Homemade Pizza in Less Than 30 Minutes

We love homemade pizza at our house. It's filling, inexpensive, and easy-to-make! Best of all, though, in our opinion, it's so much better than carryout or frozen pizzas!

I've tried many different pizza crust recipes and this one is not only our favorite, it's also one of the quickest to make. The pizza, from start to finish, can be ready to pop in the oven in less than 30 minutes.

Pizza Crust:
1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F.)
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add the rest of the ingredients in and mix.

Dump onto a floured surface .

Knead into a smooth dough (five minutes or so).

Roll out and press down onto a greased pizza pan.

Add toppings. (Have fun and be creative with this! Our favorite variety is salsa or barbecue sauce, diced cooked chicken, and cheese.)

Bake at 450 degrees F. for around 12-15 minutes until the crust looks crispy and lightly browned.

By the way, you can make up a double or triple batch of the pizza crust dough and freeze the extras if you don't need it. This speeds up the preparation even more as all you have to do is pull out a bag of dough and a bag of chopped cooked chicken in the morning and then put the pizza together right before you're ready to eat. You can also freeze the pizzas already cooked but I doubt it would ever stay uneaten long enough to make it to the freezer around here!

Speaking of freezing pizza, many of you asked what things I'm planning to make ahead and freeze for after the baby is born. I posted my current list-in-the-making here.

Do you make homemade pizza at your home? If so, what are some of your favorite toppings?

Comments

[Joelle]

Yes, we do homemade pizza at our home. I make both "red sauce" type just using leftover spaghetti sauce, and a creamy sauce type of pizza that isn't baked. On the "red sauce" pizza I use olives, mushrooms, peppers, and occasionally some artichoke hearts with a cheese sauce. On the creamy pizza, I do olives, shredded carrots, tiny pieces of broccoli, peppers, tomatoes (everything fresh) and grated cheese. Oh, there is one other type of pizza that I do. I put olive oil, lots of garlic, and herbs on a crust and put sliced tomatoes on it with artichoke heart bits. No cheese. This is pretty close to a type of authentic Italian pizza (been there, eaten that!)

[Alex]

I recently started making pizza from scratch. Before, I used a pizza crust mix. I use the following recipe, although I found that two batches will make three pizzas (otherwise you end up with an extremely thick pizza):

http://www.tammysrecipes.com/annejiscas_easy_pizza_dough

I discovered the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" and just realized that the master recipe can be used to make pizza. I'm so excited to try it, because if we like it, making pizza will be even easier than before. If you haven't checked out this book, I HIGHLY recommend it.

[Jennife]

We like cheeseburger pizza -- ketchup & mustard "sauce", browned & crumbled ground beef, onions, pickles, and cheese.

We use an almost identical dough recipe, but let the dough hook on the KitchenAid knead it!

[shel]

We love homemade pizza here! That's what we just had for dinner. My favorite "gourmet" toppings are sun dried tomatoes, sauteed onions, peppers, mushrooms and fresh baby spinach (sauteed at the end of cooking the onions, etc.) Or we do a BBQ pizza with chopped scallions and sun dried tomatoes. I'm sure chicken would be good on those too, but we're vegetarian so we just do veggie toppings;-) And of course we eat it with just cheese and sauce sometimes too.

[Alicia]

I love making homemade pizza!! It is a family favorite! My husband get chicken tossed in BBQ sauce with colby-jack cheese and the kids and I get regular pepperoni with mozzarella!! Mmm... I will have to make that next week now!!

[Candace]

We love homemade pizza around here! I use basically the same recipe- I use olive oil instead of vegetable oil. I divide the dough up into smaller portions and let my kids (5, 3, and 2) make their own pizzas. It's a fun way to let them "cook."

[Jennifer Varady]

My favorite toppings are 1/2-3/4 cup pesto , a cup shredded chicken and Mozz cheese! Yummy!

[Kelly]

I make white cheese pizza. You mix some ricotta cheese with some shredded mozarella and 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. It will be a little thick but spreadable. I pre bake a traditional pizza crust for 5-7 minutes, then spread the cheese mixture on the crust. Then I use a whole package of sliced provolone cheese - smoked flavor (usually has 8 slices) and lay them on top of the pizza. Finally, I sprinkle mozarella cheese on top. This is GREAT!

[Kelly]

...from last post on white cheese pizza. I forgot to say after all the cheese is on, you bake it at 400 for 10-15 minutes!

