This Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe makes the best, perfectly crispy, and chewy pizza dough crust with impressive air pockets – it tastes like it came out of a fancy pizzeria. This pizza dough is also make-ahead friendly. Watch the video tutorial and start planning your next pizza party!
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Helpful Reader Review
“Best pizza dough recipe ever! We’ve been making our own pizza dough for many years, but this recipe is a game changer. Love, love, love it!” – Stacey ★★★★★
Sourdough Pizza Dough Video
See how easy it is to make sourdough pizza dough with your active starter. Natasha takes you step-by-step in the easy process. The flavor and texture is excellent.
The Best Sourdough Pizza Recipe
I have been developing this sourdough pizza crust recipe for what feels like ages and I am confident this is the one you’ll make on repeat. You’ll love the big bubbly edges which are actually my favorite part of homemade sourdough pizza – trust me, you will never throw your crusts away again!
You’ll also be happy to know that it’s make-ahead friendly (it lasts up to a week in the refrigerator) and you can also freeze pizza dough for another time (and yes, I do stockpile this pizza dough in my freezer).
Pizza Dough with Active Sourdough Starter
This pizza dough uses 70% hydration, which results in a dough that is easy to handle and cooks up into a light and airy crust that is chewy on the outside and so soft inside. The flavor and texture are actually very similar to our popular Overnight Pizza Dough, which uses yeast as leavening.
The sourdough starter adds a lovely layer of flavor, and sourdough can be easier to digest, so if you don’t already have a sourdough starter, it’s surprisingly simple to make one and you’ll be on your way to making some of the best pizza dough you’ve sunk your teeth into.
Ingredients for Sourdough Pizza Crust
This sourdough pizza dough recipe calls for just 4 ingredients, so it’s easy to whip it up when your starter is active and bubbly. Even if you don’t have the right flour on hand, you can substitute it in a pinch.
- Flour – we use “00 Flour” (Double Zero flour) for the best stretchy, yet strong texture. It’s the finest flour available and the best for that chewy, crispy pizza crust texture. You can also use all-purpose flour or bread flour if desired. *see our note below for where to buy and substitutions
- Salt – fine sea salt adds flavor, but more importantly, it helps strengthen the dough and control fermentation–don’t skimp on this ingredient!
- Water – opt for room temperature, filtered water, so the temperature won’t slow the yeast’s fermentation.
- Active Sourdough Starter – You’ll need 100 grams of active starter. Feed your sourdough starter 4-6 hours before mixing the dough. The starter should be at least doubled in size, bubbly, and domed at the top.
- Semolina flour – optional, but best for dusting the pizza peel. you can substitute with AP or 00 flour.
Where can I get 00 flour?
You can look for it in your grocery store, but I found that not all grocery stores carry it. Locally, I have only found this flour in specialty higher-end grocery stores. For convenience, I purchase it online. Here is my favorite brand of 00 flour, which is also perfect for making homemade pasta.
How to Make Sourdough Pizza Dough
It takes only a few minutes of active prep time to make this sourdough pizza dough, so it’s easy to mix up anytime your starter is active and store until you’re ready to bake. This sourdough pizza dough recipe works on your schedule.
- Feed your sourdough starter 4 to 6 hours before you start making the pizza dough. You must start with an active and bubbly starter that has more than doubled in size. See our post on How to Feed Sourdough Starter.
- Make the dough – Whisk flour and salt and then add the water and starter. Mix and pinch the dough together until combined. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
- Knead the dough – knead on a clean surface or in the bowl for 2 minutes. Oil a bowl and place dough inside. Cover and rest until doubled, around 4-5 hours. Don’t be tempted to speed up proofing. It’s best to rest at room temperature of 70-75°F
- Divide the dough – Turn the dough onto a floured surface and dust with flour, then divide into 4 pieces using a bench scraper. Working each piece at a time, fold the dough over itself 8 times turning the dough between folds. Form a ball with each piece and place it in an oiled bowl seam-side down. Cover and place in the fridge for 18 hours or up to 1 week.
Pro Tip:
After the cold ferment stage, you can also use the refrigerated sourdough pizza crust for our Easy Calzone and Stromboli recipes as well.
How to Bake a Sourdough Pizza Crust
You can change up the toppings any way you want here, but this is a great starting point. Top with our easy Red Pizza Sauce, White Pizza Sauce, or homemade Pesto, plus your favorite toppings for the perfect pizza every time. We even have a super delicious Tuscan Pizza in my Cookbook that would be perfect on sourdough pizza crust!
