If you have sourdough starter that needs to be used and it’s getting close to pizza night, I’ve got the best recipe for you! Make this same-day sourdough pizza dough with discard or with active starter and make homemade pizza super easy. This long-ferment sourdough pizza crust recipe has only five ingredients, including classic Italian herbs! You can set it up in the morning, bake it when you get home, top it, melt the cheese, and be eating pizza tonight!
Whether you’re baking your pizza crust in an oven, on an outdoor grill, or even in a pizza oven, you just can’t beat fresh, homemade sourdough pizza crust. The flavor and texture are mouthwatering, making even the best pizzas better!
Like I said, all my sourdough recipes are long-ferment, which means that once the dough is mixed, it sits on my counter for 6-8 hours to ferment (or culture).
- This ensures that the sourdough culture has had long enough to get a good start on digesting the starches in the grain, as well as the phytic acid that can cause tummy upset.
If you’re going to eat grain products, then sourdough is the way to go to optimize nutrition and health benefits from them. Plus, they’re just so darn tasty!
Here are a few more sourdough recipes for when you have time:
Easy Sourdough Bread (With Active Or Unfed Starter)
Sourdough Pizza Dough (with Discard)
I need to make a quick note that this recipe is written for thin crust pizza lovers. I am not a fan of thick crust pizza because I find it to be overwhelming – all I can taste is dough.
However, if you want to make this sourdough pizza dough a thick crust recipe, all you have to do is allow the fermented dough to rise a bit after shaping. Look for more information on how to do that in the recipe instructions.
Sourdough Pizza Dough (with Discard or Active)
Ingredients
- 3 Cups Organic White Flour
- 1 tsp. Sea Salt
- 2 Tbsp. Mixed Dried Herbs, Shredded, Optional Basil, Rosemary, Oregano
- 1 Cup Water
- 1/2 Cup Sourdough Starter
Instructions
- Mix 3 cups of flour and 1 tsp. of salt in a medium sized bowl. Stir in herbs, if using. If using fresh herbs, double the amount to 4 Tbsp.
- Mix 1 Cup of water and 1/2 cup of sourdough starter.
- Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and stir until combined. You may use your hands, if you prefer. The dough will be a bit dry.*
- Cover and allow the dough to sit on the counter for 6-8 hours. Ideal temperature for culturing sourdough is between 65F - 70F (18C - 21C).
- Uncover the dough once fermented and divide it evenly into 6 or 8 balls for individual-sized pizzas, or 2 balls for medium-sized pizzas. Allow these to rest for a few minutes while you prepare the pans.
- You can use any pan or baking sheet you have available, though metal is preferred. Cover the pan in parchment paper for ease of use and clean up, or lightly oil with olive oil. If you're using a cast iron or stoneware pizza pan, be sure to preheat it with the oven to avoid cracking.
- Roll out each ball for the preferred size. You can use a pastry roller, but I usually just use my hands. The finished thickness should be around 1/4". Dimple the dough with your fingertips to prevent puffing up while baking. This also produces subtle divots for sauce to rest inside.
- Place the pizza dough on the prepared sheets and either set to rise until doubled for thicker curst pizza, or immediately place in the oven for thin crust pizza. Unless using a cast iron or stoneware pan, you can place the pizza dough in a cold oven.
- Bake at 425F/218C for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. If your oven runs hot, check the crusts at around 5 minutes. If your oven runs really hot, bake the crusts at 400F/204C.
- Once pre-baked, cool to touch and then load up the crusts with pizza sauce, cheese, and other favorite toppings.
- Return to the oven and place under broil to melt the cheese. This can take 5-10 minutes depending on the heat of your broil setting. Watch it and remove when your cheese looks perfectly melted.
- Allow to cool for at least 5 minutes to set the cheese.
Notes
Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe Notes
If you’re new to making your own pizza dough, I promise you can do this! In fact, it will become so simple for you that you’ll wonder why you ever bought the stuff before.
One thing to remember is that pizza dough is tough; you can’t really mess it up. Let it ferment, roll it out, bake it. That’s it!
In fact, this is a great time for the kids to get into the kitchen and roll their own pizza dough! Then, they can bake and top them all by themselves (bake with supervision if they’re young, FYI).
- Homemade pizza is a great family recipe and one I pull out when I’m teaching kitchen skills with my kids.
These thin crust pizzas will resemble a large sourdough pita. In fact, in a pinch, you can use sourdough pitas as small pizza crusts or even calzone-type pizza pockets.
Homemade pizza night is a great time to use up leftovers hanging out in the fridge. Little bits of meat, cheese, veggies, and that eternal cup of red sauce that seem to haunt the back of the fridge every week can all go into homemade pizza!
- No need to lose out on using those items – pizza is a great zero waste meal!
Making Whole Grain Sourdough Pizza Dough
You can make this recipe with a variety of different grain flours. I have an Einkorn version of this recipe that I often make. Einkorn flour is my favorite flour for flavor.
- Be advised that adding whole grain flour to any sourdough recipe will make it a bit more limp and loose. This is because the bran from the grain interferes with the gluten bonds that give the dough its stiffness.
With practice, you can learn to add whole grain flours to any sourdough recipe. Start by swapping out only one cup of the white flour for whole grain flour. Get used to that, and then go for more, if you want.
Hilltop in the Valley can help you get started with their Whole Wheat Einkorn Sourdough Pizza Dough.
Adding Herbs to the Sourdough Pizza Dough
You can omit the herbs from this recipe, but they’re delicious and give the pizza a more authentic Italian flavor.
- You can also add 1 tsp. of granulated garlic, if you’re a garlic lover.
Be cautious adding any more garlic or herbs than what’s called for simply because these lovely Italian herbs are all antibiotic in nature. Sourdough starter is a collection of wild bacteria and yeasts, and you don’t want to overwhelm them with herbs that might inhibit their activity.
A Few More Tips for the Best Sourdough Pizza Dough
When you’re measuring flour for your sourdough recipe, there are several ways to do it and it doesn’t really matter which method you use. The most important thing is to be consistent.
I dip my cup measurer into my flour cannister and then tap it against the side of the cannister to remove air pockets and level the flour out until it’s even with the cup.
You can also fill the cup measurer and then tap it with a butter knife to remove the air pockets and level it with the knife.
- Again, it doesn’t matter as much as it does that you are consistent each time you bake.
Consider Temperature
After you’ve mixed the dough, you need to consider the temperature of your home. If it’s hot in your house, consider fermenting your sourdough pizza dough in the fridge. Especially if you also live in a humid environment.
- When you’re ready to bake, simply remove the dough from the fridge, roll it out, and bake it up.
Remember, if you want a thicker, pouffier crust, simply allow the pizza dough to rise for 1-2 hours like you would bread dough. If it’s cold in your house or if you’ve included whole grain flour in the recipe, it may take longer than 2 hours to rise.
Look for it to double in size but still be sproingy – it should partially return a finger print when it’s ready.
With five kids and different flavor preferences, my family opts for individual sized pizzas. Plus, there’s no need to slice and serve like there is with larger pizza sizes. To each his own, though!
Share your favorite pizza topping and sauce combinations in the comments below, please! We do homemade sourdough pizza night a lot at my house and I’m always looking for new ideas.
–>>Pin This Article for Later<<–
Leave a Reply