This is hands down the best pizza dough! It makes a New York-style pizza with a thin crust in the center and beautifully puffed on the edges. You will love this crust – it’s crisp, chewy and so satisfying. Make this and you will never want a store-bought crust again. And, you’ll be known for your pizza!
Unlike our Quick and Easy Pizza Dough (which is great if you’re in a hurry), this is an Overnight pizza dough. You can only get this kind of pizzeria-quality crust by letting it rest in the refrigerator and slowly rise overnight. It’s also easier than you think. Watch the video tutorial, and you’ll be a pro in no time!
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The Best Pizza Dough
This is a make-ahead pizza dough recipe that just gets better with time and it keeps really well refrigerated for at least a week. Here’s more good news: our classic red pizza sauce and creamy white pizza sauce also keep really well in the fridge so you can fire up a pizza whenever the craving strikes. An overnight pizza dough also makes throwing a pizza party stress-free and everyone will be super impressed by your pizza-making skills. P.S. This overnight pizza dough is also great for homemade Stromboli or even Calzones (i.e. pizza pockets).
Pizza Dough Video Tutorial
Watch the pizza dough video tutorial once and you will be a pro in no time.
The Secret to the Best Pizza Crust
Since most pizza dough recipes have the same ingredients: flour, salt, water, yeast – it’s the process that makes all the difference. This pizza dough seriously tastes like it came out of a high-end pizzeria and in fact, most New York pizza doughs are fermented for at least 24 hours.
The pizza bosses of the world know the secret to an incredible dough is to let it rest and give it time to rise in the slow/ cold fermentation step. This process makes the dough much easier to work with and forms the coveted texture, rise, and bubbles at the edges.
What is the Best Flour for Pizza Dough?
You don’t need any fancy flours to develop a gorgeous crust. We used organic all-purpose flour for making pizza. Bread flour will work equally well if that is what you have on hand and it will give you a slightly chewier crust. You can substitute bread flour for all-purpose flour in equal parts.
If you want to make a more Neopolitan-style pizza, a “00” Flour is a great choice as well.
You can dust the pizza peel with the flour you are using to make the dough, or dust with semolina flour if you have it on hand. It’s what the pros use for easier transfer from the pizza peel to the oven.
Pro Tip:
Do not use too much yeast! Most ‘quick’ pizza doughs use way too much yeast which makes the crust doughy and causes the center of the pizza rise while baking. If you use too much yeast, you will never achieve that thin crisp crust in the center.
How to Make Overnight Pizza Dough
- Mix together water, salt and honey. Sprinkle with yeast and set aside 5 min then stir.
- Pour the water mixture over your flour and stir to combine with a spatula, then knead by hand for 2 minutes. Cover and let rise 4-5 hours at room temperature.
- Transfer dough onto a floured surface and divide in half. Fold each piece of dough 8 times (rotating book fold) and form a ball. Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover, and refrigerate overnight or up to 7 days. Your dough is done.
Why Fold the Pizza Dough?
Folding the dough balls 8 times with the ‘book fold’ and turning the dough between each fold strengthens the gluten threads and traps carbon dioxide created by the yeast, which helps form those beautiful bubbles in the dough.
How to Form and Bake Pizza Crust
- Remove the dough from the fridge 1 hour before using then preheat the oven with a pizza stone in the center to 550˚F.
- When the oven is preheated, place room-temperature dough onto a floured surface and dust lightly with flour.
- Gently press the dough down in the center with your fingertips, then place the dough over the back of your knuckles with both hands together and roll over your knuckles, rotating around the dough as you go, keeping a 1″ thicker border. Place 10-12″ diameter crust onto a floured pizza peel.
- Add white pizza sauce or red pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings. Give the pizza a shake over your pizza peel to make sure it’s not sticking then immediately slide it from your pizza peel onto the preheated pizza stone and bake at 550˚F for 8-10 minutes.
Tools for Homemade Pizza
The right tools will make the pizza dough making the process even easier. It will also make you look like a pizza ninja to transfer your pizza from a pizza peel onto your hot pizza stone.
- Pizza Peels (a set of 2 makes the process easier).
- Flexible Food Scraper – to scrape the dough out of bowls and cut the dough in half
- Round Pizza Stone – to bake your pizza in the oven
- Pizza Cutter – the easiest way to slice a pizza
- Instant Read Thermometer – to check water temperature
Pro Tip:
If you are looking for fresh pizza topping inspiration, you’ll love the Tuscan Pizza we shared in Natasha’s Kitchen Cookbook (it uses this same overnight pizza dough recipe)!
