This recipe uses basic ingredients for a sourdough pizza crust that is full of flavor and can be made ahead of time.
If you have been baking with sourdough for any length of time, you know that discarding your starter is a necessary evil. If you don’t do it, it will overflow the container and also starts to lose its vigor. But it feels so wrong! You are a baker, you are thrifty, you don’t like to waste things. Alas, it must be done. The solution is find recipes that use discard starter. Here’s one you’ll like. (And here’s another that’s totally different.)
When you love baking and love pizza, a sourdough pizza crust is a natural fit.
Step by step sourdough pizza dough
This is a simple recipe. We begin by combining all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Don’t worry about the order. In they go. Stir with a wooden spoon. Sometimes the dough will seem too dry and crumbly, like it will not come together.:
If this happens, add water a teaspoon at a time and mix the dough until a somewhat shaggy ball has formed:
Once you have achieved the right hydration level for your dough, simply cover it with a clean tea towel and let it rest on the counter for 30 minutes. This makes sure all the flour gets combined with the water.
After this brief rest, its time to knead. This dough only needs a short knead, so I do it by hand. A stand mixer would also work well for this. (Read this if you need tips on kneading with your stand mixer.)
You know you have sufficiently kneaded when the dough goes from sticky to smooth.
Once you are done kneading, shape into a dough ball and place the dough into a clean, lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap.
The dough rises at room temperature for three to four hours or overnight in the fridge. It will double in size, and look like this:
Divide into thirds, or whatever size you need for your pizzas. Shape into a rough disk on a floured surface and let them come to room temperature before stretching them out into a thin crust.
Baking pizzas with this dough
You can use whatever recipe you want to bake your final product. If you want (ahem) the best pizza recipe, I have one for New York style pizza.
Optional ingredients for sourdough pizza crust
- The most “authentic” pizza dough is made with Italian 00 flour. It has a very fine texture and can be subbed 1:1 for bread flour in this recipe. I can’t always find it at the store and it is expensive, but I do like to use it when I have it on hand.
- To help the crust brown even more in the oven, you can replace 1/2 tablespoon of the sugar with diastatic malt powder. For these pictures I just used sugar to show the color of the crust, but diastatic malt powder is a great product for sourdough bakers to have. The dough will rise a bit more and brown faster.
Here’s the video and the recipe:
Sourdough Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups of bread flour or 00 flour
- 1 1/2 cups of fed sourdough starter see notes if you want to use discard starter
- 3/4 cup water
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2.5 tablespoons sugar
Instructions
Make the dough
- Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, mixing gently with a spoon until a ball forms. If the dough seems so dry that 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.
- Turn dough out onto counter and knead until dough feels smooth to the touch and loses its stickiness, about five minutes.
- Place dough in a clean oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to rise 3-4 hours at room temperature, or overnight in the fridge.
Make the pizzas
- Remove dough from fridge and divide into thirds (or halves or quarters, depending on the desired thickness of your crust and size of your baking sheet). Preheat pizza stone to 500 degrees. Allow to come to room temperature before stretching the dough.
- 5. Stretch dough into desired shape and place on parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal. Top pizza dough and bake at 500 degrees on pizza stone for 9-12 minutes, until crust is browned and center of pizza is baked.
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This is a great recipe thank you . I just started making sourdough during lockdown and it is so handy to freeze and takeout and use as required.
If I make this the night before can I keep it in the refrigerator until the next afternoon and make the pizza for that evening?
yes! let it warm up for a couple hours on the counter or it will hard and difficult to shape.
This is the best pizza crust that I’ve ever made! Thank you so much for shairng your recipe!
~Sheila
thank you sheila! we love it too!
Will it work without sugar? or at least less sugar?
sure! you could just leave it out
I’ve made this recipe with discarded starter numerous times. We love it. But I just realized that I think the last few times I did not add the yeast. Soooo….is the yeast really necessary….what would be the difference in using it or not?
Yvonne your starter is probably feeding on the dough as it rests and becoming active. as long as it keeps working, that’s great! when the weather turns cold it might slow things down.
Hello:) wana ask you if i can half bake just the crush n put them in the freezer for later use?
I’ve never tried it but it should work fine
Can this dough be frozen?
yes, in theory. I find that it never rises quite as well in my experience though.
Can you make in cast iron skillet ?
yes, but I would still preheat it and use parchment.
Do you leave the dough on the parchment paper when you put it on the hot stone?
yes! I have tried it without and it stuck
Thanks ! I made 3 very nice pizzas 🙂 I’m glad that I can use my starter easily.
I baked the pizzas without a stone at 270 degrees C and they were crusty.
Thanks for the recipe !
I’m so happy to know the pizzas were crusty without a pizza stone! this is one of our favorite uses for starter too 🙂
I’d like to make this ahead of time. How long will it last in the fridge, or can I freeze it?
I wouldn’t freeze it, but it will be fine in the fridge 3 days. I would lightly coat the ball of dough in olive oil and cover with plastic wrap.
I’ve followed this recipe and it was amazing!!! I have a question, what happens if I use AP flour instead of bread flour?
Thanks!
Hi Rosa! It should be fine, with two differences: AP flour absorbs less water. I’d reduce the water by 20% to start, then add a bit more if needed. Also it might not be quite as chewy. 🙂
Is there any reason to use instant yeast instead of regular active dry? I happen to have a big bag of the regular stuff on hand, and the rising time does seem to be enough.
Regular is fineZ, just add it to the liquid at the beginning 🙂
I did the overnight in the fridge method and this morning my dough is hard as a rock. My starter was very active and I followed everything else exactly. Any ideas how I might salvage it?
Lindsay, put on the counter and cover it with plastic wrap. it should soften a lot as it comes to room temp 🙂
It was delicious! I didn’t have time to wait for my starter to be ready (just took it out from the refrigerator) so I added a tsp of yeast. I used garlic salt because we love garlic and added 2 taps of Italian seasoning. Made large and medium size pizza baked on cast iron pans. This will be my pizza dough recipe from now on. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
so glad you liked it Karen! I will have to try the garlic salt and Italian seasoning, that sounds delicious!
Katie Shaw – DO NOT use “garlic salt”, but “GARLIC POWDER”. ????
First time baking sourdough pizza crust and had a terrific result with this recipe – thanks for sharing it!
glad you liked it Stephanie!
Used twice the water.
The crust was ok but not great. Diastatic Malt didn’t brown the crust anymore than if it hadn’t been used.
Have you ever frozen this dough? Wondering if I make it today and don’t get to it tomorrow, if I can freeze it for when I’m ready to make pizza. Time to feed Gus (my starter) and it’s good and bubbly, so I don’t want to waste the discard. Thanks!
I have frozen it and I felt like it didn’t rise so well after it was defrosted. I would just make it now and tuck it in the fridge overnight.
this looks like a delicious alternative!
This looks delicious! Which pizza stone do you recommend?
I have this one from Williams Sonoma I had a cheap one a few years ago and it broke ???? so sadly I think the more expensive ones are better.