Simple, 4-Ingredient Homemade Pizza Dough

Made with 4 ingredients — flour, water, salt, and yeast — this simple, no-knead pizza dough recipe can be ready start to finish in 3 hours. It produces a pizza with a ballooned edge and crisp but pliable crust. You can use the dough the same day you mix it or store it in the fridge for up to 5 days (or freeze it!). 🍕🍕

Let’s get straight to it. This is a 4-ingredient, high-hydration, no-knead dough. It is the simplest of the simple homemade pizza recipes and, in my opinion, the tastiest, too. If you have time to prep your dough a few days in advance, you’ll be setting yourself up for serious pizza bliss (read on to learn why) but know that you can make excellent pizza, start to finish, in 3 hours.

The first step to making excellent pizza at home is to get comfortable working with high-hydration pizza doughs. Here’s why:

Why High-Hydration Pizza Dough is Best For a Home Oven

High-hydration doughs, such as this overnight focaccia, are doughs made with a high proportion of water relative to the flour. The high proportion of water allows these types of doughs to be mixed together quickly and easily — no kneading or stand mixer required — and it also creates a pizza crust that stays crisp but moist during the cooking process with beautiful air pockets throughout.

Why? The easiest way to explain why is to look at the makeup of a classic Neapolitan-style pizza dough.

Neapolitan-style pizza is characterized by a blistered and ballooned outer edge with a soft, thin (and sometimes wet) center. Contrary to what you might think, Neapolitan-style pizza dough is on the lower end of the hydration spectrum. Neapolitan-style pizza dough ranges in hydration from 60 to 65%. The range of the recipe below is 77-88% hydration.

So why do Neapolitan pizzas emerge light and airy with nearly wet centers if the dough is so low in hydration? Because Neapolitan pizzas cook in 60 to 90 seconds in 900ºF ovens. And so? Stay with me here: When you bake in a super-hot oven, the cooking time will be reduced, which means there will be less time for the water in the dough to evaporate. In other words, when the cooking time is brief, the dough will be able to retain a lot of its moisture.

So, despite the low hydration, a baked Neapolitan crust is light and airy because the dough can retain its moisture during its brief time in the oven.

If you were to bake a 65% hydration Neapolitan pizza dough in your home oven, which can only get up to 550ºF at the most, which will in turn require a longer baking time, you likely will be disappointed with the result because the longer cooking time will allow too much water to evaporate, leaving you with a dry, tough crust.

Make sense? In other words, in order for pizza dough not to dry out in a home oven, it needs more water from the start. Keep in mind: working with high-hydration dough takes practice. Here’s a tip:

Working with High Hydration Dough

#1 Tip: Handle it gently.

As legendary pizza and bread baker, Jim Lahey said:

“As soon as I began really paying attention to how I shaped my pizza rounds by taking care to use a gentle hand, I noticed a difference in the finished product. The air pockets pervading the unbaked round really affect the texture of the baked pizza.”

During the shaping process — the point at which you are stretching your ball of dough into a 10- to 12-inch round — take care to use a light touch (see the video above for reference). When you handle the dough minimally, you preserve the bubbles created during the rising. See these bubbles? …

Those bubbles become these ballooned textures throughout the dough:

Pizza Dough Ingredients: Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast

OK, so now that we’re on the same page — a home oven requires a high-hydration dough for best results — let’s talk about what you need to make this simple dough.

Yeast

Yeast is what will make your pizza rise, and my preference for all pizza and bread recipes is SAF Instant Yeast. The beauty of instant yeast is that you can stir it directly into the flour — no need to “proof” or “bloom” it.

Active Dry Yeast works here, too: Red Star Active Dry is my preference. To use active dry yeast instead, simply sprinkle it over the lukewarm water and let it stand for about 10 minutes or until it gets foamy before adding to the other ingredients.

Store yeast in the fridge or freezer for up to a year. These quart containers are great for storing yeast.

If you would prefer to make pizza with a sourdough starter, see this Sourdough Pizza Crust Recipe

Flour: Tipo 00 vs. Bread vs. All-Purpose

Tipo 00 flour is the flour required in the production of D.O.C. Neapolitan pizza. Contrary to popular belief, the “00” is not an indicator of protein content. It refers, rather, to the fineness of the milling, “00” being the finest grade in the Italian classification system.

