Soft, chewy, and tangy, this sourdough pizza dough is the perfect recipe for those family pizza nights. Start the dough in the morning and it will be ready to bake up with your favorite toppings in the afternoon.
Pizza is so great because it is quick to throw together and it makes the perfect base to be topped with whatever you desire. This sourdough pizza crust recipe puts you just a few ingredients away from the most delicious bubbly pizza with a chewy crust. Whether you choose to cook it in an outdoor pizza oven, your home oven, or even a grill, it is sure to come out amazing!
Top your pizza with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and fresh basil for a classic taste, or skip the pizza sauce and use homemade pesto as the base. Make a chicken Alfredo pizza by topping your crust with Alfredo sauce, chicken, cheese and any veggies you like. You can also get a little fancy and try an olive oil, goat cheese, and date sauce pizza. Serve a fresh salad with homemade dressing on the side to round out the meal.
No matter how you choose to adorn your perfect pizza crust, it’s sure to be a crowd pleaser next time you have a pizza party!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Tasty – The sourdough in this recipe adds so much flavor and tanginess. This crust also has the best chewy consistency. There is just something about making your own pizza at home, it’s fun and tasty!
Crowd pleaser – Homemade pizza is so delicious, plus being able to customize it with your own topping preferences makes it great for picky eaters.
Make ahead – Make this dough days or weeks ahead and have pizza dough ready for a quick and easy meal.
Ingredients
Active sourdough starter – Active starter is sourdough starter that has been fed within 4-12 hours, and it’s active and bubbly. You want to use starter that is at the peak of its bubbling in order to give the dough the most rise.
A full ingredient list with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Tools You May Need
How to Make Sourdough Pizza Dough
Step 1: The morning of pizza night, add the ingredients to a stand mixer bowl, using a kitchen scale if you choose to weigh the ingredients.
Step 2: With a dough hook attachment, mix the dough on medium speed until the dough passes the windowpane test, which might take up to 10 minutes.
Step 3: Place in an oiled bowl and cover with a lid, plastic wrap or a plastic bag. Rest at room temperature for about 8 hours or until the dough has doubled in size.
Step 4: Preheat oven to 475. Divide dough into 4 equal portions and allow to rest while you prepare your toppings.
Step 5: Roll out on a lightly floured work surface with a rolling pin. I like to create a bit of a ridge around the outside for hand stretched thickness.
Step 6: Spread pizza sauce on top of the dough and top with your favorite toppings.
Step 7: Bake for 13-15 minutes. (I like to use a preheated pizza stone or cast iron skillet but you can also use a pizza pan). Finish off with a 3 minute broil to achieve the browning on top of the crust.
Tips
- Be careful not to over-ferment the dough. This will leave you with a sloppy mess.
- This dough can be made days or even weeks in advance. If you are planning to use it within a few days, place in the fridge in an airtight container until ready to use. You can also freeze for later.
- Make sure that your dough is at room temperature before rolling. The correct dough temperature allows the dough to relax, and makes it easier to shape and roll.
Recipe FAQs
Yes. Sourdough starter and the fermentation process adds another layer of flavor to pizza dough and makes it easier to digest
Most dough uses conventional yeast like instant yeast to give it rise. Sourdough is made with a sourdough starter, which uses wild yeast and bacteria to leaven the dough.
This could be caused by a few different things, such as over baking, over working the dough, or adding too much flour.
Store dough in the fridge up to a week, or place in the freezer after it has risen and has been divided. Wrap with plastic wrap and then store in a freezer plastic bag.
Pre bake crusts for about 8-10 minutes and then allow to cool. Wrap in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
More Sourdough Recipes from the Farmhouse
- Sourdough Pumpkin Bread
- Sourdough Sandwich Rolls
- Easy Sourdough Dinner Rolls
- Sourdough Cheese Bread
- Sourdough Cornbread
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.
Easy Homemade Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Kitchen Scale optional
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup starter
- 4 cups flour
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- The morning of pizza night, add the ingredients to a stand mixer bowl.
- With a dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed until the dough passes the windowpane test, which might take up to 10 minutes.
- Place in an oiled bowl and cover with a lid or plastic wrap. Rest at room temperature for about 8 hours.
- Preheat oven to 475.
- Divide the dough into 4 equal sections and allow to rest while you prepare your toppings.
- Roll out on a lightly floured surface. I like to create a bit of a ridge around the outside for hand stretched thickness.
- Spread pizza sauce and top with your favorite toppings.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes (I like to use a preheated pizza stone or cast iron skillet but you can also use a pizza pan.). Finish off with a 3 minute broil to achieve the browning on top of the crust.
Notes
- Active starter is sourdough starter that has been fed within 4-12 hours, and it’s active and bubbly. You want to use starter that is at the peak of its bubbling in order to give the dough the most rise.
