Learn how to make this easy discard sourdough pizza crust. It only has four basic ingredients, no kneading or rising required. You really can’t get much simpler than this delicious pizza crust recipe.
Pizza is a family favorite and some of our favorite kinds include chicken Alfredo pizza and easy breakfast pizza. While I love making our sourdough pizza dough recipe when I have the time, sometimes we need something super quick and delicious on the table. That is where this discard sourdough crust recipe comes in handy!
All you need is sourdough starter, Italian seasoning, salt and a little bit of olive oil and you are left with a delicious crispy crust that is ready in no time at all. No need to roll out dough, clean up after a floured work surface or wait for hours while your dough rises. It is the perfect recipe for busy days and the options for how you can use it are endless.
Top your crust with fresh thinly sliced tomatoes, cheese, and your favorite pizza toppings like fresh basil and pepperoni. Serve it alongside a fresh salad with homemade kefir ranch and a glass of fermented lemonade for the perfect lunch or dinner, ready in minutes!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Easy – This sourdough discard pizza crust recipe is as easy as spreading some starter in a preheated cast iron pan with some seasonings and olive oil. It really is as simple as it gets!
Sourdough discard – I’m a big fan of sourdough discard recipes. And if you make a lot of sourdough bread like I do, you probably have some discard on hand. This is a great way to use that jar of sourdough discard, plus I love the sourdough flavor that is featured in this crust.
Versatile – This thin crust is the perfect base to fill with your favorite toppings for your next homemade pizza night. It is a great meal for picky eaters since you can adjust the fillings to your family’s preferences.
Ingredients
Fed sourdough starter or discard – You can use unfed sourdough starter or active and bubbly starter. Most of the time I just pull my sourdough starter right out of the fridge and use it. If you are new to sourdough, check out this post to learn how to make your own sourdough starter.
Italian Seasoning – The Italian seasoning is optional, but it adds the delicious Italian flavor that we all love and come to expect on pizza.
A full ingredient list with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
How to Make Discard Sourdough Pizza Crust
Step 1: Preheat a pizza stone, or cast iron skillet, to 425 degrees.
Step 2: When the oven is preheated, and the pans are scorching hot, take them out of the oven. Drizzle your baking vessel (stone or skillet) of choice with a little extra virgin olive oil.
Step 3: Ladle sourdough starter onto the hot pan.
Step 4: Spread it out until you have a nice thin layer in the size you want.
Step 5: Hit it with another drizzle of olive oil. Sprinkle it with salt and Italian seasoning. It will already start to bake when it makes contact with the pan. This is totally good and expected.
Step 6: Pop it back in the oven, until crispy, and easily pulls up from the pan. About 10 minutes.
Step 7: Remove the crust from the skillet (if using a skillet) and add to a baking sheet. Add your favorite sauce and toppings. Pop it back into the oven.
Step 8: Bake another 8-10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly. Slice and enjoy!
Note On Avoiding a Soft Crust
There is one downside to this impossibly easy sourdough discard pizza crust. You can’t pour regular pasta/pizza sauce on it without it getting soft, even when it is nicely browned before you add the sauce. There are a few options you can go with to get the best results out of your crust.
- Option One: Thinly slice fresh tomatoes. Spread them out in a thin layer on your baked sourdough pizza crust, and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Put it in the oven and roast for about 10 minutes. Add the other toppings and cheese. We especially enjoy this option in the summer, when the garden is bursting at the seams with fresh tomatoes. Something about roasted tomatoes!
- Option Two: Make a homemade cream sauce with cheese, cream, garlic, and salt. Spread it on the crust and top with chicken, mushrooms, and cheese to make a chicken Alfredo pizza. This is just about our favorite meals of all time and really is one of the best pizzas ever.
- Option Three: Just add the tomato sauce and eat it a little soft. We do this often and it still tastes great.
Tips
- This recipe is super simple because it utilizes sourdough starter (active or discard); the downside is you can’t use a regular pan. You must use a cast iron or pizza stone.
- The secret to cooking this recipe is preheating the stone or cast iron skillet.
- Chop up your veggie toppings while the stone or cast iron is preheating. Then sauté your veggies and/or meat while the crust is cooking, because the crust will be basically done cooking after the first bake.
Recipe FAQs
You can’t use a normal pizza pan, because the liquid starter would stick to it. You would have quite the mess on your hands. Cast iron and pizza stones are wonderfully nonstick, when preheated. Plus, this ability to preheat a pan that is so heavy is what makes for a crispy crust. The way that it starts baking upon contact makes a crispy crust like no ordinary aluminum pizza pan ever could.
It tastes a lot like regular pizza crust, but the crust itself has a delicious, slightly tangy flavor that you would expect from sourdough.
Yes! Sourdough pizza crust can be stored in the freezer in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Bake it first and then let it cool.
Allow it to thaw in the fridge just a few hours before needing it. When you want to make pizza, just preheat your oven to 450 degrees, take out the sourdough pizza crust, top it with your favorite toppings and then bake until everything is bubbly and melted.
Yes, as long as it is cooked. Using discard in recipes is an easy way to use up excess discard and a good way to eat fermented grains. For this recipe baking discard turns it into pizza crust. You can also bake discard and turn it into delicious homemade sourdough crackers.
Sourdough discard can stay fresh in the fridge for up to a week before it will need to be fed again or thrown away. Personally, I don’t throw away any sourdough because I use it in sourdough discard recipes like this one.
