Pizza is a family favorite at our house…especially when you load it up with lots of delicious, fresh and hearty toppings! Here are my favorite tips for the best pizza:
Pizza Stone
I must say that I love my Pampered Chef pizza stone (thanks to hosting a PC show, I got this for free!). It makes the best crispy crust. It is never soggy or undercooked. It is easy to cut on and clean (no soap is necessary or recommended). Stoneware gives it a fine even baking to your crust. No burning your pizza here! After several uses, stoneware becomes non-stick as well, but until then, a thin layer of olive oil does the trick. Although a pizza stone is not essential, it is a nice addition! I highly recommend it if you like pizza at your house! Amazon also sells one, but I cannot say how good it is.
Sauce – Less is more!
The more sauce you put on your crust the more soggy your dough will become. A very thin layer will do you just fine (about 1/4 cup is all). Just remember…less is more! You don’t need any fancy pizza sauce either. Just some simple spaghetti sauce pureed in the blender will do. Spread it thin it spatula.
Cornmeal
Dust your pizza stone or pan with ground cornmeal before laying our your crust. This helps give it a nice crisp crust!
Combine your Cheeses
I use a combination of mozzarella and white cheddar cheese on my pizzas, with a final thin topping of Parmesan on the very top. It gives the pizza a ton of flavor. A sprinkling of Parmesan on the top gives it a yummy crunchy texture as well!
Spice it Up!
Sprinkle a good layer of Italian seasoning and garlic salt or basic garlic powder on the top of your pizza. Yum!
Here is our favorite collection, topped in this order:
Homemade Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (soaked or regular as you desire)
Spaghetti/Pizza sauce, 1/4 cup pureed (I like to freeze my homemade sauce in small portions to pull out for this purpose.)
Mozzerella, sliced (about 1/3 cup)
Cheddar Cheese, grated (about 1/3 cup)
Pepperoni (Applegate Farm’s Nitrate Free pepperoni is wonderful! 1/2 package covers one pizza.)
1/2 pound Chicken Sausage, cooked & crumbled
1/2 (15 oz) can olives, chopped
1/4 cup onion (red or yellow), chopped
1/2 Green/Red Pepper, chopped
Mushrooms, chopped
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
Dipping sauce: 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 tsp garlic powder. Melt together in a pan over low heat. We love to dip our crust into this sauce! Just like Papa John’s.
Bake at 475 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Enjoy!
This post is a part of Kitchen Tip Tuesdays.
Thank you so much for all the tips! This looks absolutely delicious. I think I see pizza in the very near future for us!
This looks delicious. We love pizza, but every time we make it homemade it turns out icky. I’ve heard that the PC pizza stones are wonderful. I’m thinking of investing in one for sure now. Thanks for the tips!
Mmm, I love homemade pizza and make it often! Here’s my secret: instead of using cornmeal, try sesame seeds. I used to get pizza from a place in Cambridge, MA that did this and it is SO yummy. My husbands requests it like this all the time!
Thanks for this post, Lindsay!
I’ve been reading your blog for almost a year now and have been so blessed by it. My husband and I have used your pizza dough recipe about 6 times now, but I have a question. We can’t seem to get the crust thin. No matter how thin we make it on the pan it always comes out of the oven very thick. It still tastes fantastic, but we’d like to try some thin crust. Any ideas?
Make sure to bake immediately. If you let it sit for awhile, it will naturally rise. I also find that the ones I freeze definitely produce a thinner crust. The rising process is cut off when I put them in the freezer, so that works too. You could also divide the recipe into more crusts if you want it thinner (say 5 crusts instead of 4). Hope that helps!
We absolutely love your pizza crust recipe! In fact, I have flour soaking for it right now at home for tomorrow’s dinner. I also find my Pampered Chef pizza stone to be wonderful for getting a crisp, evenly baked crust, plus it works well for biscuits, cookies, etc, so it’s multi-purpose.
Usually we just have plain cheese but sometimes I’ll dress it up with mushrooms because those are my husband’s favorite. Thanks for the tips!
Hi, You had given me the idea to start finding a way to soak my pizza dough.