- Prep – When you’re ready to make pizza, remove the dough to come to room temperature, for at least 15 minutes. Put a pizza stone or upside-down baking sheet in the center rack and preheat the oven to 550°F (if your oven won’t go to 550, bake at 500 for a little longer). Chop and prepare toppings and dust the pizza peel with flour.
- Shape the Crust – Working one piece at a time, place a ball of dough on a floured surface, and turn to coat. Watch the video above for the best technique! Flatten gently without popping bubbles, and then use the backs of your hands to work the dough into a 10-12” round with a thicker edge. Place on the floured peel.
- Add Toppings – spread a light layer of pizza sauce over the center and add light toppings. Shake the pizza peel slightly to be sure the dough isn’t sticking, then slide into the oven to the hot pizza stone. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
Pro Tip:
Don’t overload the pizza with sauce and toppings, because this can weigh down the center and prevent it from baking properly.
What to Serve with Pizza
Make this Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe anytime for a delicious, crowd-pleasing meal. Here are a few of our favorite sides to serve with homemade pizza:
- Caesar Salad or Garden Salad
- Easy Garlic Bread
- Corn on the Cob
- Avocado Corn Salad
- Oven-Roasted Broccoli
- Strawberry Salad with Honey Vinaigrette
- Homemade Lemonade
Make-Ahead
This dough keeps really well in the refrigerator or freezer which is perfect for when you’re craving pizza.
- To Refrigerate: Cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week. It will have a more pronounced sourdough flavor as it sits in the refrigerator. I think it gets better with time. Choose a container that has room for expansion.
- Freezing: In my experience, the dough will have the best rise and spring if you don’t freeze, but you can freeze sourdough pizza dough. Once the dough has completed its overnight cold fermentation in the refrigerator, you can freeze and store it for up to 3 weeks. See how to freeze pizza dough for all of our best tips.
- To Reheat: Thaw the covered dough in the refrigerator overnight, then let it rest at room temperature for 1-2 hours before forming a pizza crust.
This tested and approved Homemade Sourdough Pizza Dough recipe makes the best homemade pizza with a chewy and crispy crust. The dough is made ahead, so you just top it with your favorite sauce and veggies for an incredible meal.
Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe
Ingredients
- 500 grams 00 flour, (500gr=4.17 cups), or all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for dusting
- 12 grams fine sea salt, or 2 tsp
- 335 grams water, (335gr=1.4 cups), filtered, room temperature
- 100 grams active sourdough starter, (100gr=1/2 cup)
- Semolina flour, to dust the pizza peel
Instructions
How to Make Sourdough Pizza Dough:
- Feed your sourdough starter 4 to 6 hours before you start making the pizza dough. You must start with an active and bubbly starter that has more than doubled in size. See our post on How to Feed Sourdough Starter.
- Make the Dough – Whisk together flour and salt. Add water and starter and mix with a firm spatula then use your hands to pinch the dough and mix until really well combined. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
- Knead and Proof – Knead the dough in the bowl or on a clean work surface for 2 minutes then transfer to a bowl coated with olive oil. Cover and proof for 4-5 hours or until the dough has risen at least 50% in volume. Do not speed up the process but proof at room temperature 70-75 ̊F.
- Fold dough and Refrigerate– Transfer dough to a floured surface and turn to coat lightly in flour so it isn’t sticky. Use a bench scraper to divide the dough into 4 equal-sized pieces. 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 Sourdough Pizza Crust:
- PREP: Remove the dough 15-30 minutes before using it to let it relax while preheating the oven or pizza oven. For oven baking: Place a pizza stone or inverted baking sheet onto the center rack of the oven and preheat to 550 ̊F. Lightly flour a pizza peel and prep toppings.
- Shape the Crust: Transfer 1 piece of dough to a lightly floured surface, turning to lightly coat in flour. Flatten the dough gently with your fingertips, moving the bubbles to the edges. DO NOT pop any bubbles. Lift the dough over the backs of your hands and roll your knuckles under the center of the dough, working outward as you rotate the dough along your knuckles, leaving a slightly thicker edge. Continue working the dough until a 10-12” pizza has formed. It will shrink slightly when you set it down. Place the dough down on a semolina-dusted pizza peel. Give the pizza peel a little shake to make sure the pizza slides over it and is not sticking.
