This is a recipe that Cristina has worked on A LOT on! She spent many many hours testing and perfecting a homemade pizza dough recipe that tastes just like the pizza you have in Italy. The secret is to ...

➖ Use very little yeast.
🫶 Patiently knead the dough until all the gluten strands form.
⏳ Give the dough time to rise.

By adding less yeast, you need to give the dough more time to rise. 20 to 24 hours in the fridge is the time necessary for the fermentation process to take place.

Fermentation. The yeast 'eats' and transforms the sugars (carbohydrates) in the flour into alcohol and carbon dioxide which makes the dough rise. Fermenting pizza dough makes the pizza lighter, tastier, and easier to digest.

So now you know the secret to Italy's amazing pizza dough! 🙃

How to Make Pizza Dough Step-by-Step

Use this recipe to make all the pizzas in this course, unless otherwise specified. The amounts of each ingredient are in the recipe below.

In a large bowl, mix the flour with the yeast. Add ¾ of the water and mix with a fork or spoon. Once the dough begins to form, use your hands to mix.

When the water is absorbed, add more and mix. Continue doing this until you finish the all amount of water in the recipe. Then start folding the dough in half on itself for about 10 minutes. 

When you see that the dough comes off easily from the bowl, add the salt and keep kneading.

Finally, pour in the olive oil and continue to knead until completely absorbed. Let the dough rest in the bowl at room temperature for about 20 minutes covered with a kitchen towel, plastic wrap, or plate.

Fold the dough in half on itself in the bowl for a few minutes. When it comes off easily from the bowl, place the dough on a work surface or pastry board. Now gently slam the dough on the surface then fold it in half on itself. Repeat for a few minutes.

Put the dough back into the bowl and let it rest at room temperature for about 15 minutes covered with a cloth, film, or plate.

Place the dough on the work surface and fold it again by gently beating the dough on the counter and then folding it in half on itself. Repeat this step several times and you will feel that the dough takes on more and more strength.

On a work surface (preferably in marble), drag the dough towards you with your hands making it turn on itself. In Italian, this technique is called pirlatura (which means dough rounding) and it is done to give the dough strength and give it a ball shape.

Place the dough in a large container dusted with flour. Grease the surface of the dough with a little extra virgin olive oil, cover the container with a cloth, film, or plate and put the dough to rest in the refrigerator (preferably on the lower shelves) for 20-24 hours.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and use a dough cutter to divide it into smaller portions depending on the type of pizza you want to make, round or in a baking pan.

The amount of dough. Here you need a scale! If you want to prepare round pizzas, divide the dough into portions of 250 g (8.8 oz) each. If you want to prepare the pizza in a medium-sized pan (about 30 x 40 cm / 11.8 x 15.7 in), divide the dough into portions of about 600 g (21.2 oz). In Italy, we use a specific formula to calculate the amount of dough needed for a baking pan (square or rectangular). The formula can only be used with centimeters and grams and it's Base x Height / 2. First multiply the base by the height of the pan (ex. 30 cm x 40 cm = 1200). Then divide the result by 2 (1200 / 2 = 600 g). So for a 30 cm x 40 cm baking pan you need 600 g of dough.

For each weighed portion of dough, repeat the folds and rolling of the previous step. Sprinkle a bowl or tall container with flour and place the balls of dough to rest at room temperature for about 2 hours or until doubled in volume, covering it with a towel, foil, or plate.

The dough is now ready to be rolled out!