How to Make Sourdough Pizza Dough Without Yeast: Easy and Delicious!

If you’re a fan of crispy, flavorful pizza crust, you’ve got to try out this sourdough recipe! Sourdough Pizza Dough is a super easy pizza dough recipe that makes fantastic use of sourdough starter and delivers amazing flavor. 

It’s the perfect way to use your sourdough starter for something besides bread.

sourdough pizza crust on parchment paper with toppings

Sourdough Pizza Crust

A thin and delicious pizza crust made with your sourdough starter. You can start in the morning and have it ready for dinner.
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
rising time 4 hours
Total Time 4 hours 40 minutes
Serving Size 12 servings

Equipment

  • Mixing bowl
  • Wooden spoon
  • Plastic Wrap
  • pizza stone, baking steel, or baking sheet
  • a pizza peel (or other way to transfer the dough in and out of the oven)

Ingredients 

  • cups of bread flour or 00 flour
  • cups of fed sourdough starter see notes if you want to use discard starter
  • ¾ cup water
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • tablespoons sugar

Instructions 

Make the dough

  • Mix. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, mixing gently with a spoon until a ball forms. If the dough seems too dry and a ball is not forming, add more water, a teaspoon at a time. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
    sourdough pizza dough in bowl before kneading.
  • Knead. Turn the dough onto the counter and knead until it feels smooth and loses its stickiness, about five minutes.
    kneading sourdough pizza dough over counter.
  • First rise. Place the dough in a clean, oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Allow it to rise for 3-4 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge.
    risen pizza dough.

Make the pizzas

  • Bring to room temperature and preheat. Remove the dough from the fridge and divide it into thirds (or halves or quarters, depending on the desired thickness of your crust and the size of your baking sheet). Preheat a pizza stone to 500°F. Allow the dough to come to room temperature before stretching.
  • Stretch and bake. Stretch the dough into the desired shape and place it on parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal. Top the pizza dough as desired and bake at 500°F on the pizza stone for 9-12 minutes, until the crust is browned and the center of the pizza is baked.
    stretching pizza dough out.

Video

Notes

Sourdough dough can be sticky, so it’s helpful to lightly flour your hands and work surface to make kneading and stretching easier.
Different brands of flour and measuring methods can vary, so you might need to adjust the amount of flour or water in the dough. Don’t worry about it. Use the dough’s appearance as a guide. If it seems dry, add more water. If it’s too sticky, add more flour. Just make sure to do it slowly.
If your sourdough starter isn’t fed, mix it before using and add 1 teaspoon of instant yeast to the recipe.
To make a thinner and softer crust, use Italian 00 flour instead of bread flour.
For a browner crust and better rise in the oven, replace ½ tablespoon of the sugar with diastatic malt powder.
Using weight (grams) to measure flour instead of volume (cups) helps make your dough more accurate and consistent.
Calories: 142kcal | Carbohydrates: 30g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 389mg | Potassium: 39mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 3g | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 2mg

More Tips:

If the dough is hard to stretch, let it rest for 10 minutes. This will relax the gluten and make the dough more flexible.

Always allow your dough to reach room temperature before stretching it. Cold dough is more difficult to work with and won’t rise as well in the oven.

Using too many toppings can make your pizza soggy. Stick to a few high-quality ingredients to maintain a crisp crust.

Make sure that your pizza stone is fully preheated to 500°F to help achieve a crispy crust and even cooking.

If you don’t have a pizza stone, you can use a baking sheet. It may not get as hot, but it will still do the job.

If you want to use a sourdough starter from the fridge, make sure to bring it to room temperature before using it in this recipe. You can use a discard starter if you add yeast, but the dough will rise better and be bubbly with an active starter.

3 balls of homemade dough topped with flour

Serving Suggestions

You can serve this Sourdough Pizza Dough recipe with your favorite toppings like sliced tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, fresh arugula, prosciutto, and shaved provolone, or even simple kid-friendly pizza of pepperoni and chees

About the Ingredients

You can try these ingredient substitutes for this recipe: 

  • Bread flour: Use all-purpose flour instead of bread flour for a softer crust.
  • 00 flour: Use bread flour if 00 flour is unavailable.
  • Fed sourdough starter: Instead of fed sourdough starter, use an unfed starter with 1 teaspoon of instant yeast.
  • Sugar: Swap sugar with honey or maple syrup for a different flavor.
a cheese pizza on parchment paper with sourdough pizza crust

Remember that these substitutions will alter the recipe’s outcome, but feel free to experiment and find your favorite version!

Storage Instructions

Pizza dough can be stored in the fridge for up to three days or in the freezer for up to two months. If you’re storing it in the freezer, tightly wrap the dough in plastic wrap or place it in a freezer-safe bag.

Let the dough ball thaw overnight in the fridge to reheat frozen pizza dough. Then, let it come to room temperature on the counter before stretching and baking according to the recipe instructions.

Enjoy making this easy sourdough pizza crust at home for a delicious, crispy base that will surely become a favorite. With a few simple steps, you’ll have a perfect crust ready for any topping you like.

picture of smiling female

By Katie Shaw

Katie lives in Virginia with her husband, three daughters, a chocolate lab, and over thirty chickens. She loves creating simple tutorials for sourdough, bread, and soap. Her recipes, articles, and YouTube videos reach millions of people per year.

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Recipe Rating




45 Comments

  1. 5 stars
    We love this recipe! I do need to add more liquid than 3/4 cup. I usually triple this for our large family anyway. I add a few seasonings (Dried Tomato & Garlic Pesto, garlic salt, and/or pizza seasoning) when I feel like it, to give it another burst of flavor.

  2. I’m having a make-your-own pizza party for some teens. I want to use this recipe. Approximately how large can each pizza be if I provide 1/3 the recipe for each person? I’m hoping each pizza can be about 8” with it not being extremely thin.

  3. 5 stars
    I made my pizza following your recipe and was very pleased with the taste and ease of making the dough. I cut it in half and froze one half in the freezer for baking in the future. Yum.

  4. 5 stars
    Thank you for the recipe….I made it ~! The dough was AMAZING to work with…. but I made a mistake by not letting the dough come to room temperature when I stretched it out onto my pans (had company, got distracted, then just had to get dinner made so I took a chance). The dough stretched beautifully, but when it went into the oven it shrank quite a bit…so I think next time I will make sure it’s nice and relaxed and at room temp before it goes into the oven…. I’ve been making homemade pizza for years…but just started getting into sourdough and I’m SO glad I found your recipe this will be my new pizza dough recipe for SURE~!!! THANKS ~!!