- Add Toppings: Spread on a light coating of pizza sauce and toppings. Give the pizza another shake to make sure it slides on the pizza peel (to ensure it doesn't stick while transferring to the hot pizza stone). Slide the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone and bake at 550 ̊F for 8-10 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and some of the larger bubbles on the crust are lightly scorched to ensure a crisp crust.
Notes
- “00” Flour (Double Zero flour) is the best flour for making pizza dough. If you can’t find it, you can substitute it with bread flour or All-purpose flour. To make this process easier and more precise, weigh your ingredients into the bowl over a kitchen scale.
- Semolina is best for keeping the pizza dough from sticking to the peel, but you can substitute with 00 Flour, All-purpose, or bread flour.
- Baking in the Oven – If your oven only heats to 500, that’s ok, just bake slightly longer.
- Measuring Tip: To make this process easier and more precise, weigh your pizza ingredients into the bowl over a kitchen scale. If you don’t have a scale, see our post on How to Measure Ingredients.
- Don’t overload with toppings and sauce to be sure it cooks properly in the center.
- To Freeze – After the cold ferment for at least 18 hours in the refrigerator, you can place freezer-safe containers of dough into the freezer to store for up to 3 months. See How to Freeze Pizza Dough.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
More Sourdough Recipes
Sourdough Pizza Dough is one of our family’s favorite ways to use our active starter. Once you try pizza, try these other favorites:
- Sourdough Bread
- Sourdough Cheese Crackers
- Sourdough Pancakes
- Sourdough Discard Crackers
- Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
- Sourdough Dinner Rolls
- Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies
Hi!
I’ve made sourdough pizza crust many times with various recipes before coming across yours. My dough looked amazing! Such a well detailed recipe. My pizza came out very gummy- almost raw and just simply would not bake. Even at 550 in the oven preheated for a half hour. I checked every 2 minutes after the 10 minute mark and still rawish after 22 minutes. Do you have any ideas? Totally on me but I can’t figure it out
Hi Danielle, it definitely helps if your pizza stone is fully preheated when you put the pizza on it. Also, the most common reason the center mightnot bake through is if the pizza is overloaded with sauce and toppings. I hope that helps for next time.
Perfect. I love it.. in my oven 500 didn’t cook it right and 550 burned it.. 525 was perfect.Thanks Natasha for the Fantastic recipe 😋. Now all I need is a perfect sauce recipe ☺️
You’re welcome! I’m so glad you finally got it!
Hi Natasha – first off, love the recipe! The kids no longer want chain pizza because this recipe is so good! My only question is how you manage to get such a golden crust without burning the toppings at 550? The cheese in particular comes out almost black at 550 so I’ve had to reduce the temp to 500. Is there a specific mozzarella or pizza blend cheese that you’re using?
Hi Matt, are you using regular bake mode? It sounds like possibly your oven runs hotter? We use regular mozzarella cheese. Be sure your oven is calibrated and that your pizza is in the center and not too close to the top or bottom of the oven. I wish I could be more helpful from afar.
My oven doesn’t go past 500 degrees. How would you adjust the recipe to a 500 degree oven? I was thinking to spread the crust super thin?
Hi Ellie! Just bake it a little longer.
First of all, the baked pizza crust was delicious, I made a margarita style pizza with it: however I could not use the metal pizza peel I just bought because the dough was so sticky it would not slide off. Instead, I had to use a pizza screen placed on top of the stone which worked fine. So my question is, can I cut out some of the water from the initial dough recipe to make this a little easier to work with and, if so, how much would you suggest?
Hi Alyne! You can try about 20–30g less water. I wouldn’t reduce it too much- the higher hydration is one reason why this crust turns out so amazing. If you live in a humid climate then you may be able to reduce it a little more but reducing it too much can lead to a denser, more chewy crust. It could have less oven spring and be harder to stretch.
Are you using semolina flour on your peel? This will help it not to stick so much (don’t use AP flour).
Also- if you’re using AP flour, you may try bread flour which absorbs a little more water than AP flour.
I have made this twice now and like it so far! One, because it’s easy to follow and two, it tastes great! I do have a question though, can I use whole wheat flour or will that ruin the recipe? Thank you!
Hi Rose! Whole wheat flour can work too, but your crust will be more dense and chewy. You may need to adjust hydration a bit since it also absorbs more liquid.
Natasha, your videos are amazing T tutorials showing and everything about baking, cooking the best recipes.
l’m new to Sourdough and your my 1 to go to. l purchased your fantastic cookbook.
Thank you for purchasing my cookbook! I appreciate it, I hope you’ll love all the recipes that you will try. Good luck on your sourdough journey!
