Making your own pizza dough is simple with this easy overnight pizza dough! Four ingredients plus time is all you need for the best homemade pizza of your life!
There are hundreds (thousands?) of ways to make pizza dough, but this recipe is a favorite of mine. It has just 4 ingredients, and maybe 5 minutes of hands on time. It needs only 1 minute of kneading and can accommodate a relatively flexible schedule.
The only real downside to making this recipe (and your own pizza dough in general) is that it’s not great for instant gratification. If you want to make last minute pizza, you can get dough from grocery stores or some pizza shops.
But if you want the reward of making your own pizza dough, and you want it to taste as good as the crust from a nice pizza place, you should really try this recipe! It’s a perfect all purpose type pizza dough. It can be stretched thin and bakes up with a pillowy edge (technical term cornicione).
The method is quite simple, and you’ll see some similarities in the technique to my overnight artisan walnut bread (there’s a video over there where you can watch some of the techniques I describe in the recipe if you’d like. Specifically the pinching, folding, and shaping techniques).
The recipe is adapted from The Elements of Pizza by Ken Forkish, who, if you’ve been following me for awhile, you might have noticed I’m a big fan of. I love the more science-y approach he has to baking. There’s certainly an art to making your own bread and pizza, and a lot of it is done by feel and experience, but I find it helpful to understand the whys behind it.
The importance of the pizza baking temperature
Professional pizza ovens typically bake pizzas in just 1-3 minutes at 700 to over 1000ºF, while in my home oven it takes a minimum of 6 minutes for a smaller pizza on the hottest setting my oven goes to.
A typical 10-12″ pizza takes closer to 8-10 minutes in a well pre-heated oven at 550ºF. Because of this, the best doughs in a professional kitchen are not going to be the best dough in a home kitchen. More water will evaporate while baking at home due to the longer bake time. That’s why when you bake your pizzas at 425 ºF (which is what I see in a lot of recipes) for like 20 minutes, you’ll get a much stiffer and drier result.
To imitate a professional oven you want your home oven to get as hot as possible. That’s usually somewhere between 500 and 550 ºF. You also want to preheat your oven for an hour.
Your oven may say that it’s preheated well before an hour is up, but, you need the heat to absorb into the walls of the oven. That way, when you open your oven door to slip in your pizza, you won’t lose as much heat.
It doesn’t matter if you have a fancy Wolf or Viking oven or if you have an average oven, this is just a matter of heat transfer and it takes time. Luckily, an hour happens to be the time it takes for the pizza dough to come up to room temperature and for the gluten to relax before you shape and top your dough so it really works out nicely.
The ingredients of the dough
As far as the dough itself is concerned, we use a slightly higher hydration (or a wetter) dough than most professional recipes to account for this additional evaporation. This recipe has a 70% hydration, which allows for a softer and doughier crust. The dough also uses a high percentage of salt.
Salt not only provides flavor in the final product, but it also acts to retard the growth of the yeast. And, as I’ve said before and I’m sure will say again, a slow and cold fermentation leads to a tastier result, as it gives the yeast time to create those delicious flavor molecules as it processes the carbohydrates in the flour.
Speaking of yeast, only a small amount is used to allow for the long and slow fermentation. I tend to use all purpose flour (and the recipe is written as such), but make sure to use a high quality (and higher protein one), like King Arthur Flour or Bob’s Red Mill. I find my bread and pizzas are a lot better when I use these high quality flours. You can use Italian 00 flour instead in this recipe, but I am pretty happy with the way my all purpose flour doughs come out, so don’t usually bother to source the more expensive imported flour.
Using a baking stone or baking steel to bake
Lastly, I want to talk about how to bake your pizza. We’ve already talked temperature, but what you bake on is equally important. For years I used a pizza stone, and that makes pizza way better than using a thin metal pizza baking sheet.
But my pizza stone broke after 7 years and I switched over to a baking steel about 1 year ago and that took my pizza to the next level. Steel is a better conductor of heat than a ceramic pizza stone, so it is able to absorb more heat for a faster bake as well as more evenly for a more evenly baked result. It’s a bit of a pricey investment though, and a stone does work very well. Just make sure if you are using a ceramic pizza stone that it is safe to use at least to 550 ºF.
