Sourdough Pizza Crust

Take your slice game to the next level with sourdough pizza crust! A pretty hands-off recipe, all you need is basic ingredients and time.

Photography by Sophie MacKenzie.

I’ve been making sourdough pizza crust every week for the last three years. Hooray for pizza Friday, every Friday! Seriously though, it’s that easy. It can become part of your regular routine and hardly takes more time than ordering in.

With just a few minutes of active time – mixing, stretching and folding, and rolling – plus some patience, you will have enough dough for two large pizzas. We’ve got lots of tips in the post below, and recommend freezing half the batch to use later. You’ll thank yourself if you do!

We also have instructions on baking on both a pizza stone and a regular baking sheet, so don’t worry if you don’t have special equipment. All you really need is an active sourdough starter, a big mixing bowl, and an oven!

Baker’s Schedule

Day One

Mix (1 hour): In the evening, mix the dough. Do the stretches and folds every 20 minutes over the course of an hour.

Place the dough into a draft-free place to rise, covered, overnight.

Day Two

Refrigerate the dough during the day before shaping. About an hour and a half before you want to eat, shape and roll out your dough. Top, bake, and serve.

Use the JUMP TO RECIPE button at the top, or scroll to the bottom of the post to see the printable recipe card with full ingredient measurements and complete instructions.

Ingredients

Method

Tips & Notes

The dough can be frozen for up to a month in an airtight container. We like to have one half in the freezer so we’re only making pizza dough twice a month to eat once a week.

If you are freezing the dough, make sure you thaw it in the refrigerator (just take it out of the freezer the night before) rather than at room temperature. At room temp, the outside of the dough thaws too quickly compared to the middle – and the yeasts activate again – so you might have a dough explosion even though the middle is still frozen.

We haven’t tried cooking this on a barbeque, yet. It should work fine as long as you’re still using a pizza stone. We don’t recommend cooking it directly on the oven rack.

This is very similar to our sourdough naan (the naan is actually adapted from the pizza dough recipe) so if you’d like, you can also make naan pizzas. Fry the dough in a pan then do a quick bake just to melt the cheese or heat the toppings.

Resting the dough for a few minutes after shaping into a ball allows the gluten to relax and makes it easier to stretch into a pizza shape.

Refrigerating the Dough

We’ve included the tip about refrigerating the dough for a couple reasons. One, it really is easier to work with when cold. More importantly, though, many of you will probably be mixing this in the evening before bed, like we usually do. That means you have risen dough at 8AM and you’re not planning on eating pizza for about twelve hours.

So if that’s the case, simply tightly cover your dough and pop it in the fridge until you’re ready to roll it out. The rising/resting time after rolling is plenty of time to bring it back to room temperature before baking, and the flavour improves with some refrigeration time anyway.

If your starter is ready in the morning and you want to mix the dough during the day, make it as instructed. Then, as soon as the dough has risen to almost double in size, refrigerate for up to 16 hours.

While the refrigeration time isn’t mandatory, it makes for a better tasting and easier to work with sourdough pizza dough. This step is highly recommended.

Substitutions

We’ve made this dough with up to 50% whole wheat or spelt flour with no problems at all. If you want a more wholesome and flavourful dough, you can definitely add a portion of whole wheat flour. For ancient grains, try this spelt sourdough pizza instead.

If you like a really chewy crust, you can use all or part bread flour here. Both ways are great.

Use a levain instead of starter if preferred.

Here’s our favourite yeast pizza dough if you don’t have a sourdough starter. The sugar is really the only thing that’s easy to sub here. We’ve made it with honey, maple syrup, and coconut sugar all without any problems.

More Great Savoury Sourdough Recipes

Sourdough Biscuits
Sourdough Tortillas
Black Pepper and Rosemary Sourdough Bread
Sourdough Focaccia
Sourdough Crackers with Homemade Za’atar

Recipe

Sourdough Pizza Crust

4.8 from 9 votes

Author: Alexandra Daum

Yield: 16

Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 12 mins

Rising Time 9 hrs

Total Time 9 hrs 42 mins

Print Recipe Pin Recipe Comments

Description

 

Take your slice game to the next level with sourdough pizza crust! A pretty hands-off recipe, all you really need is a handful of ingredients and time!

