Homemade No Knead Pizza Dough

In university, I survived on pizza. It is one of those meals that checks off all the food groups and tastes delicious hot or cold. The downside of eating pizza that is not homemade is that it is not healthy and gets expensive after a while. At $2.75 a slice, it was the cheapest food you can buy on campus.

When I met my husband, we would buy frozen pizza for those times when we didn't want to cook, order in or go out to eat. The frozen pizza was loaded with preservatives and ingredients I could not pronounce. We have made pizza dough from scratch a few times but it never really caught on because it was very labour intensive.

When the little man was diagnosed with a peanut and almond allergy, we became better at reading the ingredient list and cooked more at home. Cross contamination became an issue and we preferred to prepare most of his meals from scratch.

I recalled seeing a no-knead pizza dough many years ago. We tried that recipe and the pizza dough came together quite easily, with only 5 minutes of prep time. However, be warned that this recipe does require a little planning. The wonderful part about making your own pizza is that you control the ingredients and the pizza baked up in 20 minutes. Best part is that the little man can enjoy it.

Makes: Four 1 lb loaves

Ingredients
2-3/4 cups lukewarm water (between 90 to 100 degrees F)
1-1/2 tbsp granulated yeast (active dry)
1-1/2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
6-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions
1. Mix the water, yeast, salt, sugar and olive oil in a lidded container.

Oops, there is no olive oil in this picture.

2. Mix in the flour with a large wooden spoon until most of the flour has been incorporated.

Lumpy dough but no flour on the bottom

3. Cover with the lid (not airtight) and allow to rest at room temperature for about 2 hours until the dough has doubled in size. If your kitchen is colder, place the container in the oven and turn on the oven light. Alternatively, you can preheat the oven to 200 degrees F, turn off the oven and place the container inside the oven.

Pizza dough doubled after 2 hours.

4. You can use the dough to make pizza right away, refrigerate to use over next 7 days, or freeze for up to a month.

• To use right away: 
• Generously dust a counter top with flour and flour the rolling pin. Shape the dough into a disk and roll out the dough into a round circle.

• To refrigerate: 
• Divide the dough and wrap with plastic wrap. Use within 7 days. This method yields the best flavor as it sits overnight.
• To freeze:
• Divide the dough and shape into round disks. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and then wrap with tinfoil. Store in the freezer for up to a month. To use, defrost on counter top or in the fridge until thawed.

Check out my post on how to make no knead pizza with the no knead pizza dough.