I have tried to do mine just like sue gregg’s “delicious whole wheat bread recipe” modifying with olive oil and using no sweetener. We love the end result, but I find that when I soak the pizza dough it is hard to spread out onto the pizza stone (it bounces back). I have to work really hard. Have you experienced this?
I have been using this recipe for pizza sauce, http://www.pizzawars.net/pizzarecipes/ultimate_pizza_sauce.htm ,doubling it for freezing in batches (makes about 5 pizza dinners). It gets rave reviews, we love it. I too, use the same cheese concoction, yum!
Mmmm. we LOVE homemade pizza here! Tho, with our youngest working at Little Caesars and getting the $5 pizza for half price, we have only been making homemade for when we have company. I agree, the pizza stone does make a big difference. And less really is best when it comes to the sauce!
Thank you for this post! I have been wanting to make homemade pizza but, I haven’t got around to it yet. This is good information I will use!
I too love my Pampered Chef Pizza stone! (I wish mine had ears…that would be a huge help getting it in and out of the oven when it is hot! I may have to host a party soon and get a new one! LOL) Have you tried using your crust recipe and making up pizzas to freeze and use later? Just curious if this recipe has been tested for that. Homeschooling leaves me with the desire for some lazy dinners some nights,…and I would much rather have something healthy like you described than ‘other’ frozen products or *gasp* ordering out!
Oh yah! I make 4 pizza crusts at a time and freeze three of the dough portions for future dinners. Makes it easy! I describe that in the recipe.
I was given two pizza stones for a gifts. One was pampered chef and the other was a brand from a big chain super store. It is amazing the difference in the two stones. The pampered chef one is well seasoned and cleans easily. The other is still dry looking (didn’t season well) and cheese and sauce (and sometimes crust) sticks to it. The pampered chef one is definitely worth paying the extra money for.
Allrecipes.com has a fabulous, fabulous recipe for “Exquisite Pizza Sauce” that is simple and delicious!
Pizza is a favorite at our house as well… if it were up to husband we’d have it every other night! I’m constantly looking for an easy and good pizza crust, and was using a different recipe for each pizza until i found yours. Wow! We love this crust! The whole wheat makes it so flavorful, and it was perfectly chewy on the inside. Thank you so much for this awesome recipe! It’s going to be the one I use from now on.
p.s. i also use a pizza stone, and found that when i used it with other crust recipes the crust turned almost cracker-y. When I used this recipe on the stone, it turned out wonderfully!
p.p.s. my secret ingrediant for pizza sauce is fennel seed. Ok, maybe it’s not that secret… but I just discovered how delicious it is to put it in there with all of the other typical Italian seasonings. It really gave my sauce the “authentic” taste we love.
megan
Thanks Lindsay. That looks like take out pizza, which I love but should not be eating. If Jessica is having a hard time getting the crust thin, I know I will love it. I love a thick crust.
I do have a pizza stone but I have not made pizza in a long time. I use my stone for naan. I have the urge to fill my freezer for winter. I am so on this. Thanks!
Thanks for the idea. I’ve been using wheat flour for a while, but making much of my recipies up as I go. This will be a great blessing. I agree about the stone from PC. I got mine from a party as well. Has come in SO handy.
I’m anxious to try your recipe, but I had a question. I’ve seen that you freeze the crust for future use, but do you ever make up an extra pizza, sauce, cheese and all and freeze it that way? I’m interested in doing it this way to save even more time on rushed evenings and we have lots of freezer space, but wasn’t sure if it would work well that way, and if so if I would thaw it out before cooking, bake it frozen (like prepackaged frozen pizza) etc. Any help here would be great! Thanks Lindsay and God Bless!
The only way I can imagine this working is if you pre-baked the crusts by themselves and then topped them with all your toppings and then freezing. This would give you something similar like a frozen pizza.
How funny, I made your pizza dough this weekend and kept one out of the freezer for dinner tonight! My husband loves barbeque pizza so use a homemade barbeque sauce topped with mozzarella, turkey/chicken, onion, bell pepper, olives and cilantro. Sometimes as a treat I add some bacon from a local farm. My husband loves pizza night, we do it weekly. Thank you so much for your recipes!!!
