This is my go-to recipe for making our weekly homemade pizza, a tradition I get excited about every.single.week. This no-knead pizza dough needs to be made a day in advance, but couldn’t be easier to make: simply dump the ingredients into a bowl, stir to combine, let rise for an hour or so, then stir again and tuck into the fridge until you need it. It’s great for your weekly pizza fix, but also works as the base for some yeasty cinnamon rolls, calzones, or garlic knots!
**MARCH 2020 UPDATE**
This recipe was originally posted in February of 2016, and I’ve made it nearly every Thursday night since (for our Friday night pizzas!). Despite being one of my most-used recipes, I was never in love with the photos. So, today I’m re-posting the recipe with a fresh set of photos and more streamlined recipe instructions; I hope your make yourself some pizza asap!! I’ve left the original blog post in tact below, for the sake of nostalgia. Feel free to scroll straight to the bottom to get the recipe, if you’ve already read this old blog post!
When I was 15 I started making breakfast pizza for my family on Christmas morning. I had been working at the same pizza place as my older sisters for almost a year, and I was finally comfortable enough to ask if I could bring some dough home with me.
I don’t remember what compelled me to make pizza for breakfast that Christmas morning, but I’ve been doing it ever since. I’m actually pretty proud of the fact that I created one of our family’s holiday traditions, one that, at this point, is going on 15 years strong.
When I got accepted to grad school, hung up my pizza apron and walked off into the sunset, I knew it was time to start making my own dough at home. It took me a while to get it right, but by now I’ve been making pizza dough for so long that I don’t have to measure anything; I can just sense if it’s right (am I a pizza wizard? possibly).
Since “throw stuff in a bowl and wing it” probably isn’t going to help you, I finally measured it all out and nailed down my no-knead method. The best part for me is now that I have a concrete recipe, I can now delegate pizza dough duty to Kevin, minimizing the effort required to make pizza even more.
We usually make a batch of pizza dough every Thursday night; this gives the dough time to rise and rest overnight, and let’s the flavors develop. It also means the toughest decision I have to make on a Friday night is what toppings I want on my pizza. Technically, if you wake up early and get straight to business, you could totally make this the day of; I just really like the relaxed make-ahead schedule of prepping the dough at least a night before.
If you try out this recipe, let me know what you think! Leave a comment below or take a picture of your pizza and share it with me on Instagram so I can see your homemade pizza dough in action!
No-Knead Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
Time: 12 hours (5 minutes active time)
Yields: 1 dough ball (enough for one large pizza)
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 1 teaspoon active dry or instant yeast
- 1/2 Tablespoon honey, maple syrup, or cane sugar
- 3 cups white whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, bread flour, or any combination thereof
- 1/2 Tablespoon fine sea salt
Instructions:
- Pour warm water, yeast, and sugar of choice into a large mixing bowl (preferably one with a lid, if you have it!).
- Add in flour and salt, and stir well until all flour is absorbed into the dough. It will be soft and sticky.
- Cover the bowl (with a lid, kitchen towel, etc) and let rise in a warm spot at room temperature for a least one hour (or up to four, depending on your schedule- this dough is very forgiving so don’t worry too much about the specific rise time as long as it’s a minimum of an hour).
- Stir the dough once or twice again to help shape into a rough ball (you can also do this step with your hands instead of a spoon), then cover and place in the fridge overnight (ideally for 18-24 hours before you need it, though it can be kept in the fridge for up to 4 days before using).
- When ready to make pizza, remove dough from the fridge and either use your fingers to press it out into the edges of a well-oiled pan (oiling your fingers helps, too), or flour a countertop and roll out with a rolling pin to your desired shape/size. Top with sauce/cheese/toppings of choice, then bake at your oven’s highest temperature for 10-15 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.
NOTES: white whole wheat flour has a finer texture and less pronounced ‘wheat’ flavor than traditional whole wheat, so it’s my top choice for baking. If you only have traditional whole wheat, I recommend using 50% all purpose flour and 50% whole wheat for a similar flavor/texture. Other wheat-based flours like spelt or einkorn can be used interchangeably in this recipe. I haven’t tested this recipe with any gluten-free flours and suspect they wouldn’t work, so do so at your own risk!