Nothing beats pizza night. With this sourdough pizza dough recipe, it makes pizza night feel like a luxury, without the guilt. Long fermented, perfectly crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, with nice big bubbles in the crust. You will be making artisan pizza at home, to woo the masses.

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Below is the printable recipe card. If you would like a more in-depth and detailed chat about this recipe, and a Frequently Asked Questions section, scroll down. Enjoy!

Equipment you may need to make this Sourdough Pizza Dough:

• Glass container with a lid, preferably straight-sided.
• Kitchen Scale
• Whisk
• Bench Scraper
• Quart Containers with lids
• Pizza Stone, or Sheet Pan w/ parchment paper

Ingredients for Sourdough Pizza Dough:

• 2 Cups/400grams- Room-temperature & filtered Water
• 1 1/4 Cups/200 grams– Organic, unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 Cups/335 grams– Bread Flour
• 1/2 Cup/100 grams– Active, Fed, Bubbly Sourdough Starter
• 2 tsp./10grams– Salt

How to make this Artisan Style Sourdough Pizza Dough:

Step One: Weigh and Mix Ingredients

Weigh or measure the water into a glass bowl (preferably straight-sided). To that, weigh/measure the active starter. At this point, an active and ready-to-use starter will float on top of the water.

Whisk until fully incorporated and bubbly.

Next, weigh/measure the all-purpose and bread flour into the bowl, and the salt on top of the flour. Adding the salt on top of the flour prevents the salt from directly touching the starter, which has the potential to kill the yeast.

Mix all the ingredients together until a shaggy ball of dough forms. Cover and let autolyse for 15-30 minutes.

Step Two: Stretch and Fold Series

After the dough has autolyzed, begin performing a series of stretch and folds. There are 6 sets of stretch and folds in this series. The series can be timed like this:

1. 15-30 minutes after autolyse- Stretch and Fold
2. 30 minutes- Stretch and Fold
3. 30 minutes- Stretch and Fold
4. 15 minutes- Stretch and Fold
5. 15 minutes -Stretch and Fold
6. 15 minutes- Last Stretch and Fold

At this point, your dough should be smooth and elastic.

Step Three: Bulk Rise

Let the dough rise on the counter all day, depending on room temperature and the ambient temperature of the dough, the time will vary. An approximate 6-12 hours. It’s best to watch for visual cues, and that your dough is rising to 2 or 3 times its original bulk.

Step Four: A refrigerated long-fermentation

This step is what makes this recipe one of my best friends. At this point, I can skip this step altogether if I want to make pizza that night. Or, I can pop my dough in the refrigerator for up to three days (I have gone longer than this, and it always turns out great). Depth of flavor AND the benefits of a long fermentation are directly reflected in the amount of time your dough is allowed to ferment. If you go the full 72 hours, you will have a very tangy dough, that is more easily digestible and gut healthy.

Step Five: Dividing dough balls and shaping crusts

Take the dough out of the bowl, weigh the dough, and then divide by four, to get 4 equal dough balls.

Divide the dough evenly using a bench scraper and then roll into tight balls. Cover and let them sit on the counter for up to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, with a pizza stone inside the oven.

Roll out and shape the dough on lightly floured parchment paper, with a floured rolling pin.

*This step is optional, but very fun. To make the crust edge, use your index fingers and thumbs to twist and then rotate the parchment paper to go around in a complete circle. Drizzle with Olive Oil.

Add toppings.

Step 6: Bake

Move to an upside-down sheet pan and then slide the pizza directly onto the pizza stone that is preheated in the oven. Turn the oven down to 475 degrees Fahrenheit, and bake until the crust is golden and the toppings are bubbling. Before taking the pizza out of the oven, an optional step would be to broil for a few minutes, watching closely, to get a slight char on your pizza.

Pull the pizza back onto the sheet pan, and let cool for a few minutes before cutting and enjoying.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Do you need to autolyze?

Yes. I would NOT recommend skipping this step. This rest period or autolyze stage after the flour and water have been mixed is a time-tested technique that helps the flour to absorb the water or liquid. It becomes helpful in the following step of kneading/stretching and folding, to activate the gluten molecules. Gluten molecules act like glue. Letting the flour absorb the water properly, helps to activate the ” glue” in the kneading process. The properly moistened floured begins to join together creating a gluten network, that gives the dough the elasticity you desire.

How to stretch and fold bread dough:

Since pizza dough is a type of bread, this stretch and fold method will work for pizza dough, too. The first set of stretch and folds with any type of dough, will begin semi-wet and gloopy. This will improve with each set of stretch and folds as the gluten activates. So, with wet hands grab the dough from its underside and pull it up and over into the center of itself. Turn the bowl and do it again. You will continue turning the bowl while stretching and folding until you have performed stretch and folds in a full circle around the dough. This is one set of stretch and folds. With most recipes, you will perform a series of six stretch and folds with a 15-30 minute window in between each set. The timing is forgiving during this process, so please don’t be so dogmatic about it. I like to try and let it flow with the rest of my day.

What exactly is sourdough bread?

Sourdough is a “wild yeast.” It’s created using a simple mixture of flour and water. When enough wild yeast is active in a flour and water mixture, it begins to ferment. Every fermentation process is the same. Fermentation is the breakdown of anti-nutrients and sugars found in all foods. In this case, with the flour and water, the wild yeasts are fermenting and breaking down the antinutrients and sugars present in the flour and releasing gas, causing bubbles and a rise.

So let us replay this:

There are two benefits to the fermentation process in sourdough:

1. The yeast microbes eat the sugars in the flour. Through that digestive process yeast microbes are breaking down the phytic acid or antinutrients. When the antinutrients of phytic acid are broken down, other nutrients within the grain are now available for your body to process and use! It also weakens the gluten proteins, making it much easier for most people to digest. So basically the yeast is digesting the flour first, making it easier for you to digest it later.
2. The wild yeasts that are breaking down, or eating the sugars present in the flour, are now releasing carbon dioxide gas. This carbon dioxide is what causes the bubbles to form and your dough to rise.

Did you try this recipe and LOVE it? Leave a comment below to let me know! Here are some other farmhouse sourdough bread recipes to try:

• Sourdough Focaccia
• Sourdough Baguettes
• Sourdough Ciabatta Rolls
• Sourdough Boule
• Sourdough Sandwich Rolls

ALL THE LOVE!

Chelsea Rose ♥ ♥ ♥