Biting into a chewy, saucy, and cheesy slice of pizza is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Lucky for us, it’s also one that’s easily achieved at home—no delivery fees required! With simple ingredients and a little bit of patience (hot tip: make your components ahead of time), you’ll be on your way to homemade pizza that might be even better than your local pie shop. Best part? Just like with baking bread or making your own pasta dough, the more you do it, the better and more creative you can get. Here’s what you need to know.
Let’s talk ingredients:
We’re big fans of homemade everything, but we also understand that not everyone has time to make their pizza dough AND sauce AND toppings from scratch. For those times, we recommend doing a combo—make your sauce and shred your own cheese, but buy your dough, or vice versa.
The dough:
We experimented with a variety of proof times before ultimately landing on 12 to 18 hours. We think that lengthy proof time results in the best-tasting pizza, but we also understand that, sometimes, it’s just not going to happen. As a shortcut, you can proof your dough in the fridge for 2 hours, then at room temperature for 2 hours. It won’t be as delicious, but will still be very tasty.
The sauce:
We love our homemade pizza sauce for a few specific reasons. One, we use whole peeled tomatoes and then cook them down so we can control the texture and concentrate the flavor of our sauce. Secondly, and speaking of flavor, we only use salt in our sauce if we aren’t using additional salty ingredients on our pizza. Topping yours with prosciutto or olives? You might want to use a light hand with the salt too.
Not making your sauce from scratch? We’ve found that many store-bought pizza sauces have a tendency to be too sweet, so to avoid that, opt for a sauce labeled marinara instead. Our favorite brand is Rao’s, but try different brands to discover which you like best.
Storage:
This recipe makes enough for 2 (14″) crusts, and the sauce is easily doubled or tripled to use for the future. Both are a great option to make ahead and store. Store them in airtight containers (flour the one for the dough) and refrigerate up to 5 days. Bring to room temperature when ready to use. The sauce will also keep in the freezer for up to 6 months, and the dough for up to 1 month. Thaw it on the counter, and bring to room temperature before baking.
Made this? Let us know how it went (and your favorite pizza toppings!) in the comments below.