We make our own pizza too, so much better than delivery! Instead of making my own dough I just buy loaves of dough in the freezer section, you can get white or whole wheat. Just let it sit on the counter to defrost and rise and voila! Perfect pizza crust for minimal expense (loaves cost $3 for 3 loaves).
My favorite “sauce” is simply to throw a can of diced tomatoes in the food processor and process, and then to spread a small amount on the crust…I agree with you, don’t over do it with the sauce. I get more compliments on my pizzas using this simply sauce, than when I was making my own more complicated pizza sauce. It is so good. I can’t wait to try your dough.
Yes, homemade pizza is something I am constantly refining and polishing! I too love the stone, but I put olive oil and cornmeal on the stone to have almost a pan pizza crust. Also, I preheat the stone in the oven for a few minutes, and then put the crust on (careful–hot!) as this eliminates any doughy center but burnt crust. Another treat is stuffed crust–roll the dough out thinner and wrap around halved cheese sticks.
I will definitely have to try your whole-wheat crust–sounds yummy!
great tips! we have pizza night pretty much every friday… we love homemade pizza! we often mix a few tablespoons of our homemade italian seasoning into the dry ingredients of the pizza dough so that the pizza crust has a great herbed flavor to it.
We love homemade pizza! I have the same problem every time I make pizza though…I preheat my stone and make my pizza on a separate board. When I go to slide my pizza off the stone it gets stuck and all the toppings and fall onto the hot stone! I put cornmeal on the board before I make my pizza, but it doesn’t help. Any ideas???
I always assemble my pizza directly on a cold stone and then place it in the oven. This works great! I do not try to remove it from the stone when it is done. I just serve it directly on the stone. DO you oil your stone at all?
So you don’t preheat the stone and the dough cooks well? Glad to know. I will try that next time. I have not oiled my stone. Do you do that before you put make the pizza? Do you use Olive Oil? My stone is from Crate and Barrel and I’m not too fond of it. Everything sticks to it and it’s hard to clean. I wish I had the pampered chef one…maybe next time!
Oh yah! I never preheat it and it always turns out beautifully! I always oil it lightly with olive oil before I put the dough on it to assemble the pizza. It takes time to become more non-stick…but maybe that is a quality issue.
My secret tip is a “cheese anchor”. When you put the sauce on the pizza, leave a few places where the crust isn’t covered. Sprinkle with a little bit of your cheese, put the toppings on top and then cover with cheese. The cheese will bond to the crust and you won’t have issues with your cheese and toppings sliding around or coming off with the first bite. Also, the little bit of cheese that’s under your toppings will melt to the cheese on top so everything stays put. Another tip I just heard and I want to try is this: if you have issues with a soggy crust, spray the crust with cooking spray before you put the sauce on. It is supposed to give a thin barrier between the two to help keep the moisture from seeping into your crust. Hope these tips help!
Try sprinkling some gound fennel on there, too. It’s a spice they use in sausage and it’s absolutely delicious on pizza! My friend suggested it to me about a year ago and it has revolutionized our homemade pizza.
this looks like a great recipe that I’ll have to try! I love my pc pizza stone too. I’m actually a consultant for pc. Such a great way to earn a little extra money as a sahm. If you ever want to earn more free stuff…I can help you host a catalog show
http://www.pamperedchef.biz/beckyfinnegan
Lindsay – Your soaked crust is so good. We’ve used it multiple times. You could call your fav toppings “super food pizza” b/c there are so many of them! Feel free to link this post up to the Super Foods carnival at Kitchen Stewardship next Thursday. More details here: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/09/29/october-fest-carnival-of-super-foods-guidelines/
Thanks!!
Katie
This looks delicious! I’m on the hunt for the perfect (for us) pizza crust – so many to try, so little time. :>) I linked to this on my weekly roundup – post is under my name. Thanks!
I really enjoyed this. Thanks so much.
If you’d like more pizza recipes, I hope you’ll take the opportunity to check out some of mine at http://thepizzaprinciple.blogspot.com. I particularly recommend the French onion. Yum.