Can I Freeze Pizza Dough?
Yes! It’s very easy to freeze this dough, and once it’s thawed, it tastes just as good as freshly made. See our tutorial for How to Freeze Pizza Dough.
What to Serve with Pizza
Once you have mastered your pizza-making skills, you will want to throw a pizza party. Once you throw a pizza party, you’ll need sides to go with it. These are all great options:
- Avocado Ranch or Homemade Ranch Dressing
- Caesar Salad – a fresh and crisp green salad
- Avocado Corn Salad – so vibrant and satisfying
- Cobb Salad – beautiful and delicious
- Garden Salad – A restaurant-style side salad
- Instant Pot Corn on the Cob – the juiciest way to cook corn
Overnight Pizza Dough Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups warm water, 105-110˚F
- 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp honey
- 1/2 Tbsp fine sea salt
- 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour, (measured correctly) plus more to dust*
Instructions
How to Make Pizza Dough:
- In a small bowl, stir together water, honey, and salt then sprinkle the top with 1/2 tsp yeast and let sit 5 minutes then stir.
- Measure 3 1/3 cups flour in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Pour yeast mixture into the center then stir with a firm spatula until the dough comes together. Knead by hand 2 minutes (dough will be sticky). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature 4-5 hours or until doubled in size.
- Transfer dough to a floured surface, turn to coat lightly in flour so it isn’t sticky then divide in half. Fold each piece of dough in half 8 times, gently pulling the sides over the center like closing a book, turning the dough each time and repeating for 8 folds. Form a ball in your hands and transfer each piece of dough to a lightly oiled bowl seam-side-down, cover and refrigerate overnight (18 hours) or up to 1 week.
How to Form a Pizza Crust:
- PREP: Remove the dough 1 hour before using to let it relax and come to room temperature. Before forming the pizza crust, fully preheat your oven so pizza can be baked right away. Place a pizza stone or inverted baking sheet onto the center rack of the oven and preheat to 550˚F. Also, lightly flour a pizza peel and prep toppings.
- When dough is about room temperature and oven is preheated, transfer 1 piece of dough to a floured surface, turning to lightly coat in flour. Pat the center of the dough gently with fingertips. DO NOT pop any bubbles present.
- Lift the dough over both knuckles and roll your knuckles under the center of the dough, working outward as you rotate the dough along your knuckles and leaving a thicker crust at the edge. Continue working the dough until a 10-12” pizza has formed. It will shrink slightly so make it a little bigger than you think. Place the dough down on a lightly floured pizza peel. Give the pizza peel a little shake to make sure the pizza slides over it and is not sticking.
- Spread on desired pizza sauce and toppings. Give the pizza another jolt to make sure it slides on the pizza peel (you don’t want it to stick while transferring it into the oven). Slide pizza onto the preheated pizza stone and bake at 550˚F for 8-10 minutes or until crust is golden brown and some of the larger bubbles on the crust are lightly scorched to ensure a crisp crust.
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
God bless you for your generosity. Great pizza we have ever made.
I’m so glad you loved it, thank you!
I’m going to try this…do you think I could substitute all (or some) of the water with beer? My go-to pizza dough recipe has beer in it, but I’d love to try an overnight version.
Hi Janice, I haven’t tried this with beer myself to advise, if you happen to try it, I’d love to know how it goes!
Hi Natasha: I have already made my pizza and everything is ok but I had problems because my pizza stuck when I almost couldn’t pass it to the stone
Hi Gloria! That can happen sometimes. You may need to use a little more flour. Also, give the pizza peel a little shake to make sure the pizza slides over it and is not sticking.
Absolutely superb! New favorite pizza dough recipe and won’t go back!
I must ask… would this dough freeze well? I love to make big batches of pizza dough and then freeze to save for a quick dinner.
I’m so glad you loved it, Lois! Yes, see the section above, “can I freeze pizza dough?”
Hi Natasha, can I use this dough for an outdoor pizza oven?
Hi Gabriela! Yes, that would be fine. I hope you love the recipe!
Very Easy and the best part is it’s Very Good, Natasha is my go to for tried and true recipes!
Hello
Have you tried this dough with making pizza bombs?
Wondering if it would hold up to the rolling and then pinching closed once filled
I love the way it looks and can’t wait to try
Thank you for sharing
Hi Viv, I have not tried using this recipe to make pizza bombs, but I imagine it may work. If you experiment, let me know how you liked the recipe.