[Rachel]

I am making pizza tonight! My dough just finished in the bread machine. Do you use whole wheat flour at all? I use 2 C wheat, 1 C white. The best thing about pizza is you can use the little bits of things left in the fridge. Anything goes! My husband likes chicken with ranch dressing for the sauce. I like to thinly slice avacado for a topping as well.

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Money Saving Mom here: You can use whole-wheat flour or half and half. I think it's better with some white flour in it, though.

[Kelly]

I love your recipe, Crystal! I originally got it off your other blog awhile back. It's soo quick and tastes so yummy. My husband and I like seasonings in the crust, so I add 1tsp of oregano, basil, rosemary, and garlic powder before I add the flour. Thanks so much for sharing your great recipe!

Kelly

[melissa]

I am not the best in the kitchen, so I have a question...do you knead the dough for five minutes, and that's all the rising it needs? Or do you knead the dough, and let it sit five minutes? Thanks for clarifying!

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Money Saving Mom here: This dough does not need to have any rising time other than the kneading time. However, you don't have to bake it immediately. Sometimes I'll make up the pizza and then refrigerate it for a few hours before baking it. It's a very versatile crust recipe that seems almost impossible to ruin!

[Jill]

Hello.. I am a college student and love the idea of making pizza from scratch.. but one question: where do you get active dry yeast? Is that something you find in the grocery store?

********************
Money Saving Mom here: If you do a lot of baking from scratch, the best place to get yeast is in one-pound or two-pound bags from Costco or Sams. It's incredibly less expensive than buying it in packages or jars from the store. However, if you just want to try out making pizza from scratch once or twice before buying a big bag of yeast, you can get it in the baking section at most grocery stores.

By the way, if you don't have a membership to Costco or Sam's Club and you're wanting to purchase yeast in bulk, ask someone who does have a membership to get some for you, if you can. This is one of the few items that I really cannot beat the prices of bulk stores by using coupons and sales; the mark-up on yeast at grocery stores is just incredible!

I keep our bulk yeast in the freezer and it is good for at least a year this way.

[Stac]

We love having carmelized onions on our homemade pizza. Its a cheap and "gourmet" topping : )

[Rhonda]

We have homemade pizza every-other Sat. I use a similar dough recipe, except there's more flour:yeast ratio. We always make a pepperoni and red onion pizza for 13yo son and then a larger pizza for the rest of us (2 adults, 15yo son). The 2nd pizza usually includes homemade sausage (Penzey's seasoning and ground pork), green peppers, onions, black olives and mushrooms. This past week we made a ham, green pepper, red onion and pineapple pizza. Yum. We use a blend of provolone and mozarella cheese and generous sprinklings of a romano/parmesan blend.

[Julie]

We love to make pizza at our house! I second the "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day" Post. That is the recipe I use! It requires no kneading and I make it a day or two ahead of time. The other thing I do, is keep shredded mozzarella on hand in the freezer. It makes the work so much less. I also LOVE my pizza stone. I crank the oven up as high as it can go and put the pizza right on the stone. It tastes better than going out most of the time.

[Tiffany]

Its funny, I have always talked about making our own pizza doe, but never took the time to look it up. Its like I have an amazing to do or to find out list and this just managed to never rise to the top of my list. I guess I never found time to google it out. Thanks so much for sharing because know I know :) We are big BBQ Chicken pizza eaters in our house! So this is perfect!

~Tiffany

[Melanie]

I *love* your pizza dough, I've been using it for several months now! I usually make a double batch and make two at one time.

I also use 2 cups white and 1/2 cup wheat in the recipe. A little bit more whole grain, and it gives the dough a nice texture.

I've also used your recipe to make homemade hot pockets. Yum!

[Ali]

My favorite homemade pizza toppings are feta cheese, diced tomatoes, and artichokes. I think I know what I'm having for dinner tonight! Thanks for all the great ideas!

[Mary in Ohio]

I make homemade pizza all the time but dh insists that I make the dough the day before and let it proof in the fridge so he can make the pizzas with it the next evening. He used to make pizzas for a living (he managed a local pizza place for a few years when we first got married 20 yrs ago) so he does it his way :) and they are delicious!
Some of our favorite toppings are pepperoni, ham, grnd meat, chicken, veggies of all sorts, taco stuff (for taco pizza!), banana peppers, (ds loves anchovies!), pineapple and assorted cheeses. Depends on what I have on hand as to what we use on them. One that is really good with fresh tomatoes is simply olive oil, garlic, fresh sliced tomatoes, basil and fresh mozarella chesse (or fresh goat cheese!) YUMMY!