Tips for using a pizza peel
The other tool that’s useful for making pizzas is a pizza peel. To successfully use a peel, I’ve found a few helpful tips (out of a lot of trial and error).
- Dust the peel with flour, then brush the flour around to create a super thin layer over the entire peel. You’ll lose a lot of flour but that’s ok. The flour works as miniature ball bearings, so for a nice smooth roll you want a single layer of balls, not uneven layering.
- Top your pizza dough while it’s on the peel (unless you have great skills to transfer a topped dough, but I don’t recommend it unless it’s something you already do) BUT don’t prepare your pizza until you’re just a minute or two away from sticking it in the oven. If you leave the pizza dough on the peel it will absorb that thin layer of flour you just coated the peel with and then stick to the peel.
- Gently shake the peel and watch the pizza slide around the peel before opening the oven.
- If you end up leaving the pizza on the peel too long and it’s not able to slide around on the peel, lift the dough up in sections and add a little extra flour underneath, then blow air underneath the dough, essentially resettling the flour into a thin layer. Work in a round until you’ve loosened the dough from the peel.
- To transfer the pizza to the oven make sure the dough is loose and able to slide from your gentle shaking of the peel. Then open your oven and place the peel towards the back of your pizza steel or stone. Using short back-and-forth jerky movements slide the pizza towards the end of the peel and off of it, moving the peel out of the oven slowly as the pizza comes off of it and onto the steel/stone. Once the pizza is fully off the peel close the oven door and let it bake!
I hope you guys try this dough, and then one of my many pizza recipes! If you have any questions please feel free to ask, or if you try it, let me know how it turns out for you!
If you make this easy overnight pizza dough, leave a comment below and rate the recipe on the recipe card. And please share your photos with me on Instagram, tag @thecuriouschickpea and #thecuriouschickpea. I love seeing your recreations!
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Easy Overnight Pizza Dough
An easy overnight pizza dough that requires almost no kneading, is easy to shape, and turns into a perfect pizza.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (350g) water, 95 ºF
- 2 1/2 tsp (14g) salt
- 1/4 tsp dried instant yeast
- 4 cups (500g) all purpose flour
Instructions
- Measure out the warm water in a large mixing bowl. Add in the salt and stir to dissolve. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let sit for a couple of minutes to hydrate and dissolve, then stir to distribute.
- Add the flour into the mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until you form a shaggy dough. Switch to using your hands. Wet your hands to prevent the dough from sticking to them and pinch the dough into several segments between your first finger and thumb. Then reach under the edges of the dough and gently pull it up to stretch the dough until you hit resistance, then fold the section of dough over to rest of the dough. Turn the bowl 1/4 turn and repeat the pulling and folding until you've gone all around. This action brings the dough back into one piece. Repeat the pinching and folding process for about 1-2 minutes until your dough starts to turn into a cohesive, but sticky ball of dough. Re-wet your hands as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking to them. Cover the bowl and let rest for 20 minutes.
- After the 20 minutes of rest, turn the dough onto a clean and floured surface. Knead the dough for about 1 minute until you get a smooth ball of dough. Flour your hands and add flour to the counter as necessary to prevent sticking. Lightly coat the mixing bowl with oil and place the ball of dough mixing bowl, turning to coat in oil before leaving seam side down. Cover the mixing bowl and let the dough rise for about 1 hour, until it's doubled in size. You can let it rise for up to 2 hours before shaping.
- Turn the dough onto a clean, floured counter and stretch to make a large rectangle. You're going to divide the dough into 2 or 3 pieces (depending on the size you want your final pizza to be) by sprinkling flour over where you're going to cut (this prevents it from sticking) and cut into the sections with a bench scraper, or with a butter knife by pressing straight down into the dough.