AMAZING tasting pizza dough! I made it for the first time and my wife and I LOVED it! One question though – I did have some issues with stretching the dough, and it seeming to tear in places. I was able to make it work somehow by kind of mending the tears, but for the next go around, I was wondering if you have any tips on how to avoid that? I used regular all purpose flour, and followed your measuring techniques, including using a scale to measure the flour exactly to the gram, so don’t think it is that. Do you think it could be I didn’t knead it enough? I followed your 2 minutes of kneading, but may have kneaded at a slower rate than you did. I saw a few other people mentioned kneading a few minutes longer, and a lot of other recipes call for 5-10 minutes of kneading. Do you think kneading for 5 minutes instead of 2 might help it tear less easily?
Hi Ross, it may be the kneading based on what you have described, it’s hard to say exactly without being there, but I imagine kneading it for a tad longer if you feel it went at a slower pace will be helpful.
Sounds good, I’ll try that! Again, tasted amazing and just trying to get it picture perfect. I appreciate your quick response!
Just an update for anyone reading these comments. I made a new batch of dough and kneaded for 6-7 minutes. It had no issues with tearing at all, and the taste went up to even another level!
Note, I did this windowpane test thing I heard of to make sure the dough was kneaded enough before stopping. I think depending on your kneading style, the specific flour, and other factors, it may vary how long you knead (pun intended!).
Also, I just tried Natasha’s white pizza sauce recipe, and I highly recommend it! This one:White pizza sauce .
The water is very salty…is this correct?
Hi JoJo! It’s not very salty. It’s the right balance with all the ingredient amounts.
Super fácil y muy buena ya que es la segunda vez que la hago. Prepararla se convierte en un momento familiar. Ya he preparado muchas recetas tuyas y son todas excelentes. Muchas gracias!
Translation: Super easy and very good since it is the second time I have made it. Preparing it becomes a family moment. I have already prepared many of your recipes and they are all excellent. Thank you so much!
I have made this recipe countless times and, on occasion, I find that the dough sticks to the pizza peel, which can be annoying. I found that if you place parchment paper on the peel, and then place the crust on the parchment paper, it eliminates the problem as you can then just slide the parchment paper onto the pizza stone. No more sticking!
I doubled this recipe since I had 10 teen boys and 3 adults for supper. This was the first overnight dough I’ve tried. It worked beautifully! Saved me so much time having enough dough for 4 crusts at the ready. Delicious and soft bready crust.
Hello. Can this also be bsked in a pizza pan? I am having a crowd so I am doubling the recipe and want to bake two large rectangular pizzas. What do you think? Thank you
Hi there! That should be fine. Just keep an eye on it to see how it bakes and add or subtract baking time as needed.
Alfredo, meet Margherita. This was my first time preparing skin with the fist-roll method. It did not look like yours but I’m willing to practice and improve my technique. I topped our pie with your Alfredo then fresh basil leaves and sliced fresh tomatoes. So good. Do you of a special treat you can make with the 2nd skin? After shaping the crust according to your instructions and heating the stone, I topped our second crust with fresh, thinly sliced apples, sprinkled that with cinnamon/nutmeg/sugar, then baked to bubbly. A little creamy, vanilla glaze only added to the joy of this whole recipe experience. Natasha, you don’t just feed us, you entertain us as well! Thanks for all the fun.
I love how creative you were with the overnight pizza dough – from savory to sweet pizza pies. Thank you for sharing your delicious ideas. Yum!
Hello… the very first picture in the post… what cheese was used? It’s looks really good & I’d like to use the same. I’ve made this dough before… it turned out great. I can’t wait to try it again this coming week. Thanks!
Hi Amy! We used mozzarella cheese, it’s our go to and favorite cheese for pizza.
P.S. I couldnt do the knuckles thing, made a hole in the pizza dough. I used fingers to get the outer thicker crust and left 15mins at room temperature to rise. Turned out perfectly!
We love this pizza recipe, shared with friends as well. Better than restaurant because I add tonnes of cheese 😋 Thank you!
My family really likes this! Do you have a recipe like this, but with white whole wheat flour? Would like to make it whole grain, but still soft and delicious.
Hi Katie, I have not tested that. You could experiment with it. Whole wheat tends to absorb more moisture so you may need to make adjustments as needed.
I love this pizza dough! Is there any recommendation for making it gluten free?
Hi Courtney, I have not tried this with gluten free to advise. I really don’t have much experience with GF flour. Please let us know how it turns out if you try.