Who doesn’t love pizza night? I know our family eats quite a bit of pizza – whether it is take-out, homemade, or even frozen. I am the first to admit that is can be too easy to pop a frozen pizza into the oven, but homemade pizza isn’t that much harder. It has to be quite a bit healthier too since you control everything that goes into your meal. You do need a few basic ingredients (most of which are probably already in your pantry) and a tiny bit of extra time to prepare the dough, but I am sure you will love the final product.
One of my closest friends gave me a pizza stone as a gift a few years ago. (It is extremely similar to this one on Amazon.) I had never used one that I could remember. But, knowing how much my husband and I (and now our daughter) love pizza, I was motivated to learn how to use it properly. After learning, I now truly believe that using a pizza stone to make homemade pizza is an absolute must. It is the only way to make a great pizza at home… in my opinion, at least!
Over the last few years, I have made quite a few homemade pizzas. I must say that I feel pretty good about the process and how delicious homemade pizza can be. It is a fun way to involve your family, as well – they can put whatever toppings they want on their portion of the pizza and everyone will be happy. For example, I really like green chile and black olives on my half of the pizza, while my husband loves pepperoni with a little green chile on his half. And now that our daughter is eating the same food we eat too, we either share our sides with her or change the toppings up to suit what she enjoys. We all get the kind of pizza we want and we enjoy every bite!
I usually use Bobby Flay’s Pizza Dough recipe from Food Network. The recipe always turns out great… even when I have experimented with different types of flour. I find that it works especially well with a blend of bread flour and wheat flour. I also never knead the dough by hand because I let my stand mixer do all the work for me! The pizza dough does take about an hour to rise before you can use it, but it is definitely worth the wait!
So, here’s how I make my family’s homemade pizza… Have fun creating different pizzas in the comfort of your own home!
Homemade Pizza
Equipment
- Pizza stone
Ingredients
- 1 batch homemade pizza dough
- 1 jar pizza sauce
- mozzarella cheese, shredded
- Italian cheese blend, shredded
- pizza toppings, as desired
- pizza seasoning
- 2 tsp wheat flour
Instructions
- Place the pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 450°.
- While the oven preheats, prepare any toppings that you will be putting on the pizza.
- Once the oven is preheated, carefully take out the pizza stone and place it on hot pads on the counter (it will be hot).
- Carefully sprinkle the pizza stone with wheat flour so that it coats the top of the stone. This prevents the pizza dough from sticking to the pizza stone as it cooks.
- Spread out the pizza dough over the coated pizza stone (the full recipe of pizza dough will make one medium-thickness pizza).
- Pour the pizza sauce over the crust, starting with about ½ cup of sauce. Spread the sauce around with a spoon, adding more sauce as desired. (I usually use about half of the jar.)
- Sprinkle both types of cheese evenly over the pizza. Add as much cheese as desired, but don't forget to account for the cheese melting a spreading in the oven – there is usually more cheese than you think once it cooks.
- Add the additional toppings to the pizza as desired.
- Sprinkle the pizza seasonings lightly over the pizza (I usually use about 1 teaspoon or so).
- Carefully place the pizza stone with the prepared pizza in the oven. Be sure to use hot pads, as it will still be hot.
- Bake the pizza in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the crust, cheese, and toppings are golden brown.
- Remove the pizza stone with the pizza from the oven and let it cool on the counter (on hot pads) for at least 5 minutes (10 minutes is better) before slicing and serving the pizza.
Notes
- Bobby Flay’s Pizza Dough recipe is recommended, as it is what I have based the directions and cooking times on. If you use a different dough, the cooking times are likely to change.
- If you split the pizza dough recipe in half, as the original Bobby Flay recipe suggests, you will get two thinner-crust pizzas. Again, the cooking times are likely to change.
- You can use marinara sauce instead of pizza sauce.
- You can use semolina instead of wheat flour, but wheat flour just happens to be in my pantry all the time and it works very well to keep the pizza from sticking to the pizza stone.
- If you can’t find pizza seasonings, you can use Italian seasoning or even omit that step.
- Waiting to cut into the pizza makes slicing through the melted cheese much easier – if you cut it too early, the super hot cheese and toppings will run right off the crust.
