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Who doesn't love pizza? It's delicious, but the delivery variety is rarely nutritious. Fortunately, making your own healthy and equally delicious version at home is easier than you think.
This following guide How to Make Pizza will teach you how to assemble a basic pizza from the crust to the toppings.
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Pizza Making Tips
- Don't have dough? Try an English muffin or pita bread as a base.
- Try toppings that are in season or native to your region. Better yet, grow your own!
- Don't use too many soggy toppings on your pizza. Onions and mushrooms should be patted dry before using.
- Reheat your pizza in the oven, not the microwave, to maintain crispness.
- Use a pizza stone or special pizza screen for maximum crispiness.
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Introduction
Step 1: Create Your Base
- Creating the right base is just like building the foundation for a house. You want your crust to be tasty, but it's just as important that it be thick enough and crisp enough to support all those delicious toppings you'll be piling on at the end of the preparation process.
- You have two choices when it comes to bases: store-bought crusts or homemade ones.
- Store-Bought: Most supermarkets sell ready-made bases, usually on the same aisle as the pasta and tomato sauces or in the freezer section. You can also improvise a base using English muffins or pita bread.
- Homemade: If you do decide to make your own, there are many simple recipes available online. Once you've mastered the basics, you can add in extras, such as your favorite herbs.
Basic Pizza Dough Recipe
- Equipment
- Large mixing bowl
- Wooden chopping board or smooth work surface
- Large spatula for mixing the ingredients
- Ceramic bowl for the dough to rise in
- Pizza pan or pizza stone
- Dissolve the yeast in a cup of warm water. Leave for a few minutes so that bubbles can rise to the surface.
- Add your chosen oil and the salt to the yeast mixture.
- Place the flour into a large mixing bowl and pour the yeast liquid into the middle of the bowl. Draw the flour into the liquid, using the spatula to pull flour into the middle of the bowl.
- When the flour has been completely absorbed into the liquid, knead the dough with your hands until it becomes soft and pliable.
- Place the kneaded dough onto a board or work surface sprinkled with flour. Continue to knead the dough, using your fist to pummel the mixture. Turn the dough every few minutes so that every surface is kneaded.
- Put the dough into a clean ceramic bowl and cover with a cloth or tea towel. Leave to rise in a warm room for 2 hours, or until the dough has doubled in size.
- Once the dough has risen, punch it down with your fist to eliminate any remaining air bubbles.
- On a lightly floured surface, cut the dough into three equal pieces.
- Roll one section of the dough with a rolling pin and use your hands to shape it into a circular layer, about 12 inches in diameter.
- This process will be repeated with the other two sections of dough, resulting in three pizzas total.
- Try not to handle the dough more than necessary. The mix becomes tougher the more it's rolled and kneaded.
- Transfer the dough to the pizza pan or pizza stone.
- Many experts recommend using a pizza stone. These are often used in Italian restaurants and provide a hot base on which to cook the pizza in the oven. The stone absorbs any moisture which would otherwise make the pizza soggy.
- Using your fingers, push the dough out to the edges of the pan.
- Your dough is now ready to be covered with your chosen ingredients and baked in a 450 degree oven for approximately 20-25 minutes.
Step 2: Make Your Tomato Sauce
- The next step is to make your tomato sauce. If you're in a rush, most supermarkets sell cans of sauce, but creating your own is easy and you can personalize it with herbs if you like.
Tomato Sauce Recipe
- Equipment
- A heavy based saucepan
- Tin opener
- Large metal spoon
- Place all the ingredients into a large saucepan and stir well before heating. A metal spoon is advisable as the strong tomato ingredients in the sauce can discolor wood or plastic.
- Bring the sauce to the boil gently, stirring occasionally.
- When the liquid comes to the boil, turn the heat down and simmer with the lid on the pan for 30 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
- Makes enough sauce for three 12-inch pizzas.
Step 3: Choose Your Toppings
- Most people's favorite part, where you get to choose what you'd like on your pizza.
- Think traditional. Traditionally, grated cheese goes on after the tomato sauce and before other toppings. But the beauty of a home-made pizza is that you can make your pie as you please.
- Go for classics. If you're stuck for inspiration, think of the classics, such as extra cheese and pineapple or tomato and basil and go from there. Would one of these ingredients work with one of your favorite foods?