More Sourdough Recipes from the Farmhouse
- Sourdough English Muffins
- Sourdough Monkey Bread
- The Best Sourdough Pancakes
- Sourdough Skillet- Healthy One Pot Meal
- The Best Sourdough Tortillas
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love it if you could come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @farmhouseonboone.
Sourdough Discard Pizza Crust
Video
Equipment
- 1 12 inch Cast Iron Skillet (You can also use a pizza stone or any size cast iron skillet you'd like. Just remember that the size of the skillet or stone will alter how much discard to use.)
Ingredients
- 1 tsp Olive oil, Split in half – 1 tsp for the pan, 1 tsp for drizzling on top.
- 1.5 cups Sourdough discard, The amount you use will depend on how big your skillet or pizza stone is. I used a 12" cast iron skillet and scraped some of the starter up the sides.
- pinch Italian seasoning
- pinch Salt
Instructions
- Preheat a pizza stone, or cast iron skillet, on 425 degrees F.
- When the oven is preheated, and the pans are scorching hot, take them out of the oven.
- Drizzle your baking vessel (stone or skillet) of choice with a little extra virgin olive oil (about 1 teaspoon).
- Ladle sourdough starter onto the hot pan. Now, this is the part that will really bother my recipe-lovin, rule-abidin blog readers. I am not going to give you an amount. I can't. You just spread it out until you have a nice thin layer in the size you want. If you want to see how this looks, watch the video in the blog post.
- Hit it with another drizzle of olive oil (about 1 teaspoon).
- Sprinkle it with salt and Italian seasoning.
- It will already start to bake when it makes contact with the pan. This is totally good and expected.
- Pop it back in the oven, until crispy, and easily pulls up from the pan. About 10 minutes.
- Remove the crust from the skillet (if using a skillet) and add to a baking sheet. Add your favorite sauce and toppings. Pop it back into the oven.
- Bake another 8-10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.
Notes
- The amount of discard you use will depend on the size of your skillet or pizza stone. The amounts above are what I used for a 12″ cast iron skillet.
- You can use unfed sourdough starter or active and bubbly starter. Most of the time I just pull my sourdough starter right out of the fridge and use it. If you are new to sourdough, check out this post to learn how to make your own sourdough starter.
- The Italian seasoning is optional, but it adds the delicious Italian flavor that we all love and come to expect on pizza.
- This recipe is super simple because it utilizes sourdough starter (active or discard); the downside is you can’t use a regular pan. You must use a cast iron or pizza stone so it doesn’t stick.
- The secret to cooking this recipe is preheating the stone or cast iron skillet.
- Chop up your veggie toppings if using while the stone or cast iron is preheating. Then sauté your veggies and/or meat while the crust is cooking, because the crust will be basically done cooking after the first bake.
- There is one downside to this impossibly easy homemade sourdough pizza crust recipe. You can’t pour regular pasta/pizza sauce on it without it getting soft, even when it is nicely browned before you add the sauce. See the post for a note on how to avoid this.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi Lisa! I am so inspired by you.
I am on day 7 of my sourdough starter!
Two questions
1. Can I use it now for pizza crust?
2. How long after feeding should starter be used for this pizza crust?
Lori
We finally tried this recipe tonight and it was incredibly easy and delish! Just used 2 of our cast iron skillets and it worked like a charm. My husband and I each had our own personal pizzas! Thank you for yet another great recipe!
I’m so happy to hear that!
Thank you so much! Because of your “I don’t measure anything and I haven’t killed my sourdough” attitude, I finally took the plunge. I can’t thank you enough. The family has enjoyed every one of your sour dough recipes I have tried. And I love all the super easy recipes with the “throw-away” starter–keep’em coming!!! But I came to say I might have a solution to the crispy crust, or lack there of…baking soda. I mixed some salt and soda into the starter and then poured it on to the heated dishes…and the dough is a little thicker, but it stays crispy! Again, thanks from my whole family!
Cool, Kate! How much soda did you use?
Could you use an enameled cast iron skillet?
Hello, you mentioned baking soda, but you didn’t say how much to use. Can you share that with us?
Lisa, this is amazing! Thank you. I made a gluten-free starter since I have celiac disease and made two pizzas tonight in my cast iron skillets. They turned out absolutely perfect and they were super easy to make. In fact, these were the best pizzas I have ever made!
What recipe do you use for a gluten free starter?? Would love to try that!
I have a 35 year old sour dough starter I use for bread, cinnamon rolls, pancakes and pizza. I wanted to try your pizza crust. My starter is liquid. How much bread flour do I add to make the crust?
Very yummy and the crust wasn’t soggy!!
Tried this today for lunch in a hurry, roaring success. topping was a small tin of tuna, fresh herbs, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella. Actually skipped baking it until the topping was on thus making it even more speedy. Got around the sauce creating sogginess by adding home made tomato sauce after baking. Thank you for the idea
I made this tonight with leftover starter, and we just ate it as a side “flat bread” with BBQ. I just put herbs de province on it and it was so tasty!! Delicious flavorful option for last minute bread!
I just found your site and I’m so intrigued!! I’ll be trying this recipe and several others…can’t wait!
Lisa i Love, love,love the farmhouse style and all your vlogs,you are an inspiration!!
Thank you so much Tamela!
Love watching your videos.
Thank you so much Marie!