If you have never used tipo 00 flour, you may have enjoyed how nicely your dough handled, how easily it extended — it is known for the extensible gluten structure it creates in pizza dough.

There was a period during which I used tipo 00 flour exclusively, but today I find I get better results in my home oven when I use bread flour or all-purpose flour, King Arthur Flour being my favorite brand. When I bake in my outdoor oven, I use Petra 5063, and Italian flour designed for baking at high heat.

What is the difference between bread and all-purpose flour? Mostly the protein content. KAF bread flour has a higher protein content (12.7% protein) than the all-purpose flour (11.7% protein). A dough made with bread flour as opposed to all-purpose flour will absorb slightly more liquid and will therefore be slightly stiffer. If you live in a humid environment and often find your dough to be too wet, using bread flour may help.

In sum, the key is to use good flour: unbleached and unbromated flour. And I encourage you to experiment. What works best for me in my environment might not work as well for you in yours.

Salt

For pizza dough, my preference is Diamond Crystal kosher salt or Baleine fine sea salt, both of which dissolve quickly. For finishing, I love Maldon sea salt. Before transferring every pizza I make to the oven, I sprinkle it with flaky sea salt.

How Much Salt to Use: The rule of thumb with pizza dough is that the weight of the salt should be 2 to 3% the weight of the flour. For this recipe that is 10 to 15 grams. I use 15 grams of salt, and I do not find the dough to be too salty. Salt is important not only for flavor but also for strengthening gluten and controlling fermentation.

Water

I have no trouble using cold water from my tap, which I mix with boiling water to create perfectly lukewarm water (see recipe box for details). That said, if you suspect your water is adversely affecting your pizza dough, here are two tips:

• Use water that you’ve left out overnight to ensure any chlorine has evaporated.
• Buy spring water. In some places, letting water sit out overnight will not be effective.

Pizza Making Equipment

The single best and easiest/most affordable step you can take to make better pizza at home is to invest in a Baking Steel. In short, steel is a more conductive cooking surface than stone. This means heat transfers more quickly from steel to food than it does from stone to food. Why is this important for pizza? Serious Eats’ Kenji J Lopez Alt offers this explanation:

“How does the baking surface affect hole structure? Well those crust holes develop when air and water vapor trapped inside the dough matrix suddenly expand upon heating in a phenomenon known as oven spring. The faster you can transfer energy to the dough, the bigger those glorious bubbles will be, and the airier and more delicate the crust.”

I get the best results when I place my Baking Steel in the upper third of my oven, but every oven is different, so play around with placement till you find the sweet spot. The beauty of the Baking Steel + a high-hydration dough:

A Few More Helpful Tools:

As always, for best results with bread or pizza recipes, use a digital scale. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this. Measuring by weight is the only way to truly measure your ingredients accurately. It also, in turn, allows you to make meaningful adjustments to a recipe — i.e. reducing the water quantity — to make it work best given the flour you are using and your environment.

A pizza peel. You need a mechanism to get the dough round from your counter to your Steel. A peel plus a sheet of parchment paper makes this easy.

Parchment paper. For easy transfer of pizza from peel to Steel, my preference is to use parchment paper, which stays with the pizza in the oven. The alternative is to sprinkle your peel with cornmeal or flour or something to prevent it from sticking. These ingredients ultimately end up burning on the Steel or making a mess on your oven floor. No thank you. Recently, I’ve been buying these rounds, but standard rectangular sheets of parchment work just fine, too.

Quart containers: These are the handiest containers for all sorts of things (soups, stocks, stews, storing yeast) but especially rounds of pizza dough. Dough can stay in the fridge for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 3 months.

Kevjes Dough Storage Vessels: These have become my favorite for their shape, which allows the dough to expand more horizontally and as a result doesn’t squish the dough as much.

DoughMate: If you have the space to store something like a DoughMate, it’s a really great tool for proofing your dough at room temperature: a lidded vessel protects the dough from drying out.

How to Make Pizza Dough, Step by Step

Whisk together flour, salt, and instant yeast (SAF is my preference):

Add water, and …

… mix to form a sticky dough ball:

Let rise in a warm spot till nearly doubled, about 1.5 hours.

Turn out onto a floured work surface.

Divide into four portions and …

… ball up, using as much flour as needed.