- Consider regional ingredients. For example, the Alaska Pizza recipe from CookItSimply.com uses salmon and mozzarella.CookItSimply: Alaska Pizza Recipe
- Avoid soggy ingredients. Consider the water content of your toppings, as some vegetables such as onions and mushrooms should be patted dry before adding to a pizza, to avoid making the pizza base water-logged.
- Grow your own. It's possible to grow some of the staple ingredients of a pizza in your own garden. For instance, basil can be grown from seed and if sowed regularly, can be harvested all summer.
Step 4: Assemble and Bake Your Pizza
- Now you've made your dough and prepared the sauce, you're ready to create your pizza.
- Place the dough onto a metal baking tray or pizza stone. It's possible to buy a special Round Pizza Pan for the oven, but if you don't have one, an ordinary baking tray will be fine.Cooking.com: Pizza Pans
- Spread the tomato sauce onto the dough in a thin layer, working from the center outwards. Be sure to bring the sauce almost to the edge of the dough, to avoid a dry crust. If you need more sauce, add it to the center and spread outwards again.
- Add the cheese. Cheddar and mozzarella are good choices, as they have a firm texture for grating and don't go too stringy when cooked. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the tomato sauce. How much you use depends on personal taste.
- Add your chosen toppings. Remember, you don't have to limit yourself to one topping per pizza. Experiment with different toppings on two halves of the pizza, or divide into four sections, each with a different flavor.
- Put the pizza in the oven. The oven should be pre-heated to 400 degrees. Cooking time is approximately 20 minutes. This can vary by a few minutes depending on personal taste and the toppings used, so check the oven a little before the 20 minutes has elapsed.
- Store and reheat the pizza. Cooked pizza keeps well in the refrigerator for 2-3 days, but can be difficult to reheat successfully. Avoid using a microwave to reheat, as this turns the pizza soggy. Pre-heat the oven and reheat for around 10-15 minutes.
Step 5: Pizza Equipment
- Most pizzas can be made using the everyday equipment that you have in your kitchen. However, if you really enjoy pizza making and decide to make it a regular thing, you might want to consider a few tools to make life easier.
- Pizza Wheel: A pizza wheel will make a clean, straight cut through your cooked pizza and save you trying to manage with a kitchen knife. If you don't have one, a large pair of kitchen scissors will do the job without tearing.
- Pizza Stone: A pizza stone can absorb moisture from the pizza dough during cooking and should result in a crispier base.
- Pizza Screens: Many cooking retailers sell special round baking trays for cooking a pizza. These are often called pizza screens and have small holes to allow air to circulate while the pizza's in the oven.
Step 6: Beyond the Basics
- Once you've had a go at making your own pizza, there are lots of other things to try.
- Breakfast Pizza: Pizza doesn't have to be just served for dinner. Suite101.com has a recipe for breakfast pizza using bacon, tomatoes and hash browns.Suite101: Pizza for Breakfast
- Pizza on the Grill: Pizza can also be cooked on a barbecue. Martha Stewart's Cornmeal Pizza Crust can be prepared the day before it's needed and cooked on a barbecue grill which isn't too hot.MarthaStewart.com: Cornmeal Autumn on the Grill
- Mini-Pizzas: A quick and easy alternative to preparing a pizza from scratch are Annabel Karmel's Mini Muffin Pizzas. These are often popular with children, as they are small and can each be personalized with different toppings.Annabel Karmel: Mini Muffin Pizzas
Pizza for Special Diets
- Suffering from an allergy or being on a diet doesn't mean avoiding pizzas. There are plenty of recipes which allow you to vary pizza ingredients to suit your requirements.
- Wheat-Free Pizza: Annabel Karmel has a recipe for a wheat-free pizza which is also suitable for freezing.Annabel Karmel: Wheat Free Pizza
- Low Calorie Pizza: Reader's Digest has suggestions for how you can make pizza at home with reduced cheese and also suggests how to lower the calorie count on take out pizzas.Reader's Digest: Put Your Pizza on a Diet
- Low Carb Pizza: Your pizza can also be made as a low carb food, by using this recipe from Reader's Digest.Reader's Digest: Put Your Pizza on a Diet
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