- Shape the dough one piece at a time. To shape the dough, you will use the same folding technique as before (this time with dry or lightly floured hands). Take a section of the dough and gently stretch it up until you feel resistance, then fold over the middle. Take the next section and repeat, and move around the dough until you have created a tight ball. Then, turn the ball of dough and place seam side down on a clean, un-floured section of the counter. Cup the dough ball between your hands with your pinky fingers resting on the counter behind it. Pull the dough towards you, allowing the friction between the dough and counter to pull the dough underneath itself, and using your pinky fingers to prevent the dough from simply rolling. Turn the dough about a quarter turn and repeat. Do this until you've gone in a full circle and the skin around the dough ball is taught. Sprinkle flour over the dough and spread it around with your hands until the dough is not sticky to touch. Repeat with the remaining sections of dough, then place on a floured plate. Sprinkle more flour on top of the dough, then cover with plastic wrap and place the plate in the fridge for at least 6 hours, or up to 48 hours, before making pizza.
- Before shaping the dough and baking, let come to room temperature and relax for about 1 hour. If you try to shape the dough and it's not stretching out easily or quickly, let it rest for 10 minutes then try again.
Notes
Use in any pizza recipe, including the many pizza recipes I've shared! See some tips for baking pizza in the post.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving:Calories: 152 Total Fat: 0g Sodium: 1mg Carbohydrates: 32g Fiber: 1g Sugar: 0g Protein: 4g
Leyanne says
… have you ever used active sourdough starter in this pizza dough and can I use bread flower I also have double zero from Italy that’s actually made for pizza have a great night..!!?????
thecuriouschickpea says
You can absolutely use 00 flour! And I have used sourdough starter in similar pizza dough. Sourdough starters can have different hydration and then how much you use affects your dough hydration, but if you’re comfortable working with dough you can definitely play around with it!
Leyanne says
..FLOUR…LOL?
John says
1/4 tsp of instant yeast? Seems very low. No sugar?
thecuriouschickpea says
Hi John, yes just 1/4 tsp of yeast. This dough has a long and slow rise which is why I use such a small amount of yeast. This leads to a better flavor in the final dough. And no sugar is necessary! The flour is enough for the yeast to proliferate.
Candace says
I rarely review recipes, but I made this on Tuesday night, so that Wednesday evening I’d have a simple meal ready to go. I loved this crust, and mind you I did not follow the recipe perfectly, nor did I have the peel nor the stone. I just used a square small baking sheet, oiled it up, topped it and baked it. The crust was nicely crisped, with lovely coloring and such a nice flavor. I’ve made a lot of pizza dough recipes, but this one worked great with the limitations I had. AND THANK YOU for posting grams. I much prefer to make dough by weight instead of volume.
Also can I just mention how much I love pizza for using up the scraps? I had a cup of homemade spaghetti sauce left, which turned into pizza sauce. Some leftover shredded chicken, from the stock I had made for chicken noodle soup. And some languishing spinach in my fridge. One pizza was turned into bbq chicken + pineapple pizza. The other was spinach and anchovy.
thecuriouschickpea says
Hi Candace, I’m so glad you enjoyed the pizza dough! I sometimes don’t divide the dough and instead use all of it to make one big pan pizza (using a half sheet pan) instead. And I agree, I love using things up on pizza 🙂 . I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, thank you!
Hassan Ali says
Great recipe? Have you tried using bread flour?
thecuriouschickpea says
Hi Hassan, I have made pizza dough with bread flour before as well as 00 flour. Both turn out with slightly different results (also good, just different). Bread flour absorbs more water (thanks to the higher protein content), so you will have a stiffer dough. You may want to sprinkle on just a bit more water to compensate, but that just depends on what result you are looking for! Pizza dough made with bread flour is more chewy.
Boyd Kobe says
We do pizza every Friday so I can’t wait to try this out! It looks so easy!
Jeremy says
Hi! Can you freeze the dough if you dont use it all?
thecuriouschickpea says
Hi Jeremy, you can freeze extra dough, just let it defrost in the fridge before use. The dough also can be used for 3-5 days after making it if left in the refrigerator. After 3 days it will need to be re-shaped into a dough ball to reinvigorate the gluten. You’ll need to let it relax for at least an hour if not two at room temperature before making pizza, or stick it back in the fridge until another day. After day 5 it would make some great focaccia!
Taylor Dent says
Thanks for the recipe!
I am planning to prepare dough for 10 people, each having their own 10″ pizza. Would you recommend tripling the recipe to fit this quantity?
