Pizza Dough

From frozen, pre-shaped, store-bought to homemade, or even home made with a starter, there are countless options for pizza dough. And making a perfect dough might not happen on the first try – or could go wrong on your 100th! But one thing we believe to always be true – it will always turn out to be pizza!

Two pizza dough balls
Homemade pizza dough.

Dough Basics

Fundamentally, pizza dough is flour, water, a rising agent (typically yeast)…and whatever else you want to throw in it! There are a variety of recipe options one can consider. Some feel the recipe should be extremely strict – such as for Neapolitan pizza. But, this is YOUR pizza! Just like everyone has a favorite food or favorite pizza topping, you’re going to have YOUR favorite dough.

Pizza Crust Ingredients

Types of Pizza Bases

We’re all familiar with the basic pizza dough because we’ve all eaten pizza, but you probably recognize that there a lot of varieties of pizza doughs out there. A classic Neapolitan pizza base is not made the same way as a deep dish pan pizza base is made. There’s a wide variety of ingredients that could be used, different types and amount of yeast, very different proofing times, and even a different sequence of adding the ingredients can play a role.

We continue to explore new recipes all the time and we keep learning ourselves about what makes a pizza base unique and the right choice for a certain type of pizza.

Store-Bought Pizza Dough

Unless you choose a dough that’s pre-formed, even a store-bought, pre-made dough can be spruced up with your own inspirations. Ideally, you want to try it as-is once so you can get a feel for what you’d like to change, but there’s no one stopping you from going for it. Add garlic. Add oregano. Add salt. Just be mindful of additions that could make the pizza crust burn or stick to the cooking surface.

The most important thing about store-bought dough is to make sure it is ideally between 68°F and 72°F before you start rolling it out. If the dough is cold to the touch, it will be very difficult to stretch and it will spring back. To accelerate the warming process, you can start by stretching it out somewhat. But don’t microwave it!

Home-made Pizza Dough

Ready to get the pizza party started? It’s time to explore the world of home-made dough. We strongly recommend our own easy pizza dough recipe to get started. We have found it to be easy (obviously), consistent, and reliably tasty! It does well in every type of pizza oven too!

pizza dough

When you’re ready to try something else, you should give our Thin Crust Pizza a try.

Oiled dough stretched to 12"

The next in your repertoire might be a classic Margherita Neapolitan pizza, but that one is tricky without a VERY hot oven.

Exploring Other Options

From the basics, you’ll find it’s not a far leap to explore other crust types, like Beer Crust Pizza (where water is substituted for beer) or using a starter in your dough.

And there are a lot of options to explore with different types of yeast too!

You’ll find a variety of recipes on our site, including a smaller batch version of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN)‘s traditional Neapolitan pizza dough. We hope we can help you find your own personal favorite!

Our Dough Recipes:

You can see all of our dough recipe posts here, including some informational posts if you want to learn more about dough making.

Or you can pick a dough recipe from the list below!

Don’t see a recipe here? Ask us to make one! We love to experiment!