- Be careful not to over-ferment the dough. This will leave you with a sloppy mess.
- This dough can be made days or even weeks in advance. If you are planning to use it within a few days, place in the fridge in an airtight container until ready to use. You can also freeze for later.
- Make sure that your dough is at room temperature before rolling. The correct dough temperature allows the dough to relax, and makes it easier to shape and roll.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Fantastic and airy pizza. I used an electric pizza oven and it was perfect.
Hallo
Bei mir hat die Umstellung auf gramm nicht geklappt. Ich habe dann von der halben Tasse Sauerteig = 60 gramm auf die anderen Zutaten umgerechnet und dann hatte ich irgendwie zu wenig Wasser
Könnten Sie evtl die grammangaben ergänzen?
I’d like to add a little twist that I found regarding doing bread or dough with sourdough. We often need warm water but sometimes even if you follow the same steps you don’t have the same result. I learn that you need to take the temperature of your house and flour in order to have the same result.
The formula to know at which temperature you need to have your warm water is : 70- room temprature- flour temperature. This will give you the water temperature. This formula is for temperature in Celsius degree. Sorry, I don’t know the one for Fahrenheit degree.
Example : 70-22-21 = 27. So you water has to be at 27 Celsius degree.
I hope this will help with your soudough baking.
Can you provide freezing instructions? I have passed the 8 hour ferment step, but now I’m wondering what’s the best way to freeze. Divide dough and freeze as is? Pre bake and if so for how long? Thank you!
Yes, divide the dough into 4 and then freeze in balls. Pull out and let them thaw, then roll out and continue with the recipe for baking directions.
If I’m making this 1 day in advance do I let it double before putting in the fridge or should I leave some room for it to double in the fridge?
I haven’t made my pizza yet but just wanted to comment on the measurements. I was curious about just trying to use cup measurements and I didn’t notice I could toggle to grams. When I measure flour I do the sprinkle method that is on King Arthur’s website. When you do that your cups will be closer to 120 grams each. My dough was very loose and not forming a ball in the stand mixer. I added a little more flour but I didn’t just want to keep adding flour. I switched to the counter and kneaded by hand for a bit with a little more flour. Still pretty sticky. So then I switched to a bowl and did stretch and folds a few times over the next couple hours. I did finally get a good window pane test. I let it sit on the counter as long as I had time for and then put it in the fridge. That was 2 days ago. I do think it’s going to turn out.
I came back to the recipe today for baking instructions and saw where I could have changed my measurements. In grams the flour is 560! That’s quite a bit more I think than what I measured by sprinkling and then swiping off the excess. So if everything turns out I might try this recipe again by weight.
This isn’t to be critical. I just hope it might help someone else. Don’t give up and throw away just because it’s too sticky. 🙂
Glad you figured it out! Yes, I measure my cups by the scooping and leveling from the flour bag. It does make them a little heavier!
After two successful tries and two really awful ones, I decided to stick the dough into the fridge and try again the next day to roll it out instead of just dumping it. It was still pretty dense but I figured I had nothing to lose. There may have been just a little bit of rise to it. I managed to get 4 approximately 10 in. crusts from it, and the dough was super sticky so I just kept adding flour, but I prebaked the crusts and they came out better than I expected. I still am not sure what I did wrong this last time, but I accepted that sometimes things just don’t go as planned and maybe it’s a lack of patience on my part. I’m determined to get this right and we’re going to have pizza tonight!
I left this dough out at room temp for 12 hrs instead of 8 hrs. I just put it in the fridge to use tonight. How do I know if it isn’t good to use ? It did double in size
It should be good to go!
I could give the recipe 5 stars and myself 1, so I chose 3! I’ve had the same issue as some others. Oddly enough, the first 2 times I made this, it came out great. It rose properly, made a great thin crust, and I even froze some for future use. But the last two times were a total flop. It never rose and was nothing but a thick, sticky glob. I weighed everything according to the conversion chart on this site, my starter was crazy bubbly, I followed everything perfectly. The time before this, I thought maybe my starter had gone bad, but it had bubbled up even to the point of pushing the lid off the jar. This time, same starter, but I kept having to add flour and ran the mixer for 25 minutes until I thought it might burn up! Finally I did the fold and stretch and eventually it got to windowpane stage, but never rose even the slightest bit. I even sat it on the back porch, and it’s in the 70s today. Still flat after 5 hours with no sign of rising. I don’t want to make regular pizza crust but I don’t want to keep wasting flour and time. I figure it must be something I did wrong, since I did it right before, but, I have no idea! Everything I’ve made with discard comes out perfect.
first time using this recipe and new to sour dough making, after I let it rise for 8 hours and before putting in the fridge to use later do I roll it into a ball or leave it as it, and roll it when I take it out to use?
You can roll it out when ready to use.