For a pillowy soft, delicious pizza that your family will beg for, start with sourdough discard pizza dough! It’s easy to make and bakes up with the perfect chewy consistency. This sourdough pizza crust recipe is the best way to make an authentic Italian pie without yeast!
Why We Love Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough
- Naturally fermented
This pizza recipe uses the natural yeast from a sourdough starter. This makes it a true sourdough pizza dough recipe. - Easy overnight recipe
This recipe requires a double rise: the first takes several hours because the dough must ferment. To save time, we prefer to let it work its magic overnight. - Great for meal prep
Sourdough pizza dough stays in the fridge for up to a week, making it the perfect dinner solution for busy nights.
Short on Time?
If you want a pizza crust with a shorter rise time, make our Neapolitan pizza dough recipe or frozen dough pizza recipe instead. You can bake your pizza on the grill or in your oven!
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- All-Purpose Flour – We believe that the best flour for sourdough pizza is either all purpose or a higher protein variety, like bread flour. High protein flour gives the crust a chewier consistency.
- Sourdough Discard – If you don’t already have some on hand, make our starter recipe. You’ll have some discard ready to use in about 5 days!
- Olive Oil – Using a high quality, extra virgin olive oil goes the extra mile, but any brand or variety will help you achieve a golden, crispy crust.
Our Favorite Tools To Make This Recipe
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Buy Now → Sourdough Pizza Crust Recipe Tips
- Use a recently fed starter.
Be sure to feed it 12 hours prior to starting this recipe so you have enough active discard. - Combine the ingredients until you have a shaggy-looking mixture.
If you’re a beginning baker, you may not be familiar with the term, “shaggy”. Look at the photo below for a visual reference.
The ingredients are combined, but just barely. Overmixing sourdough dough (or really, any batters or doughs) leads to dry and tough baking.
- Let the sourdough discard pizza dough rise for at least 8 hours.
If you want to serve pizza for dinner the same day you make the dough, you’ll want to start pretty early in the morning. You need a slow fermentation rise to create a pillowy, soft, and chewy pizza crust.
The other option is to prepare the dough the night before you want to assemble and bake the sourdough pizza. It needs to rise at room temperature to ferment. - Wait until the sourdough is double its original size before punching it down.
If you need a visual guide, mark the starting level with masking tape or an erasable marker.
- Portion properly for perfect pizzas!
Our sourdough pizza crust recipe yields two large or four to six personal pizzas. You can either weigh each portion or eyeball it; either way, be sure to use a bench scraper or sharp knife to make your cuts. Otherwise, you’ll have a tough time pulling off each portion.
- Use your palms and fingertips to help shape the sourdough pizza dough.
It isn’t necessary to use a rolling pin, and actually, it’s easier to shape pizza crust without one!
- Leave a border around the edge of the crust.
As you stretch or roll the pizza crust, leave 1 inch around the edges a little bit thicker. For large pizzas, shape the dough to about 14 inches across. Smaller pies should have crusts that are between 10 and 12 inches in size.
Topping and Baking Sourdough Pizzas
Like any other homemade version, you can top your sourdough pizza crust with whatever sauce and toppings you like. If you’re a fan of chicken alfredo pizza, make our bechamel cheese sauce!
🎯 TFN Food Safety Tip
To prevent food poisoning from undercooked foods, be sure to pre-cook any meat toppings before adding them to your pie.
For a golden and slightly crispy crust, we recommend baking your sourdough pizza at a high temperature. When we use our Ooni pizza oven, it bakes at 600°F! Most home ovens won’t get that hot, so we recommend baking at 450°F.
Individual pizzas usually take 10-15 minutes to bake, and the larger ones need a few minutes longer.
🎯 TFN Pro Tip:
Baking on a pizza stone or cast iron griddle promotes a better rise and crispier sourdough pizza crust.
Freezing Unbaked Crusts and Sourdough Pizzas
You can freeze unbaked crusts after they have been shaped, or unbaked, fully assembled pizzas! Either way, they’ll keep for up to 3 months.
For instructions and helpful tips, read our post on freezing pizza dough.
If you tried this sourdough discard pizza dough recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough
Equipment
- mixing bowl
- bench cutter
- pizza stone
Ingredients
- 6 cups (750 grams) all purpose flour
- 1 cup (250 grams) sourdough starter feed about 12 hours prior
- ¼ cup (60 grams) olive oil
- 1½ tablespoon (12 grams) salt
- 1 tablespoon (10 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 ½ cups (365 grams) warm filtered water 95º to 100ºF.
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Combine well, using a heavy duty spoon or dough whisk. The dough should look rough and shaggy, and feel soft and sticky. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes, until smooth and tacky (but not sticky).
- Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise at room temperature until doubled in size. **This takes about 8 hours – we make ours at night and then set the bowl of dough on the counter to riseovernight.
- When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down in the bowl and flip it over. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap again and refrigerate. About 1 hour before you want to bake your pizzas, remove the dough from the fridge.
To Shape the Sourdough Pizza Crust
- Lightly flour your work surface. Using a bench scraper or sharp knife, cut the chilled dough into 2 equal pieces for large pizzas, or 4-6 pieces for individual pizzas. Let dough rest at room temperature for one hour. Meanwhile, prepare your pizza toppings and preheat your oven to 475º.
- Shape your pizza crusts by hand, flattening the dough with your palm, then pressing with your fingers to stretch it out, leaving a 1" thick border at the edge. For large pizzas, shape crusts to 14 inches in diameter; shape individual sourdough crusts to 10-12 inches in diameter. Add sauce and toppings, then bake as desired.
Video
Notes
- Baking Instructions
- To freeze unbaked crusts or unbaked assembled pizzas, read our post on freezing pizza dough.
- Nutrition shown is for 1 slice of crust for a 14-inch pizza, and does not include toppings.
PREVIOUS
MrsW says
This is an awesome recipe! It has our families stamp of approval. I only have one baking stone so I did a couple inside a cast iron pan, the crust was better on the baking stone. (And now I have a reason to buy another one!) I love how simple it was to mix it up the night before, punch it down in the morning and leave it in the fridge until an hour before dinner prep time. My discard was a little closer to 24 hours unfed but it worked great and had no problems doubling overnight. Thanks for posting, we are excited to add it to our recipe folder.
Karissa Lindberg says
My pizza dough is kinda hard and not rising. New to this so not sure what to do!
Danielle - TFN Team Member says
Hi try checking out this post for some tips to see if we can get that dough to rise! Troubleshooting Sourdough Starter
aaDeanne says
Why was my crust so soggy? Baked in 450 degree oven.
Danielle - TFN Team Member says
This can be a toppings issue.If you have toppings that hold water (some mozzarella cheeses, pineapples, vegetables) the water gets released during cooking. A way to avoid this in the future is to preheat vegetables or simply put a layer of oil on top of you crust prior to the sauce.