Equipment

• ▢
  Mixing bowl
• ▢
  Whisk
• ▢
  Tea towel
• ▢
  Pastry scraper
• ▢
  Rolling Pin
• ▢
  Parchment paper
• ▢
  2 baking sheets
• ▢
  Digital kitchen scale

Ingredients

 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 350 grams water, room temperature
• ▢ 100 grams active sourdough starter
• ▢ 40 grams olive oil
• ▢ 500 grams all-purpose white flour
• ▢ 15 grams sugar
• ▢ 9 grams sea salt

Instructions

 

Day One: Mix the Dough

• Add the water, starter, and olive oil to a large mixing bowl, and whisk until well combined. Stir in the flour, sugar, and salt with a wooden spoon, until you have a shaggy dough.
• Cover and set aside to allow the dough to rest for 20 minutes.
• Over the next hour, do three rounds of stretches and folds (one every 20 minutes). This can be spread out over more time if you prefer, but give the dough a minimum of 20 minutes to rest between each stretch.
• After the stretches are finished, your dough should look like a smooth ball and have formed some surface tension. Cover it with a damp tea towel or plate and set it in a draft free place to rise until doubled in size, 6-8 hours.

Day Two: Shape and Bake

• Once the dough has risen, refrigerate for at least four hours if possible. This will make the dough much easier to shape.
• Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut it into two approximately equal pieces, then shape both, or place one half of the dough into an airtight container to freeze.
• Flatten your piece of dough slightly, then roll it into a log from the short end. Turn the log 90°, place it so that the seam faces up, and then roll it into a log again, adding flour as needed to prevent sticking.
• Now place the rolled up dough seam side down, onto a clean surface. Lightly flour the top of it and then use your hands to rotate the dough into a ball, forming surface tension on the top.
• Cover with a tea towel and set aside to rest for 10 minutes before stretching or rolling.
• Place your dough onto a sheet of parchment paper and lightly flour the top of it. Use a rolling pin to roll it out to about 1-1.5cm (about ¾ in.), or stretch gently with your hands to shape. Cover the dough with a damp tea towel and let it rise again until slightly puffy, 1 – 1.5 hours.
• Prep any toppings and preheat the oven to 475°F (250°C), with a pizza stone inside if you have one. If not, place the dough onto a regular baking sheet before adding the toppings.
• Top your pizza, and once the oven is preheated, slide it onto the preheated pizza stone (or slide the pan into the oven, middle rack) and bake for 12-15 minutes*. The crust should be golden and crisp when it’s ready. Serve immediately.

Notes

* If you're using a baking sheet, you may need about 20 minutes to bake. Go by the colour and crispness of your crust to tell when it's ready.

The dough can be frozen for up to a month in an airtight container. We like to have one half in the freezer so we’re only making pizza dough twice a month to eat once a week.

If you are freezing the dough, make sure you thaw it in the refrigerator (just take it out of the freezer the night before) rather than at room temperature. At room temp, the outside of the dough thaws too quickly compared to the middle – and the yeasts activate again – so you might have a dough explosion even though the middle is still frozen.

We haven’t tried cooking this on a barbeque, yet. It should work fine as long as you’re still using a pizza stone. We don’t recommend cooking it directly on the oven rack.

Resting the dough for a few minutes after shaping into a ball allows the gluten to relax and makes it easier to stretch into a pizza shape.

If your starter is ready in the morning and you want to mix the dough during the day, make it as instructed. Then, as soon as the dough has risen to almost double in size, refrigerate for up to 16 hours.

While the refrigeration time isn’t mandatory, it makes for a better tasting and easier to work with sourdough pizza dough. This step is highly recommended.

Use a levain instead of starter if preferred.

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 232kcal | Carbohydrates: 47g | Protein: 8g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 8g | Sodium: 64mg | Fiber: 6g | Sugar: 6g

Did you make this recipe?Let us know on Instagram @baked_theblog or tag #bakedtheblog!

This recipe was first posted in August 2020. It has been updated with new process images and more information as of February 2022.