Best pizza ever. I’m making this pizza every single week. Right now I just precooked four to have ready in case I can’t wait for the end of the week. Perfect, as most of your recipes. Thank you!
I’ve never made sourdough pizza before, but after trying this recipe, I’ll never use anything else. Perfect crispy crust on the outside and chewy on the inside. I’ve only been using sourdough for a few months now and your recipes have been so helpful.
I’m so glad to hear you’re enjoying my recipes and that they’ve been helpful, Jeff! Thank you for sharing that with me!
This recipe has become my go to pizza dough recipe. Your detailed recipe with illustrations is perfect and makes it so simple to follow. I always keep a few dough balls frozen to appease my grandson who only likes “Gram Pizza.” Thanks for making me a legend!
I’m so glad to hear it’s become your go-to recipe!
Hi Natasha,
Can I make the recipe on a sheet pan as 2 larger rectangles instead of 4 rounds?
Hi ivy, that would be fine. I hope you love it!
Hi Natasha ,
I want to make the sourdough pizza , however I just keep my starter in the fridge and dont feed , but add to it when it gets low . Would this still work for making the pizza crust ? Your recipe calls for freshly fed starter .
Hi Bev, you will want to feed and activiate your starter before adding it.
Ok sounds great … thank you so much . I think my new years goal will be to take starter out and feed what I need for a loaf or pizza crust and see if that helps me attain a better loaf , as well as follow your guidance 😉 I’ve only learned and known Ben Starr’s method . So fingers crossed 🤞🏻 I may be turning to you more 🤭
Can I store the balls of pizza dough on two oiled sheet pans, covered in plastic wrap? I doubled the recipe and don’t have 8 bowls. Thank you!
Hi Tyra, that should work. Just be sure the oil the pan well and the tops of the dough so they don’t dry out. Ensure the plastic is tightly covered. You can also use a clean kitchen towel on top of the wrap for extra protection.
My first time making sourdough pizza. I’ve been making sourdough bread for many years, but never tried pizza. I guess I was afraid it wouldn’t come out. But I was wrong! This sourdough pizza was amazing. Thank you so much, Natasha.
You’re very welcome, Lisa! You will never go back to normal pizza dough, I promise!
Hi Natasha, I love your sourdough recipes. After the 4-5 hour proofing, can you then put the whole lot in the fridge for 18 hours then divide into the portions just before shaping them into a base?
Hi Catherine, I prefer to shape the dough first and then refrigerate so you aren’t disturbing the bubbles that form during the slow cold fermentation in the fridge.
Can you precook dough (5 or so min) after refrigeration, add toppings and freeze?
Hi Camille, I haven’t test that but it sounds like a good idea for freezing pizzas. Let me know if you test that out.
I have made this receipe several times now. I think I have perfected it. One slight mod I make is to add a tsp of honey to the water and sourdough starter. this give just a hint of sweetness and a more golden crust. Timing and air temp is important during proofing. For example if I make the dough on a Wednesday and I know I will cold ferment a longer time, I may cut the proofing time by 1 hour. This way I don’t over proof the dough.
You’re right! It’s the only SD pizza recipe I need! I’ve tried several. Not what I was looking for… Yours is perfect. And I haven’t even tried it with 00 yet! Thanks & Best dishes 🥰 wish I could some pics. Gorgeous airy, crispy, right amount of chewy & so tasty.
That’s so great to hear, Vina! We really love this recipe too. It makes one of the best pizza doughs I’ve ever tried.
Hi!
This recipe is great, my family loves it!
I am wondering if there is a way to speed up the fermenting process? I’d like to be able to make the dough the day before I want to make the pizza, and if the starter isn’t ready or I don’t start early, I can’t make the pizza for lunch that day. 😕
Thanks 😊
Hi Angela. The long cold fermentation processe is necessary for flavor development, and best texture. This dough can be made in advance and kept in the refrigerator or even frozen for longer storage (see notes above). If you’d like a quick dough recipe, you can use my Quick & Easy Pizza Dough Recipe.
Ok, I understand. Thanks for the reply! 🙂
Hi there, my sourdough starter is 100% hydration. Is the 70% hydration for this recipe because of how much water to starter you use?
Hi Lina! My sourdough starter is 100% hydration too, I feed it with a 1:1 ratio of flour and water (50g flour, 50g water). So essentially the calculation looks like this:
Total flour = 500 + 50 = 550g
Total water = 335 + 50 = 385g
Hydration = 385 ÷ 550 = 70%