Homemade Pizza Recipe

 

Making a good pizza is one of the most rewarding things you can cook at home. The dough is alive and responsive in your hands. The sound a knife makes when it is being used to cut through a well-baked pie. When you bite into a pillowy, chewy, tangy crust, fragrant steam arises. The joy that is shared among the lucky people at your table.

Homemade Pizza Dough

Sure, there are times when we just grab some pizza dough from the store. The best pizza nights are the ones when we make the dough together because it means we work together in the kitchen.

This homemade pizza dough recipe uses a 1:1 ratio of white whole wheat flour to all-purpose flour. We like this combination of whole wheat and white flour because it adds some whole grain power to the crust without giving it the dense texture and dark flavor of an all-whole wheat dough. To make the crust, we mix together two flours, yeast, a small amount of maple syrup, warm water, salt, and olive oil. This creates a crust that is crispy on the outside, soft in the middle, and a perfect golden brown.

Homemade Pizza Toppings

We live deliciously by eating with the seasons. We enjoy making pizza together all year round. Cherry tomatoes that have been grown in greenhouses are starting to appear at farmers markets. With these fresh, seasonal ingredients as a starting point, we created three topping combinations:

• Margherita Pizza – With local cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil from the backyard, this classic pizza is juicy, slightly sweet & totally delicious.
• Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Pizza – Using mint & basil from outside, blend up a super green pesto that paired perfectly with Wisconsin smoked mozzarella & homemade roasted red peppers. Add some extra mint leaves for garnish!
• Peach & Basil Pizza – If you’re head over heels for peaches, so with all the basil you have, you can make this super simple peach & basil pie. Dollops of the pesto from the red pepper pizza added just the right finishing touch here too!

Our Homemade Pizza Sauce

In order to have flavorful toppings, we needed a sauce to support it. This homemade pizza recipe uses pesto as the base for the red pepper pizza, while the peach pizza only has its crust brushed with olive oil. If you want a good margherita pizza, the sauce must be red.

This pizza sauce recipe uses San Marzano tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, red pepper flakes, and a pinch of dried oregano. Place the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until desired consistency is achieved. Spread the sauce on your dough and enjoy! We chose not to cook the sauce before baking so that the freshness of the sweet tomatoes and garlic can be the primary flavors. The pizza’s flavors will become more blended and subdued while it’s in the oven, so you won’t need to cook it on the stovetop afterwards!

Foolproof Homemade Pizza Recipe Tips

Ready to make pizza? Check out these simple tips first:

• Get a good pizza pan. The key to a good crust is a good pizza pan. You want one that will cook the crust evenly on all sides, including the bottom. Lots of cooks swear by a pizza stone. To use a pizza stone, preheat it in the oven (on the “stone” setting if you have a Wolf oven) while you stretch and top your dough. Then, quickly slide the assembled pizza onto the stone and transfer both to the oven to bake. The hot stone will help your crust get nice & crisp on the bottom.
• Keep your dough covered. As your homemade pizza dough rises, make sure to keep it covered. You want to lock moisture in with the dough to keep it soft & pliable. Otherwise, a crusty film will develop around the dough ball, and it will dry out and lose its flexibility.
• Bake, then garnish! Fresh, delicate toppings like herbs will wilt and lose their flavor in the hot oven, so top them onto your pie right before serving. Along with the fresh basil & mint, I like to add dollops of pesto and a drizzle of olive oil before sitting down to eat.

What to Serve with Homemade Pizza

A pizza with a good whole grain crust and lots of vegetable toppings is a filling meal. Our first choice for a side dish is always a seasonal salad. A salad containing either green leaves or arugula is a good, fresh choice, but if we don’t want to prepare a salad with greens, we can use leftover pizza toppings to make a tasty and interesting side salad. Here are some of our favorite salads that make use of toppings that you may have leftover from this homemade pizza recipe:

• Summer Corn Salad – Save some peaches, basil, and red peppers!
• Rainbow Orzo Salad – Save some red peppers, basil, and mint.
• Strawberry Salad with Balsamic and Basil – Save some fresh mozzarella, basil, and cherry tomatoes.
• Fennel & Peach Salad with Mint & Pesto – Save some peaches, basil, pesto, and mint.
• Cherry Tomato Couscous Salad – Save some basil and cherry tomatoes!

Homemade Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

• Pizza Dough , 1 recipe per pizza

Margherita Pizza

• ½ heaping cup pizza sauce
• 8 ounces fresh bocconcini mozzarella , sliced
• ½ cup sliced cherry tomatoes
• 10 basil leaves
• Pinch red pepper flakes
• Extra-virgin olive oil , for drizzling

Peach & Basil Pizza

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil , more for drizzling
• ½ garlic clove , minced
• 8 ounces fresh bocconcini mozzarella , sliced
• 2 ripe peaches , sliced
• Dollops of pesto
• 10 basil leaves
• Pinches red pepper flakes

Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Pizza

• Pesto , for spreading & dolloping
• 1½ cups grated smoked mozzarella
• ½ cup sliced roasted red peppers
• ½ cup mint leaves
• Pinches red pepper flakes

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 500°F.
2. Margherita Pizza: Spread the pizza sauce onto the dough. Top with the fresh mozzarella and tomatoes and bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until the crust is browned. Remove from the oven and top with fresh basil leaves and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Drizzle with olive oil and serve.
3. Peach & Basil Pizza: Combine the olive oil and garlic in a small bowl. Brush the garlic oil onto the dough, then top with the fresh mozzarella and peaches. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until the crust is browned. Remove from the oven and top with dollops of pesto, fresh basil, and pinches of red pepper flakes. Drizzle with olive oil and serve.
4. Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Pizza: Spread a thin layer of pesto onto the dough. Top with the cheese and roasted red peppers. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, or until the crust is browned. Remove from the oven and top with dollops of pesto, the mint leaves, and pinches of red pepper flakes.