I will also be cooking these over campfire coals in cast iron pans, oiled, and covered with aluminum foil. I was planning to use the high heat of direct contact with the coals and to cook for about 5 minutes. Do you have any insight into how I may best achieve thoroughly cooked dough?
Thanks again!
thecuriouschickpea says
Hi Taylor, for 10 individual pizzas I would divide each batch of dough into 5 pieces (instead of the 3 written in the recipe) and so would double the recipe. Maybe 2.5x to have some extras just in case or to make the extra dough into breadsticks or focaccia.
So I’ve never cooked pizza dough in a campfire, but have on the grill as well as in a cast iron in my oven. I’ll try to give some tips based on my experience!
For grilled pizza, you’ll flip the pizza dough over halfway through and then top the par-cooked dough, because you only have heat from below. Then covering will allow heat to get up and melt your cheese/warm your toppings. I still find this method best with toppings you don’t need to super roast the toppings. This might be the most similar to pizza made over a campfire.
However, if you’re able to heat up the cast iron before adding the dough (but careful because this would be very hot) and putting a lid or aluminum foil over top could help keep enough heat in to let the top cook without flipping the dough.
I would probably try the latter method first with a single pizza to see if it works as it would be the easiest if you’re able to find a safe way to handle the hot cast iron as you add dough and top the pizza, but if that doesn’t work use the concept of flipping the dough like grilled pizza to make the pizzas! Hope that helps.
Syrena Williams says
This was wonderful! We made a deep dish and two thins with the recipe. No one knew it was a vegan recipe until I told them. The instructions were easy to follow and the taste was fantastic. Thank you for helping this journey of a new lifestyle (no dairy and no eggs) be one that is easier to do than I thought.
Michael Sinclair says
I was planning to make pizza for a party of around 50 freinds and needed to make the dough a day before. Found this recipe and it was perfect. I made *10 the quantity in one batch, which was tough, but made around 15-18 14″ pizzas (I lost count) In a steel pizza oven. I didn’t separate the dough into individual pizzas before hand because of the quantity, instead I kept it in 2 halfs in large bags with plenty oil, which was fine. The dough was the best I have made and everyone at the party went crazy for it, so much air in the crust. The main plus of this is how good it tastes and that thin or thick crust are both delicious, which is not always th case (with some recipes favouring thin or thick). From now on this will be my go to recipe. Thanks a lot for making the part a success. Wish I could share photos.
thecuriouschickpea says
That is amazing! I’m so glad you and your guests enjoyed the pizza dough! Thanks for reporting back, must have been an incredible party 😃
Ben says
I wish this recipe instructed on the amount of ingredients for just one pizza. I don’t want or need multiple doughs.
Jea says
I agree. I search and search and wish I could find this exact kind of recipe (slow rise/ferment in the fridge) but just want a yield of one pizza. It obviously saves time to make a big batch but I can’t get through three pizzas in as many days and I’ve had rotten luck with freezing and defrosting pizza dough.
Eva Agha says
Hi Ben, I do list the ingredients for 3 pizzas, but you can divide the recipe in half (easier than dividing in thirds), and make one pizza that’s about 12″. It’s difficult to measure such small amounts when it comes to yeast if you go below 1/2 of the above recipe, and it would be easier to use a different recipe.
Sometimes if I’m not wanting to make 2 or 3 pizzas, I’ll use the rest of the dough for breadsticks or foccacia. These can easily be frozen and reheated once baked if freezing the dough isn’t something you’re up for.
You can also use the dough for up to 7 days after making it. After you reach the third day you should remove the dough from the fridge, reshape it into a ball, then stick it back in the fridge. Do this each day to keep the dough workable and some of my favorite pizzas come from days 3, 4, 5. If baking on day 3, reshape it then let it sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours before trying to shape into a pizza and baking.
I hope this helps. If you’re weighing your ingredients (which I highly recommend) then it’s even easier to divide the dough into the amounts you want. If dividing into three for a single dough ball, you’ll be stuck guessing at the quantity of yeast and I would just use a scant 1/8 tsp for the yeast as it’s difficult to measure accurately with such small amounts.