place all the ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order listed. If using the bread machine, turn the bread machine on to the “dough” setting and hit start.

Check the dough as it mixes. If the dough appears too sticky, sprinkle in a little flour at a time until the dough mixes to a stiff but not dry pizza dough.

Our bread machine has a dough setting that lasts 45 minutes and there is a low temperature warmth in the machine. When the bread machine stops after 45 minutes, we leave the dough in the bread machine with the lid closed to keep the warmth in.

In an hour, the dough doubles in size. Punch the dough down, divide it into fourths and it is ready to be used or frozen.

Directions for using a stand mixer with dough hook to mix the pizza dough:

Pour all the ingredients into the bowl for the stand mixer in the order listed. Turn the mixer on a low setting (I turn mine on 3) to start mixing the dough. If you turn the mixer on too high, flour will go flying everywhere and make a huge mess!

As the pizza dough is mixing, check the consistency of the dough. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle in a little flour until it forms a stiff pizza dough. If the dough is too dry, sprinkle in a little water until the dough reaches the proper consistency.

Use the stand mixer with the dough hook to knead the pizza dough about five minutes. Once it is kneaded, remove the bowl from the mixer. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and allow to rise until doubled in size. This takes about one hour if the dough is in a warm part of my kitchen.

When the dough is done rising, punch it down, remove it from the bowl, divide it in fourths and it’s ready to use.

Directions for baking the pizza dough:

1. Preheat the oven to 420 degrees.
2. Roll the pizza dough out on a greased baking sheet. We use coconut oil to grease our pans and never have any sticking (this is the kind we use and love).
3. Put your preferred sauce and toppings on the pizza dough.
4. Bake the pizza at 420 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the crust and cheese are lightly browned.
5. Enjoy!

Since this recipe is just for making a delicious homemade pizza dough, here are 25 great pizza recipes to make.

Can I Freeze Homemade Pizza Dough?

One of the things I love about this recipe is that it makes a large batch that I can divide and freeze. I started freezing homemade pizza dough years ago and it’s saved us so much money not having to buy store bought pizza dough!

Freezing pizza dough is simple. Once the pizza dough has risen, divide it into fourths. Keep out the dough you plan to use immediately and set it aside.

We have a drawer full of reusable plastic containers we use for freezing things in the freezer. These are basically various sized plastic containers from foods like yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, etc. I’ve tried freezing in glass jars but we had a couple broken glass incidents in the freezer over the last couple years so tend to not freeze foods in glass anymore because of this.

To freeze a ball of 1/4 of this pizza dough recipe, I place it in a 32oz yogurt container and put on the lid. The dough ball fills about half the container which leaves a little room for the dough to expand as it settles into the container.

We keep a black permanent marker in the kitchen to write on the lid of the container what the contents are. That way we don’t have to open up frozen containers in search of a specific food but select exactly what we want by reading the labeled lid.

How to Defrost Homemade Pizza Dough

There are a couple ways we thaw this pizza dough recipe once it is frozen. If I remember to get the pizza dough out 3-8 hours before I want to start making pizza, I can just sit the container on the counter top and let it thaw at room temperature.

In the winter, I like to sit the container of frozen pizza dough on a stool near the wood stove where it is nice and warm. If you read our post on cooking on a wood stove, you wouldn’t be surprised I use it to help thaw frozen foods like this!

If we don’t get the frozen dough out of the freezer more than two hours in advance, we have to help the thawing process along. To do this, we sit the container of frozen pizza dough in a large bowl or pan. Then we fill the bowl or pan with hot water, covering about half way up the container holding the frozen pizza dough.

We let the container of pizza dough sit in the hot water and it will speed up the thawing process. If the water cools off and the dough isn’t thawed, we dump out the cool water and put in more hot water. We do this until the dough is thawed. We’ve been able to thaw the bread dough in less than an hour with this method.

I shared this homemade pizza dough with my mom a few years ago and she now makes this all the time too. Her method for thawing homemade pizza dough is to get the frozen dough out of the freezer the night before. Then she puts the container of frozen dough in her refrigerator overnight and lets it slowly thaw out that way. She gets it out of the refrigerator 1-2 hours before she’s ready to use the pizza dough to let it warm up to room temperature so it’s easier to roll.

Other Uses for Homemade Pizza Dough

While we primarily use our homemade pizza dough for making pizza, there are also several other meals we make with our pizza dough.

• Stromboli: Our homemade pizza dough makes a delicious Stromboli crust our family loves.
• Flat bread: When making our kohlrabi soup or Pennsylvania Dutch chicken corn soup for dinner, I like to serve it with a homemade flat bread. When making flat bread, roll the pizza dough out on a greased baking sheet to about 1/4″-1/2″ thick. My kids love to form the dough into shapes like a big heart or make a sun shape for the Solstice. We like to make our flat bread like a focaccia bread with olive oil brushed on top of the dough and spices sprinkled on top. Here are 20+ focaccia bread toppings to inspire your baking.
• Monkey Bread: Our yummy Monkey Bread recipe is sweet and delicious. It uses our homemade pizza dough which makes it even more tasty.
• Hot dog wraps: Another quick and easy meal we like to make are hot dog wraps. Instead of buying hot dog buns at the grocery store, I use our homemade pizza dough. For a pack of 8 hot dogs, I thaw out a ball of dough and split it into eight equal sized balls. Roll out each ball of dough to a rectangle shape, sprinkle a little cheese on top, then place a hot dog in the center of the dough. Wrap the sides of the dough around the hot dog and press the dough edges together to seal it. Bake at 420 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until the dough is golden brown.

Do you have any other ideas to share for delicious meals using homemade pizza dough? 

updated March 2023