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Ovenight pizza dough with topping suggestions

A no fail, easy to follow and very flavorful double-rise overnight pizza dough recipe, that will get you rave reviews, even from your Italian friends. A great homemade pizza recipe for beginners!! You can freeze part of the dough for pizza craving days.
Prep Time45 minutes
Cook Time32 minutes
Rising Time17 hours
Total Time18 hours 17 minutes
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: baking, basic recipe, homemade pizza dough, how to, pizza crust, pizza dough, pizza sauce
Servings: 4 30 x 40 cm (11.8 x 15.7 inch)Pizzas
Author: Ester | esterkocht.com

Equipment

  • Bowl
  • 4 x parchment papers
  • Large cutting board
  • Hand blender
  • cling film
  • Pizza stone or baking sheet
  • Silicon pastry mat
  • Air-tight containers/ freezer bags
  • Jar
  • spoon
  • Knife
  • Rolling pin/ empty glass bottle

Ingredients

For the pizza dough

  • 500 g (17.6 oz/ 4 cups + 1 tablespoon) plain flour Plus extra for dusting
  • 300 ml (10.1 fl oz/ 1 1/4 cups) tap water cold
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil plus extra for greasing and drizzling

For the tomato sauce (pizza sauce)

  • 200 g (7.1 oz/ 1 cup) canned tomatoes
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon oregano
  • a pinch of sugar

Instructions

  • In a bowl combine yeast, sugar, water, flour, oil and salt and mix together until you have a smooth dough. Tranfer the dough to a dusted working surface and knead it with your hands for 10 minutes. Dust a bowl with flour, place the dough in the bowl and lightly dust the top part with flour. Cover the bowl with cling film (plastic wrap), then with kitchen towel and let rise for 2 hours, at room temperature.
  • After 2 hours, tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and carefully shape it into a long baguette form with your lightly floured hands. You want to retain the air bubbles in the dough intact so that you'll have a nicely fluffy pizza crust. Cut the baguette roll into 4 equal parts. Put them in a large air - tight container dusted with flour or in 4 separate air-tight containers or freezer bags and refrigerate overnight (at least 15 hours). When you're ready to make pizza, take the dough out of the fridge 1 hour in advance before baking and put it on the counter. This makes it easier to work with the dough.
    In the meantime, Put the tomatoes, garlic, sugar, dried herbs and salt in a jar and blend together to make the pizza sauce.
  • Preheat the oven to 250 °C (482 °F) with the pizza stone or baking sheet inside the oven. Lightly flour a silicone pastry mat or cutting board lined with parchment paper. Dust the rolling pin and your hands with flour or oil them. Take one dough ball at a time and roll it out very thin. (SEE NOTE 1) You could also hand stretch the pizza dough.
  • Apply 3 tablespoons tomato sauce in the middle of every pizza. Spread the sauce nicely on the pizza moving in circular motion, leaving 1 cm (1/4 inch) around the edges. Top with any toppings of your choice, drizzle with olive oil, then transfer the parchment paper to the baking sheet or pizza stone and bake for 8 minutes or until light golden brown.

Notes

  1. If you're using a silicon pastry mat, after rolling out the dough, use your both hands lift up the dough and put it on a parchment paper. Or you put the parchment paper on top of the pastry mat with the rolled out dough, followed by a cutting board and then you turn upside down. Gently remove the pastry mat.