Easy-Peasy Pizza Dough

This piz­za dough is not only deli­cious, it’s also FAST—it needs only 30 min­utes to rise—so from start to fin­ish you’ll have hot piz­za in less than an hour!

  • ¡Ingre­di­ente!
  • 2 cups all-pur­pose flour (plus a bit more if needed)
  • 1 pack­et instant yeast (2 1⁄4 tsp.)
  • 1 1⁄2 tsp. sugar
  • 3⁄4 tsp. salt
  • 1⁄2 tsp. gar­lic powder
  • 1⁄4 tsp. Ital­ian seasoning
  • 2 tbsp. olive oil (plus a bit more)
  • 3⁄4 cup hot water (110° to 115° F.-ish; if it’s too hot it will kill the yeast.)
  • Tools!
  • Stand mix­er (not strict­ly nec­es­sary, but it helps)

Directions

Com­bine 1 cup of flour (Pay atten­tion! This recipe calls for 2 cups of flour, but you need to add just 1 cup to begin), yeast, sug­ar, salt, gar­lic pow­der, and Ital­ian sea­son­ing in a large bowl or your stand mix­er bowl. 

Add olive oil and hot water, then get to work:

You don’t need to proof or bloom your yeast with this piz­za dough. Whether or not you’re using your mix­er, stir with a wood­en spoon or rub­ber spat­u­la to com­bine; if you’re using a stand mix­er, there won’t be enough for the bread hook to mix yet.

Mix on medi­um speed, or use the spoon/spatula to keep stir­ring. Grad­u­al­ly add the sec­ond cup of flour. Add a bit more water if it’s too dry or crumbly, or flour if it’s too sticky. Keep stir­ring or mix­ing until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a light­ly floured surface.

You’ll want to stir, mix, or knead your dough as lit­tle as pos­si­ble: If you work the dough too much, you’ll overde­vel­op the gluten, and it will lose elas­tic­i­ty and tear or pull back when you’re ready to flat­ten it into a pizza.

Light­ly dust your hands with flour and form your piz­za dough into a round ball—again, knead it as lit­tle as possible—until you’ve got a shag­gy dough.

Driz­zle the sides of a large bowl gen­er­ous­ly with olive oil; use a pas­try brush to brush it up the sides of the bowl.

Trans­fer the dough to your olive oil-brushed bowl. Roll the dough around in the bowl until it’s coat­ed in olive oil. Cov­er the bowl tight­ly with plas­tic wrap and place it in a warm place.

Allow dough to rise until dou­bled in size; about 30 minutes. 

Pre­heat your oven to 425° F. I like to pre­heat the oven once the dough’s ready to rise, then put the bowl of dough on top of the stove so the oven gets it nice and warm to speed things up.

Once the dough has risen, don’t—repeat don’t—punch it down. Just start work­ing the dough into a 12- to 16-inch circle.

What’s that? HOW should you make a nice neat circle?

Your choice: You can use a rolling pin, or flat­ten it with your palm and use your fin­gers to spread it out. You can even try the tra­di­tion­al throw­ing it up in the air and spin­ning it. What­ev­er works best for you!

My only advice is to work the piz­za right on the cook­ie sheet or piz­za pan or what­ev­er; in my expe­ri­ence, try­ing to move it from your counter to what­ev­er you’re bak­ing just man­gles it.

Brush the piz­za, crust and all, with olive oil, then poke a bunch of holes in it with a fork so you don’t get big bubbles.

Add what­ev­er top­pings you want and pop it in the oven at 425° F. for about 13 to 15 min­utes, or until the crust is gold­en brown and the cheese and sauce are bubbling.

Let the piz­za sit for 5 to 10 min­utes before cut­ting and serving.