Pizza Dough Recipe By Hand (2024)

You’ll love this easy pizza dough recipe by hand that requires no kneading. It takes almost 1 hour to make your pizza from start to finish with this homemade dough!

I am very happy to share my delicious pizza dough recipe that I make for so many years. It is a very easy recipe. You can let your kids involved. I made it many times with my niece.

It makes 9.5 inches (24cm) 3 regular pizza crust. If you are a thin crust lover, you can use this recipe as it works very well.

Making pizza dough by hand couldn’t be easier. Let’s see why you’ll enjoy this simple recipe.

Why you’ll love this recipe

• It is a delicious crust; slightly crisp at the edges, soft and chewy in the middle.
• No machine; no kneading required. This recipe couldn’t be easier. You’ll make this pizza dough by hand. You need a bowl and a spoon to stir the ingredients and use your hands at the end to bring the dough together. Seriously it is as simple as it sounds!
• Your active time is very little; it takes only 5 minutes to prepare the dough. It’ll rise for almost 45 minutes and there is no second rise. After the first rise, it is ready to bake. In 12-14 minutes, your pizza is ready!

Ingredients You’ll Need

• Flour-I use all-purpose flour. You may have heard before that bread flour is used for a chewy result but I am happy with all-purpose flour.
• Water-We need warm water to activate the yeast. You can simply mix ⅓ of the boiling water with ⅔ of room temperature water that the recipe states to make warm water. The water shouldn’t be hot as it will kill the yeast and the dough won’t rise.
• Salt-Controls the activation of the yeast and adds flavor to the dough.
• Yeast-You can either use fresh yeast or instant yeast. I show both ways in this post. Usually, I see yeast recipes with instant yeast but using fresh yeast is also simple and also it doesn’t have additives. You’ll find how to replace these two with each other in the recipe card.
• Olive oil-I just use a little for flavor.

How to make pizza dough at home

Mixing

Instant yeast version:

First place the flour, salt and instant yeast into a large bowl, stir with a wooden spoon.

Next, add olive oil and water. Start to stir with a spoon and then use your hands to bring the dough together. You can flour your hands or/and add a little extra flour if the dough is sticky while making a ball.

Fresh yeast version:

Place the fresh yeast in a small bowl and crumble. Then add almost ¼ of the warm water that the recipe states and mix it with a wooden spoon until it is completely dissolved.

Place flour and salt in a large bowl and stir. Next add the dissolved yeast, olive oil and water.

Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon and then use your hands to bring the dough together. You can flour your hands or/and add just a little extra flour while making a ball if the dough is sticky.

Next steps are same for both version.

Proving

Place the dough on a floured work surface and cut into 3 pieces. This recipe makes 9.5 inches(24 cm) 3 pizza crust. If you want a very large pizza, cut the dough into 2 pieces. Then form a ball out of each piece by folding the dough over itself a couple of times until you have a smooth dough. Then reverse the dough and tuck the edges towards the middle.

Cover the top with stretch film and let it rise for almost 45 minutes. During this time you can prepare your toppings. Preheat the oven in the last 10 minutes.

Deflating and shaping the dough

When the dough almost doubles, deflate the dough. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle flour or cornmeal( to have something similar to a pizza texture). Place the dough on the baking sheet. It will already be a soft and round dough which will be easy to give a circle shape with your hands.

I simply press to the dough with my fingertips to stretch it out and keep its circular shape. Each dough makes around 9,5 inch (24 cm )round regular pizza crust. Don’t press too much to the edges as we will create a rim. I pinch the edges by placing my hands inside and outside of the dough’s edge.

You can make it even larger if you want a thin crust. You may need to use a rolling pin after some point, at least this is the case when I make a paper-thin crust.

Then top with your favorite sauce and toppings.

Bake in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes until the edges are golden brown.

Enjoy!

Pizza dough faqs

You may also want to check my deliciously crunchy Pizza Crackers!

Other recipes with yeast!

• No Knead Bread without Dutch Oven
• No Knead Whole Wheat Bread
• No Knead Soft Dinner Rolls

I love hearing from you! If you try this recipe or my other recipes please leave a comment and give a star rating!