Homemade Pizza Recipe Tips

5 Key Ingredients for a Really Good Dough

1. Starter: The key differentiating factor in this dough is the use of a mature, flavorful sourdough levain, or a quickly assembled poolish made from active dry yeast, that develops its complexity overnight.
2. Bread Flour: Unless you’re baking at temperatures over 750°F, skip the fancy 00 flour. Bread flour with a high protein content of around 12.7% yields a supple, forgiving dough with moderate gluten strength that’s easily stretched without tearing. Its neutral taste lets the top- pings shine. We like King Arthur Organic Bread Flour.
3. Olive Oil: In addition to boosting flavor, olive oil makes for an elastic dough that’s easy to shape. As the pizza bakes, the fat in the dough bubbles and blisters in the hot oven, forming a speckled and lightly crisp and chewy crust.
4. Warm Water: The ideal dough temperature for fermentation is around 78°F. Starting with water just warmer than this target temperature jump-starts fermentation and ensures the yeast stays happy and active. Filter tap water to remove chlorine, which can adversely affect the dough’s taste and rise.
5. Fine Sea Salt: The small granule size of fine sea salt, such as La Baleine, dissolves quickly and evenly in dough, providing a crisp and clean salinity throughout. Avoid kosher flake and iodized table salt, which will perform differently than fine sea salt. Finish pizzas with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, such as Maldon, for an extra punch of flavor and texture.

Baking in a Kitchen Oven

If you want to brown the top and edges of your pizza, broil it for the last few minutes of cooking. The heat from the stone below will continue to cook the bottom crust. Make sure to turn the oven back up to 500°F so the stone has time to heat up while you’re topping the next pizza.

1. Preheat oven to 500°F with a baking steel or large round cast-iron pizza pan (such as Lodge 15-inch) on middle rack. Let pan preheat in oven about 30 minutes.
2. Gently shake pizza peel with prepared pie to loosen. If pizza feels stuck in any areas, carefully lift pizza edge with a bench scraper, and dust peel with a 1:1 mixture of semolina and bread flour.
3. Unload pizza onto preheated pan using quick, decisive movements: Set the peel edge on the pan at about a 20-degree angle, and quickly pull back peel to slide half of the pizza onto the pan. Gently shake the peel side to side while pulling it back to slide the rest of the pizza onto the pan, allowing it to stretch slightly.
4. Bake at 500°F until edges of crust have puffed slightly, about 3 minutes. Rotate pan 90 degrees, and increase oven temperature to broil. Broil until pizza is cooked through and crust is browned, 3 to 6 minutes. Using the peel, transfer pizza to a cutting board. Reduce oven temperature to 500°F. If needed, dust off any residual flour on pizza pan using a silicone pastry brush or thickly folded flour sack towel. Let baking stone preheat for a few minutes before loading the next pizza.

Baking in a Backyard Pizza Oven

We have always wanted one of those tiled, wood-fired pizza ovens that all of our favorite pizza places have. However, you don’t need to spend as much money as it would cost to buy a Ferrari to make pizzas at home that are just as good as ones made by professional pizza makers. We created these recipes to be cooked in home ovens that reach a maximum temperature of 500°F, as well as in the popular portable backyard pizza ovens that use gas or wood and can reach a temperature of 950°F. Controlling heat is the key to a proper bake. Here’s how to do it.

1. Preheat pizza oven and pizza stone according to manufacturer’s instructions on high 20 minutes. (Note: Cooking with wood takes more experience to control the heat, so we’ve only included instructions for gas oven cooking here.)
2. Reduce oven heat to medium-low. Follow directions in steps 2 and 3 for “Baking in a Kitchen Oven” (at left) to transfer pizza to oven. Cook pizza, using peel to rotate pizza 90 degrees every 20 to 30 seconds, until cooked through and crust is risen and charred in spots, 2 to 4 minutes.
3. Using peel, transfer pizza to a cutting board. If needed, brush off any residual flour on stone using an oven brush. Let oven preheat on high for a few minutes before loading the next pizza.

Make-Ahead-Pizza for a Crowd

We found that parbaking shaped dough is a great way to speed up dinner for busy families or people who are hosting a pizza party. We found that the crust becomes extra crackly by using this method.

Kitchen Oven Parbaking

Shape pizza dough and bake at 500°F on a pre-heated stone until it is just cooked through, which should take 4 to 5 minutes. Once the cake is done baking, remove it from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Skins can be stored in a large ziplock plastic bag in the freezer for up to 2 months. Thaw skins at room temperature about 30 minutes. Place the toppings of your choice on the pizza and bake it for 3 to 6 minutes until it is as cooked as you like it.

Pizza Oven Parbaking

Bake pizza dough for 1 to 2 minutes, rotating pizza every 30 seconds, until just cooked through. Place the wire rack on a cooling surface to allow it to cool completely, which will take approximately 20 minutes. You can freeze parbaked crusts in ziplock bags for up to 2 months. Thaw skins at room temperature 30 minutes. Place your desired toppings on the pizza, and bake for 1-2 minutes until it is cooked to your liking.

Better Leftover Pizza

We had lots of leftover slices during recipe testing. Here’s how to reheat them: For a few slices, heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high. Place the pizza slices in a single layer on the pan and cook for 3-5 minutes, or until they are heated through. Flash under broiler for 1 minute, if desired. For several slices, reheat on a preheated pizza stone until pizza is hot, 2 to 3 minutes.