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
Can you use 00 flour instead
Does the amount by weight change
Hi Michael, I haven’t tested that so I can’t give you exact details on that substitution with 00 flour.
Wonderful video! This dough is so easy and takes no time at all. Had fun making dough with my daughter and even though we didn’t leave it in the refrigerator overnight, we did leave it in for a couple of hours. Then we formed the pizza and we all put our own toppings on it. Our pizza turned out DELICIOUS… thin and crusty, just the way we like it. We have moved and I could not find our stone so baked it on a cookie sheet with parchment. I can’t wait to try the crust on our stone. Will try your sauces on our next pizza night.
Fantastic! That makes me happy too, thank you for sharing your experience making this recipe, Cindy. We appreciate your great feedback!
Natasha,
I am going to try your pizza recipe after failing at three other recipes and carefully measuring . I notice you said you use organic all purpose flour, can you tell me the name brand, I am desperate to succeed. Thank you
Hi Susan, I buy that flour at Costco and it is produced by Central Milling Company.
Hi! I would love to do this but I only have INSTANT DRY YEAST on hand! What would the measurement be? Thank you ☺️
Hi there, I have only tested this with regular yeast and not instant so I can’t speak to the process changes if you are substituting that ingredient without testing it through myself. My guess would be to keep the process the same.
Yes. I use instant yeast all the time. Keep an eye on it as it may rise faster than you think especially if it’s in a warm area.
Absolutely PERFECT! My husband says this is the best pizza dough I’ve ever made, and I’ve tried a lot! Now I’m excited about trying your white sauce! Thanks for sharing all the tips. This is a definite keeper 🙂
That’s so wonderful! Thanks to you both for your great comments and review of this recipe. I appreciate you sharing your experience with us!
I love the recipe and will let you know how it turns out when I bake the pizza tomorrow.
Your videos are so popular and I wonder if you wouldn’t mind suggesting something else aside from plastic wrap to cover the rising dough, a damp tea towel for example. It might help reduce single use plastic in the homes of some of your viewers. According to many sources it is really harmful for the environment. Thanks :-))
I hope you love this recipe, Elliot! Thank you so much for sharing that suggestion!
Best pizza ever! Made it for the first time and used white sauce! My husband and I have never had pizza this good! I’ve been making pizza for almost 40 years and nothing compares to this one!
That is so heartwarming. Thank you for sharing that with us, Lynn. I hope that you and your husband will love every recipe that you try from my site!
Your recipe calls for 3 1/3 cups of flour. I did just that. The video says 420 gr of flour. I didn’t watch the video. So, 3 1/3 cups of flour makes dough impossible to work with. You may want to specify in recipe properly how much flour to use.
Hi Margaret, we used 3 1/3 cup flour for this recipe which by the metric conversion translates to 420 grams of flour. Did you let it rise per the recipe? I’m more than happy to troubleshoot.
Can you use this as crusty bread as well?
Hi Megah, I haven’t tried making it that way yet but I imagine that would work. Please share with us how it goes if you try it!
Hi Natasha,
I’m dying to make this pizza, but before I do, I wanted to know,
Can I freeze the pizza once it is assembeld? (Without the sauce of course ..) Will the dough freeze well?
Hello Avital, yes you can freeze the dough. Freezing will work fine and this is the process that worked for me. To Freeze Pizza Dough: 1. Let the dough do it’s cold ferment overnight before freezing. 2. Lightly coat the dough with oil and transfer to a resealable freezer-safe zip bag and squeeze out the excess air then freeze up to 3 months. 3. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator then transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it rest on the counter and come to room temperature 1 hour before shaping.
Easy, taste and texture are amazing. I make this on Sunday and have it in the fridge ready to go for a quick week day meal that feels like a weekend effort. Thx
Isn’t it so great! I’m happy you both enjoyed this recipe!
Thanks for such a wonderful pizza recipe. Made it today a second time. First time I made it it came out perfect. This time everything seemed to be going perfect. Thin center and raised edges and good bubbles but it was so tough that I couldn’t bite it off and chew it. Baked them at 500 both times. It was tough chewy. What do you think went wrong? Thanks. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi Elyse, I wonder if maybe too much flour was used. Make sure to measure flour correctly and also use the same kind of flour.
Hello Natasha! I’ve tried other recipes from you and they are amazing so when I wanted to make pizza I went here! My dough did not get sticky though. It is wrapped up now and I’m wondering before I keep going, Should I start over? Any idea what went wrong? Followed measurements so I’m not sure.
Hi Laura, if it was too firm, it’s probably due to using too much flour. Check out our post on how we measure ingredients for baking. Also, be sure to use the same type of flour as some flours have varying protein and gluten content which would require different amounts.
Best pizza dough ever.
Pizza dough was great but I have a quick question. Can you use your mixer with the dough hook to initially mix the dough or is it better to do it by hand?
Hi Kevin, I found it’s safer to do it by hand since there’s less risk of over-mixing. I hope you totally love this dough!
If I were to use cornmeal for bottom of the pizza, at what point would I need to add the cornmeal? Should I put it on the stone or use it under the dough instead of the flour or do I put it on the peel and then transfer it to the stone?
Hi Ani, I put it on the pizza peel before I set the pizza crust over it and then slide it onto the hot pizza stone.
Hello i have a question at what temp and how long would you recommend baking the pizza if my oven doesn’t even go up to 500?
Hi Salinas, you will have to crank up the oven to the highest temperature and then just keep an eye on the pizza and gauge doneness based on visual cues. I would still work with that if that is the temperature that was available. I hope you love the pizza recipe!
Hi Natasha, can I add pepperoni to the pizza? If so, do I need to cook it longer.
Love all your recipes. Happy New Year.
Hi Monica, of course, you can!
I followed instructions exactly but my dough was way to sticky and then when I put in fridge overnight it raised so much that it busted through cling film!
I did carry on with it and managed to make a very rustic shape base, that tasted nice but there were no real air bubbles.
Hi, I highly recommend watching the video tutorial to see where things started to look different. If the timings were correct without any changes in ingredients, it sounds like there was too much yeast added since it should not rise much during the cold fermentation process.
Could this dough be made in a bread machine?
Hi Stephanie, I haven’t tested this in a bread machine to advise. If you happen to experiment, please let me know how you like that.
I made it in my bread machine and it turned out great. I didn’t refrigerate it either cause I was making it for dinner and didn’t realize the dough had to be chilled overnight. It still turned out the best pizza I’ve ever made. Highly recommend this recipe!
I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing your great review
Does cold weather affect the proofing process
Hi, yes that would affect it – warmer temperatures would make it proof faster and vice versa.
Hi! Would 00 flour be considered high quality flour?
Is the pizza crust supposed to takes like bread?
Hi Gaby, it will be bread-like and taste like bread if too much yeast is used. I wouldn’t say this recipe tastes like bread. Maybe slightly like a really amazing French Baguette.
Hi Natasha what kind of pizza stone do you use. Can I make this without a pizza stone? I made it in my cast iron skillet and it was good but not as good as yours looks 🙂
Hi Marika, we prefer the pizza stone, it can be found linked to the recipe, and you can find it HERE. Others used a pizza pan and had reported some great results.