Forget about pizza take out! Make your own fluffy homemade pizza dough with just 6 simple ingredients. This is a foolproof recipe for a deliciously crispy crust that’s soft and chewy inside.
If you’ve never made pizza at home, you should definitely give it a try! There is nothing wrong with calling for take out, but it will never taste the same as a homemade meal.
It will be a great recipe for a cozy lazy night or fun summer cookouts! Serve it together with Potato Salad with Bacon, BLT Pasta Salad, or any other party meal!
Let me show you how to make the best homemade pizza dough with just 6 basic ingredients: water, yeast, salt, sugar, olive oil, and flour.
Why this recipe works
Pizza is all about the crust! You want it to be soft and chewy with a delicious crispiness.
The main trick here is water. If you don’t put enough of it, your dough will be tough. Put too much and it will spread and won’t keep the shape. So, we need to put just enough water to keep it moist, resulting in crispy crust that is soft and chewy inside. It’s very similar to how you make Homemade Sandwich Bread.
How to make Homemade Pizza Dough
1. Make the Dough
In a stand mixer bowl add warm water (about 110°F), yeast, and granulated sugar. Give it a stir and let it sit for 5 minutes. The mixture will start to bubble (Photos 1-4).
In 5 minutes, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, and all-purpose flour (Photos 5-8).
In a stand mixer, using a dough attachment, mix the ingredients on low speed until combined. After it’s mixed, let it knead for 5 minutes. The dough will be a little bit sticky.
NOTE: Because different brands have different flour texture and moisture, you might need to use less or more flour. If your dough is too sticky, simply add a little bit more flour. Though, make sure you don’t add to much. It should be soft and a little bit sticky. That will help you to have a chewy and soft texture.
If you don’t have a stand mixer, first, mix all ingredients with spatula, then knead with your hands.
When done, add another 2 tablespoons olive oil to coat dough from all sides.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a clean towel. Let it rise for 2 hours, it will double in size.
2. Shape and Bake
Preheat the oven to 475°F.
When ready, take off the towel and plastic wrap from the bowl and gently press dough to deflate. Divide it in half.
Place one half on a round baking pan. Using your hands, flatten and stretch dough into a 12-inch disk, leaving the edges lifted (Photo 9).
Top with pizza sauce (or Homemade Marinara Sauce), cheese, and pepperoni, and bake at 475°F for 15-18 minutes on a middle rack (Photos 10-12).
Tips for Best Results
- Because different brands have different flour texture and moisture, you might need to use less or more flour. If your dough is too sticky, simply add a little bit more flour. Though, make sure you don’t add to much. It should be soft and a little bit sticky. That will help you to have a chewy and soft texture.
- When proofing the dough, I like to keep it in the oven (which is turned off). The reason being, that this is a perfectly contained place without any wind.
Toppings Ideas
- Classic. Pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni (optional).
- Margherita. Pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, basil.
- BBQ Chicken. Pizza sauce, BBQ sauce, chicken, mozzarella cheese.
- Hawaiian. Tomato Sauce, cheese, ham, pineapple.
- Fig and Prosciutto. Tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, arugula, prosciutto, figs.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can refrigerate it for up to 2 days. Grease it with a little bit of oil, place in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge. When ready to bake, let it sit on the counter for 20-30 minutes to warm up.
Yes! Divide the dough in half (if you freeze both) and lightly cover them with oil. You can wrap them individually in a plastic wrap, then in foil, or just put in individual zip lock bags. Freeze up to 3 months. When ready to use, put it in the fridge overnight. Take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before baking.
Did you make this recipe?!? I’d love to know how it turned out! leave a comment and a rating below👇 thank you!
Soft and Fluffy Homemade Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups warm water (about110°F)
- 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (1 packet)
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons olive oil (divided)
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
- In a stand mixer bowl add 1 ¾ cups warm water (about 110°F), 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast, and 1 tbsp granulated sugar. Give it a stir and let it sit for 5 minutes. The mixture will start to bubble.
- In 5 minutes, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 ½ tsp salt, and 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour.
- In a stand mixer, using a dough attachment, mix the ingredients on low speed until combined. After it’s mixed, let it knead for 5 minutes on low speed. The dough will be a little bit sticky. (If you don't have a stand mixer, first, mix all ingredients with spatula, then knead with your hands.)
- NOTE: Because different brands have different flour texture and moisture, you might need to use less or more flour. If your dough is too sticky, simply add a little bit more flour. Though, make sure you don't add to much. It should be soft and a little bit sticky. That will help you to have a chewy and soft texture.
- When done, add another 2 tablespoons olive oil to coat the dough from all sides.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a clean towel. Let it rise for 2 hours, it will double in size.
- When ready, preheat the oven to 475°F.
- Then take off the towel and plastic wrap from the bowl and gently press the dough to deflate. Divide it in half.
- Place one half of the dough on a round baking pan. Using your hands, flatten and stretch the dough into a 12-inch disk, leaving the edges lifted.
- Top with pizza sauce (or Homemade Marinara Sauce), cheese, pepperoni, and bake at 475°F for 15-18 minutes on a middle rack.
- When done, let it rest for 5 minutes, cut into 8 slices with pizza cutter and serve.
Notes
Can I freeze it? Yes! Divide the dough in half (if you freeze both) and lightly cover them with oil. You can wrap them individually in a plastic wrap, then in foil, or just put in individual zip lock bags. Freeze up to 3 months. When ready to use, put the frozen dough in the fridge overnight. Take it out of the fridge about 30 minutes before baking. Toppings Ideas
- Classic. Pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni (optional).