[LANA]

We also make our own pizza every Friday. I do agree that it is MUCH better than any takeout or frozen brand pizza. We make our dough with a bread maker, which recently died:( So, I will try the recipe above...looks good! Here is a link to pizza our style:
http://savingmommymoney.com/weekend-pizza-recipe

[Laura]

We make pizza at home too! Our favorites are somewhat standard, but we also do 'leftover' pizzas with that last little bit of cooked chicken, part of an onion and some olives...or a chopped up slice of ham, pineapple and a few slivered pepperonis. One of hubby's favorites is to knead some 'Italian herbs' into the crust, put a little red sauce, mozzarella and cheddar and then lots of thin sliced onion rings. Yum!

When cheese is on sale, I stock up and freeze it for pizza nights, and it works great. We save a lot of money making pizza ourselves. :)

[momofboyz]

I make the same dough, but will sometimes make calzones with it. I mix equal parts ricotta with shredded mozerella and let everyone stuff there own. If you have any frozen dough, try making a breakfast pizza. Stick your flattened dough in the oven. While it is baking lightly scramble some eggs. Take them off the stove before they are fully cooked. Take your dough out of the oven, top with eggs, tomatoes, bacon, cheddar cheese - whatever. Yummy.

[Lori F.]

We have homemade pizza almost every Friday. My 5 year-old calls it "Pizza Day," not Friday. Sometimes I mix an extra batch of dough and bake the crusts for about 2-3 mins. without any toppings. I then freeze these and they are ready for super quick lunches after topping them and baking for a few minutes. This has saved us from being caught in the drive-thru trap so many times. My KitchenAid does the mixing, as it has for over 20 years. I can't believe the amount of money that mixer has saved me. I top ours with a locally-made pizza sauce, imported parmesan (I splurge on this but still save $$ by making the pizza myself), mozzarella and provolone and olives for me, mushrooms and bell peppers for hubby. During garden season I use lots of fresh tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella.

[Michele]

I make homemade pizza almost weekly here, but I have to say I just don't like it as much as a slice from a good, New York pizza place. I have tried so many different recipes, but nothing tastes as good. I know I have pretty high standards for pizza because I was spoiled growing up with a New York family. Anyone have a good, real NY style pizza recipe?

[Britt]

I have been using this recipe for our Friday Clarke Family Pizza Party nights for I don't know how long...perhaps when you posted it way back when?? I do add garlic and onion powder to the dough (I like a little kick!)

Thanks for the great recipe!!!!

[Jenni Stearns]

We love homemade pizza! Usually we do a very different version of pizza, though, with italian dressing brushed on instead of red sauce, we do artichoke hearts (from a can), chicken, sauted onion, green onion and crumbled feta. We also do the half wheat flour/half white flour option, we're big on whole wheat. We've also used crumbled bacon if we're down to a couple of slices. This is one of our favorite dinners!

[Pam Collier]

I started making homemade pizzas about two months ago and it's become a weekly event. The kids love it and so do hubby and I! Of course I really love the fact that the crust costs me about 50 cent for 2 pizzas! Crazy good! We're plain janes on toppings: cheese for the kids, half pepperoni for me, half mushrooms for hubby. I'm drooling just thinking about it.

[simone]

You can buy several pounds of pepperoni at Sam's for around $10; we make pizza about 2-3X/month and the pepperoni lasts us about a year (in deep freezer).

[Amiyrah]

We have homemade pizza every friday night. Truthfully, our toppings depend on what's in the fridge that day. Pizza night is usually used to get rid of the bits and pieces that we have left in the veggie drawer so I can get more the next week.

[lizzykristine @ Uplifted Eyes]

How amusing ~ I just blogged this morning about using your pizza crust recipe for hospitality. We divided a triple batch of dough into personal-size pizzas and set out a dozen bowls of toppings. Each guest could pick their own toppings, which means everyone liked their dinner. No awkwardness. :)

Some of our topping choices: asparagus tops (we used the stalks for another recipe, later), sliced mushrooms, bell peppers, tiny cauliflower florets, diced tomatoes, and of course some meats and cheeses. It was a smashing success as far as keeping everyone happy with their dinner!

[nina]

mmm... I use crushed tomatoes for a can and add Penzey's pizza seasoning for the sauce. On top I put: spinach, mozz cheese, artichoke hearts, feta, and veggie pepperoni.
I also really like whole kernel corn on my pizza.

