It’s a rare day that you wouldn’t find pizza dough in my fridge. Sometimes I need a last minute meal and pizza is my go-to. You can put almost anything on a pizza and make it good. This dough is great because I can make a batch (or double batch), toss it in the fridge, and then I know that I’m covered for dinner emergencies for the next two weeks. I can pull it out of my fridge and have dinner ready within 15 minutes. I showed this trick once for a group cooking lesson and everyone was amazed. Yes my friends, there is no reason to order out. Just keep shredded mozzarella and pepperoni in your freezer, and a jar of sauce in your pantry, and of course some dough in your fridge. It’s easy and it only takes 5 minutes of hands on work to put the dough together. Forget about it for an hour or two while it rises, and then toss it in the fridge.
Makes 4 medium pizzas
Ingredients
2 3/4 cup water
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
6 1/2 cups flour
Instructions
1. Combine ingredients in an extra large tupperware.
2. Stir until it forms a dough ball. No kneading required!
3. Let rise 90 minutes.
4. Refrigerate until ready to use.
5. When ready, pull off a chunk (about 1/4 of the dough). Roll it out and top with your favorite toppings.
6. Bake on a pizza stone preheated to 500 degrees for 7-10 minutes (until cheese is bubbly).
Note: While this uses the same methodical concept as “Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day” (which book I own and love) this recipe is not from that book. I’ve adapted their method to my usual pizza dough mixture.
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Rebecca says
The ingredients are so similar to the no knead bread recipes that I have found. Could your recipe also be used for a loaf of bread?
Rachel Farnsworth says
It can, but it’s not my favorite loaf.
Miss Maple says
Try the natural way of forming your crust. Get a good idea of the size you want to make. Place the dough in the center of a cookie skeet. Start in the center, and with your fingers spread, gently but quickly push the dough evenly outward. Push it to form a circle about 6″ across. Then, starting from the center, pushing the dough out to the size circle you want. Push the dough up to form a free-form rim. If there’s a part you don’t like, let it sit for 5-6 mintues. The dough will be relaxed and you can guide it as you wish. You will have a lovely round which is more alive than one that has been stretched by a rolling pin. The dough will help you do what it wants and shaping gets to be easier. If you like, lightly sprinkle with a little olive oil as you go for a richer flavor.
This is a great basic dough to work with!
Alana says
Reviving an old post again, but I found this online and want to try it! I’m also a huge fan of the Bread in 5 book, and bake that simple bread often. So my question is, do you need to let the dough warm up when you want to use it, either before or after rolling it out? I’m guessing not, but other materials have said that pizza dough does much better when it warms up so it makes me think. Looking forward to it though 🙂 Maybe we’d actually have pizza more often if it was ready to go!
Rachel Farnsworth says
I don’t necessarily let it warm up. Yes, it makes it easier to work with, but to me the whole point of having refrigerator pizza dough is to make things fast.
Bettina Karpel says
This may be a dumb question, but how do you get the pizza onto the pizza stone without it completely falling apart? With all the toppings on it, its hard to handle, especially since the pizza stone is so hot. A frozen pizza is easy, but what do you do with a fresh one?
By the way, I love your videos and your approach to cooking!
Rachel Farnsworth says
You use a pizza peel! Dust it generously with cornmeal and the pizza should roll right off and onto the stone with a few flicks of the wrist. It’s an art.
Traci Lauritzen says
I made the dough as directed but forgot to let it rest for 90 minutes. After forming a good dough ball I stuck it in the fridge thinking I was done. Do you think it will still be good or should I toss it out and start over?
Rachel Farnsworth says
The fridge slows down rising, but doesn’t stop it all together. Once it heats back up, it’ll start growing again.
Miss Maple says
I was an Army wife in 1967 when I found Julia Child on black and white TV. How refreshing she was! She taught me to bake bread. I especially remember two pieces of advice for bread making. 1) If you can’t coax the mass in front of you to form an acceptable dough, throw it in the wastebasket (not the garbage!) It’s cheap. Then start over.
2) In your kneading, It is important to develop strands or striations of dough. This shows you that the gluten has been sufficiently developed to give a good, masterful structure to the mass. In this great recipe I exercised the gluten by forming a boule of the finished dough. Hold the ball in your hand and stretch the top with determination. As you do this, tuck the excess you develop into the bottom of the ball with your fingers. Thumbs on top, fingers underneath, turning the ball a quarter turn as you go. You will quickly see you are forming strands (cords) across the top and your dough is getting firmer. This is how you form a ball (boule) if you want a round, free-form loaf. The crust will be excellent. But in this case, you set it in your bowl to rise. The drama continues in Act two. This is a great tasting, well behaved dough for pizza! Thanks!
marianne says
hello just made this dough last night let it rise 90 min as recipe says then put it in fridge. Overnight the dough kept growing in fridge burst out of a very large zip lock bag I had placed it in. Is this normal? will it still rise when I cook it?
Rachel Farnsworth says
Yes, dough keeps rising slightly in the fridge. The cold only slows it down. Because it lets off gas, it can’t be stored in an airtight container, there has to be slight ventilation.
Lou Brown says
I made this pizza dough. It lasted really well in the fridge for over 2 weeks. the last couple pizzas I made had a slight hint of sourdough which just improved the flavor. I now have some in the making that has a cup of sourdough and some Italian seasoning herbs incorporated. Hope it works as well.
shahh says
Excellent recipe
Rachel Farnsworth says
Thank you!