- Margherita. Pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, basil.
- BBQ Chicken. Pizza sauce, BBQ sauce, chicken, mozzarella cheese.
- Hawaiian. Tomato Sauce, cheese, ham, pineapple.
- Fig and Prosciutto. Tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, arugula, prosciutto, figs.
Hi! Can you tell how much water in ml I need?
@veronikaskitchen your pizza dough recipe “ROCKS”. Turned out better than expected. Put all the ingredients into my old bread maker tin, set it to start and that was it. After prepping and baking, I had my most successful pizza ever!
Thank you so much, Richard! I’m so glad you loved this pizza recipe!
I was looking for a recipe last night for homemade soft pizza dough and I found yours and I just might say that it turned out wonderful I even refrigerated the dough from last night overnight with beautiful results this afternoon when I made it for lunch thank you for sharing a very good recipe., I even have enough though to make another one this size
thank you
Kathy Moraes
Vacaville,. Ca
Thank you so much, Kathy! Glad you liked it!
Hi. Would this recipe work for mini pizza bases too ?
Hi Mimi! Yes, you can just make a few mini pizzas 😉
amazing! I made this for my family and they absolutely love it! definitely going to make this again!
Thank you so much, Sofia!
Absolutely amazing ! Same as or possibly better then Pizza Hut!
So easy to make
Thank you so much, Paula!
Best pizza dough recipe ever! I usually use a Jamie Oliver one which is delicious but my son wanted to make the pizzas himself and he asked for a softer fluffier dough so I googled it up and we made your recipe and the pizza bases were next level delicious and absolutely soft and fluffy! Extremely easy to make too!
Thank you so much, Tisha! I’m so happy your son liked this recipe 😉
I LOVED this pizza dough. The best I have ever made. I definitely had to add more flour I would say about 1/2 cup more. It was sooo good. I surprised myself.
Than you so much, Natalie! Yes, the amount of flour will vary every time when you make dough.
I have to say this is the best pizza dough I have made. I tried pizza yeast but wasn’t happy with the bloom so I went with traditional. I use distilled water as the chlorine in city water can kill the yeast. I also did a second proof when formed. I also use the oven as a proofing box with the light on. Works great then I preheat the oven to 475 and bake on an air pizza pan on parchment and this is on a pizza stone. I wanted a soft pizza stone and this delivered.
Thank you so much, Al! I’m so glad you liked this recipe 😉
A revelation! I’ve been obsessing over pizza doughs lately and trying all sorts of combinations of different recipes, but this one resulted in a pizza that was legitimate perfection. It rivaled my favorite pizzeria and my family was in awe! The pizza was soft and fluffy with a golden crust on the bottom and plenty of those delicious, puffy air bubbles.
I made a couple of minor adjustments and additions to this recipe:
1) I decided to try a 3:1 ratio of all-purpose flour to bread flour. For the recipe’s proportions as written, that ended up being 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose with just over 1 cup of bread flour because I ended up needing more than 3 1/2 cups total flour as the dough was far too sticky.
2) I whisked in some granulated garlic, dried oregano, and dried basil into my flour mixture before adding it to my yeast mixture. The crust tasted almost like garlic knots and my whole kitchen smelled divine!
3) I started by mixing everything in my stand mixer and kneaded on low for about a minute or two before deciding to knead by hand. After my dough passed the window pane test, I let it rest and the result was far better than similar recipes I tried with just stand mixer kneading.
4) I baked my pizzas at 450F; 475 was just way too hot to bake the crust and the toppings at the same time.
5) I coated my (nonstick) baking sheets with olive oil which created a great golden brown crust on the bottom.
Thank you for this recipe. I’m so glad I found it!!
Hi Katie! I’m so happy that you loved the recipe! Also, it such a great idea to add garlic and seasoning to the dough for more flavor, I need to try it as well 😉
This recipe is perfect for making my homemade pizzas! I have to add a little more flour or the dough is quite soupy.
Using a pizza stone makes all the difference in the world it comes out crispy on the outside and tender and chewy on the inside!
I’ve tried baking this at 475 but it was way too hot! It got crispy before the ingredients cooked. Then I tried 450 still not the result I was looking for. Finally for my oven, 425 was best. I put the pizza stone in the very bottom of the oven, then preheat it to 425, put the pizza on parchment paper, cook it on the stone for 6 minutes, remove the parchment paper, cook it for another 6 minutes and it cooks perfectly!
Hi Kelly Lynn, I’m glad you found the right temperature that works for you! I think the timing and temperature was different because you used a pizza stone, which heats up the bottom of the dough much faster.
I’ve tried all recipes and this is by far the best. Thank you for this easy soft and fluffy pizza. Being Italian and raised on homemade pizza this is the way.
Thank you so much, Tony! I’m so happy you enjoyed the recipe 😉
I normally don’t comment but this recipe is the bomb. I get complimented everytime I make it. Thank you
Yaay! Thank you so much, Ross! I’m glad you and your family loved this recipe 😉
Would the other half of the dough be work for bread sticks?
Hi Deborah, I never tested this recipe for bread sticks. So, unfortunately, I’m not sure if that will work.
The best pizza I ever had. Even my mom who grew up in Chicago said this was amazing. The only recipe you need.
Thank you so much, Dakota! I’m so happy you and your mom enjoyed this recipe!