[Jen@Balancing Beauty and Bedlam]

Oh my - too fun. I just posted about this a few days ago...it's my perfect choice for cooking :meals for the multitudes" - large groups. I love freezing the extras as well.
Plus , this is such a great intro to cooking with kids. Training them young is the best, and even the littlest kids can help with pizza dough - and LOVE IT!
Jen :)

http://inpassionatepursuit.blogspot.com/2009/02/cooking-for-large-groups-meals-for.html

[Rachel- Wallet Wise]

oooo, I love homemade pizza, but I haven't tried my own crust yet! We're pretty plain people, so we like to stick to the tried and true cheese and pepperoni! Thanks for the recipe and recommendation- I can't wait to try it out!

[Amy]

We make homemade pizza almost every Friday night. One of the ones we like is with pesto, peppers, and cheese. We also like a standby of red sauce, turkey pepperon and cheese.

[dawn]

I make my pizza crust in the bread machine (I just use the recipe from the machine book).

I like carmelized onions, bacon, chicken, and blue cheese. Yum.

[Kari]

I do something similar...except I've started putting spices in the crust. I usually put a little fresh crushed garlic and some rosemary (and anything else that sounds good that day). As I've explained to my friends...I can make a homemade pizza from scratch faster than they can order one in!

Kari

[Site4Teachers]

I also use part wheat flour in a 1:2 ratio using more white flour so it doesn't taste so grainy and my family will actually like it. I also use honey in place of sugar, and olive oil in place of butter. Making everything from scratch is much healthier!! We usually eat pizza every Friday. I don't know what I'd do without my breadmaker!!!!!!!!

[Nataliana]

Thank you for posting this. I've always wanted to learn how to make my own pizza at home! Love your blog..

[tina b]

we love ALL KINDS of pizza, but one of our favorites is thin whole wheat crust with a can of diced tomatoes (we use the muir glen organic garlic and basil kind) as the sauce mixed with tastefully simple pesto and with lots of mozzarella cheese on top. mmmm i'm drooling :)

tina :)

[Sarah]

Sweet! Thanks for the reminder of how simple! My breadmaker does dough as well, that would make it even simpler for me.

[Rachel S.]

We make pizza about twice a month here. I like a half wheat and half unbleached dough myself. We enjoy home made sauce- and mixed italian cheeses- esp. provolone. YUM!

[Coby]

We love homemade pizza here too. The crust recipe I use is very similar, but I use olive oil in it. We have it once a week! So much better than delivery and cheaper of course! I can't wait to try some of the fun ideas for toppings people have mentioned. Ranch and chicken sounds delicious!

We have a gourmet pizza place nearby here and they put everything from mashed potatoes to pasta, crushed torilla chips and anything else you can think of on pizza. Many of them are very tasty, so be creative!

[A.D.]

We almost never eat pizza shop pizza, and I don't think my kids have ever eaten the frozen stuff. We LOVE homemade! I knead it with my Bosch stand mixer so it's even quicker to make. One of our favorite toppings is pineapple with ham or sausage. Then mozzarella of course. I drain crushed pineapple very well, even squeeze it out, to keep it from sogging up the crust. Another fav is sliced fresh tomatoes in the summer. That's on top of the traditional pepperoni or whatever, and topped with mozzarella.

[Carrie Kirby]

I don't know how you can do that in half an hour! I usually use my bread machine to make the dough, and it takes me pretty much the whole 50 minute cycle to cook up the sauce with some sausage and chop the other ingredients. Then putting the whole thing together probably takes anohter 15 minutes.
I have a two little distractions hanging around when I'm trying to cook -- but so do you!

[Chelsea]

That's really funny that you just posted this because I just (over this past weekend) bookmarked this same post from your old biblical womanhood blog from a few years ago. I've never made homemade pizza before, but I look forward to trying this recipe!

[Maureen]

I can't wait to try this recipe! I love homemade pizza, but rarely make it because it usually takes so long to let the dough rise.

[April]

We like pesto with onions and cheese, but it's also good with chicken thrown on, too.

[Liz]

We love homemade pizza crust, or pita rounds, with pizza sauce, a layer of fresh spinach leaves, Mozzarella and thinly sliced roma tomatoes. I have to put a few pepperonies on my husband's side!

[kristen]

We make homemade pizza once a week. My boys won;t eat it with anything except peperoni on it though