If you are baking pizza immediately, let the dough rest for another hour before shaping. Otherwise, transfer the balls to quart containers and stick them in the fridge.

This is the dough after a night in the fridge.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and use your hands to cup the dough into a round.

Let the rounds sit for about an hour covered with a towel. (Note: My preference now is to let the rounds proof at room temperature in a DoughMate because the lid protects the dough from drying out.)

Gently stretch a round into an 11-inch round (roughly).

Transfer the round to a peel lined with parchment paper.

Topping Your Pizza

Get your toppings ready. For a classic Margherita pizza, you’ll need tomato sauce, mozzarella, and fresh basil.

Spread about 2 ounces of tomato sauce over your dough.

Top with about 3 ounces of mozzarella. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.

Bake on a preheated Baking Steel at 550ºF for 5 to 6 minutes. Shower with fresh basil out of the oven.

The beauty of the Baking Steel + high hydration dough: oven spring.

Final Tip for Making Excellent Pizza at Home

Here’s my last tip: If time permits, make your dough a couple of days in advance, and store it in the fridge. Why?

Because: During a long, slow, cold fermentation, enzymes in both the flour and the yeast will break down the starches in the flour into simple sugars, which will contribute both to flavor and to browning. Moreover, during this time in the fridge, the dough will relax, making it easier to stretch.

Pizza Dough Making Schedule

• Make it Tonight: Plan on 3 hours start to finish from when you mix your dough to when you turn out a freshly baked pizza.
• Make it Tomorrow (and beyond): Method 1: Mix your dough today, let it rise for 1.5 hours (roughly). Portion it into 4 balls; then transfer to the fridge for up to 3 days (or even longer). When using dough you’ve stored in the refrigerator, remove it one hour prior to baking.
• Make it Tomorrow (and beyond), Method 2: Mix your dough, cover the bowl with an airtight lid or seal it tightly with plastic wrap, and immediately transfer it to the fridge. When you are ready to bake, remove the dough from the fridge 60 to 90 minutes prior to baking, portion it into 4 balls; then transfer as many as you wish to bake to a well-floured board. Transfer the remaining balls to the fridge for up to 3 days (or even longer). When using dough you’ve stored in the refrigerator, remove it 60 to 90 minutes prior to baking.

Can You Freeze Pizza Dough?

Yes! This has been a game-changer. To freeze pizza dough, make it through step 4 in the recipe below or until after you transfer the portioned rounds to quart containers. At this point, transfer the quart containers to the freezer for as long as 3 months. To thaw, remove a container (or more) and let thaw in the refrigerator for 18 to 24 hours or thaw at room temperature for 4 to 8 hours. Then, proceed with the recipe.

FAQs & Troubleshooting

Why is my pizza dough too wet?

It is possible that given your environment and the type of flour you are using, you are using too much water relative to the amount of flour. The fix is simple: reduce the amount of water. Ideally, you are measuring with a scale, so you can ensure you are measuring accurately and making meaningful adjustments. Try holding back 50 grams of water and seeing if that helps.

That said, please read above about the importance of using a high-hydration pizza dough in a home oven. If your dough, upon being mixed, is unable to form a sticky dough ball, you likely need to reduce the water. Reference the video for dough texture.

Why is my pizza dough soggy?

There are several culprits here:

• too much sauce, cheese, and/or toppings
• oven not hot enough
• too short of a baking time

Solutions:

• Invest in a Baking Steel. Read why above.
• Try laying the cheese on top of the dough; then the sauce. The cheese might provide some insulation from the sauce, thereby preventing the dough from getting soggy.
• Consider employing a parbake: bake your pizza “naked” for one minute; then continue baking for 4 to 5 minutes more once topped.
• Try using semolina on your peel.
• Before stretching your dough ball into a round, slick it lightly in a bit of olive oil.
• Use a lighter hand when topping.

Pizza Night

If you’re looking for more pizza-making guidance, check out my New York Times bestselling cookbook, ​Pizza Night​, which includes 52 pizza and 52 salad recipes, one pair for every week of the year, as well as five simple desserts 🍕🍕🍕

It’s organized seasonally and includes recipes for the home oven, outdoor oven, the grill, Sicilian-style, Detroit-style, grandma-style, skillet pizzas, gluten-free, and more. There are both yeast and sourdough recipes for every style of pizza in the book.

Print