Easy Homemade Pizza Dough: Your Guide to Crafting the Best Vegetarian Pizzas

Definitely, one of the most fun and easiest dinners to make at home is an Italian Vegetarian Pizza or a cheesy, fully loaded pizza topped with vegetables of your choice. You can easily create restaurant-style pizza dough with a few simple instructions and treat yourself to the best homemade pizza that’s customizable to your liking. In this article, we’ll discuss the best homemade pizza recipe.

Best Homemade Pizza Recipe

This homemade pizza recipe below is healthy to make—with no artificial ingredients—but it also requires no special kitchen equipment.

The most delicious pizzas are baked in an extremely hot wood-fired oven on a pizza stone. Of course, our household ovens cannot compete with the hot commercial ovens. When creating homemade pizza, I recommend using the highest temperature in your oven.

How To Make Pizza Dough Recipe?

This recipe makes enough dough for 4 small, 3 medium, or 2 large pizzas. It’s ideal for cooking ahead of time and storing in the fridge until ready to use.

Here’s how you can make the most delicious and easiest pizza dough from the beginning:

1. In a large dish, combine 1.5 teaspoons instant yeast with ½ teaspoon sugar.

Instant yeast usually goes straight into flour or water at room temperature. For this pizza crust recipe, you’ll need 2 tablespoons of dried active yeast.

2. Stir in 1 cup lukewarm water (44 degrees Celsius). Set aside and allow the yeast to develop.
3. After 10 to 15 minutes, the yeast mixture should begin to bubble and double in size.
4. Combine 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (or bread flour), 1 teaspoon salt, and 3 tablespoons olive oil.
5. Mix with a whisk, wooden spoon, or steel spoon.
6. Add an additional cup of flour.
7. Keep stirring. The mixture will be quite sticky.
8. Add the remaining cup of flour and continue to whisk. The dough will begin to form and leave the sides of the bowl, but it will remain sticky.
9. Knead the dough by hand until it is smooth. Dust with flour to prevent sticking while working. The dough will be soft and elastic, but no longer sticky.
10. Put your dough in the deep bowl and lightly coat the outside with olive oil. This prevents the dough from sticking to the sides of the bowl as it develops.

Wrap loosely with a kitchen napkin or towel and let aside at room temperature to allow the dough to leaven.

• It takes 45 minutes to an hour for instant yeast.
• It takes 1.5–2 hours for dry active yeast.

11. After approximately one hour, the dough will begin to rise and double in size.

If you plan on making the pizza the next day, cover the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

12. To prepare the pizza straight away, portion and flatten the dough into a disc. The dough has properly leavened, as seen by the stringy threads and many air pockets that will result in a chewy crust.

How to Make Pizza Sauce?

While the dough rests, you can easily prepare a tomato sauce. The recipe makes a larger quantity of tomato sauce, which can be stored in the refrigerator or frozen.

1. You can either cut the tomatoes (500 g or 5 to 6 medium tomatoes) and use them fresh in the sauce, or blanch them first and then blend.

Blanching reduces cooking time but is not required to make a great sauce.

2. In a blender, crush the raw or blanched tomatoes to form a puree that can be as smooth or chunky as desired for this pizza dish.
3. In a large saucepan, heat ¼ cup olive oil and add 2 tablespoons of minced garlic. Sauté and stir for a few seconds until the garlic softens.
4. Now, add the tomato puree and blend thoroughly.
5. Continue to mix and simmer the tomatoes for 5 minutes.
6. Add salt as required. Mix and stir.
7. Cover the pan and cook the tomato sauce on low heat for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until the tomatoes are soft.

If the sauce seems too thick, add ¼ cup water. Then cover and continue cooking.

8. Simmer until the tomatoes are fully cooked and the sauce has thickened.
9. Stir in the herbs and chopped black pepper.

For the seasoning of the pizza sauce, add ¼ cup chopped basil (or 3 to 4 teaspoons dried basil), 2 to 3 teaspoons dried oregano (or 2 tablespoons fresh oregano), and freshly crushed black pepper to taste.

10. Mix the sauce thoroughly and keep away.

Allow the pizza sauce to cool completely before storing it in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to 10 to 15 days or freezing it for 3 months to use whenever you’re ready to bake the pizzas.

Prepare and Bake The Pizza

1. Begin by preheating your oven to its highest temperature.
2. Divide the homemade pizza dough into equal portions to make four small pizzas, two big pizzas, or three medium pizzas.
3. Using clean, dry hands, roll out one portion of the divided dough into a tidy round ball. Place the dough on a floured cutting board or countertop, and lightly dust with extra flour.
4. Roll the dough ball into a large round or oval shape of about ⅛ to ¼ inch thickness.
5. When stretched to the proper size, carefully place the pizza base in a greased baking sheet. The dough is quite soft and stretchy, so be cautious not to rip it.
6. Prick the dough with a fork if you prefer a thinner, crispier crust. This also helps the crust not to bubble up while baking.
7. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush olive oil onto the crust’s surface.
8. Spread the tomato sauce over the pizza in a thin, equal layer. For the perfect pizza crust, leave about an inch of dough around the outer edge clear of sauce.
9. Spread the sauce with a large handful or two of shredded mozzarella cheese.
10. Arrange your preferred vegetables on top of the cheese, making sure to spread them equally.
11. Now, place the pizza tray in the oven and bake it. 

Conclusion

You can easily make restaurant-style pizza at home in a few steps. Consider this article, in which we have taken up how to prepare pizza dough at home. You also have the option to make your own vegetarian pizza. So, don’t wait, and start preparing your pizza now!