We eat a lot of pizza in our house! In fact, it is a weekly tradition for us. The kids look forward to it, and I love having one meal each week already planned for me.
A couple of years ago I decided to try my hand at making homemade pizza. I had been a little intimidated by the thought. Wouldn’t it take a long time? What if it was a total flop? But, I decided to give it a try.
I am so glad that I did! I wanted to share with you my completely fool-proof, go-to homemade pizza recipe. Enjoy!
Best Ever Pizza Crust
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil
2 ½ cups flour
Bake w/ toppings at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes prep, 15 minutes bake
Directions:
Fill a liquid measuring cup with warm water–making sure the water is not too hot. Add the yeast, sugar, salt, and oil. Let sit together while you measure the flour into a bowl. Add liquid to flour. Stir together. Knead mixture for 3-5 minutes. Roll into a circle and place on a pizza pan.
Tips:
- I buy yeast in jar form instead of the packets of 3. This saves quite a bit of money. You can put the yeast into the fridge after you’ve opened it, making it last for months.
- If you are intimidated by the word “knead,” don’t be! Just use your hands to squeeze the dough. I work the dough until there are no wet patches, adding flour to portions that are too wet. This eventually forms a nice soft dough.
- You can use spaghetti sauce instead of pizza sauce. We typically have a bit of sauce left over when we cook pasta. I simply put that sauce in the fridge and use it again on pizza night. We don’t like a lot of sauce, so I only use less than one sixth of a jar.
- Use whatever toppings you have on hand. We always have chicken breasts and a few veggies, so our favorite pizza is chicken with green peppers and onions. We also like sausage (using leftover breakfast sausage) and peppers. Make pizza night a “clean out the refrigerator” night!
Freeze It
You can also make a double batch and freeze the dough. Just roll into a ball, wrap with cling wrap, and place in a Ziploc bag. The dough will keep for six months in the freezer.
Bring the crust out to thaw the day before, and you’ve made pizza night even easier!
Cost Comparison
I always like to do a cost comparison to see if I save any money by cooking from scratch.
Cost of delivery pizza: $10-$20
Cost of frozen pizza: $5-10
Cost of homemade pizza: $5.75-6.75
Crust–$.50 (assuming you keep baking staples on hand)
Sauce–$.25 (using leftovers of spaghetti sauce)
Cheese–$2.50-$3.00
Toppings–$2.50-$3.00
So, for roughly the cost of a frozen pizza, you can have a much tastier, healthier alternative!
What are your favorite pizza toppings?
(Linked to Tips and Tricks Tuesday, Thrifty Thursday, Pick Your Pin Tuesday, Thrifty Couple.)
I’ve never made homemade pizza crust, but I may do so now! Thanks for sharing at Tips & Tricks 🙂
My wife and I are having some friends at our house tomorrow, so tonight we want to make some homemade pizza. But we wanted to make sure that it tastes really good. So I really appreciate you posting this pizza recipes. Just going off of the picture I can tell it tastes amazing. I really hope ours turns out as good as yours.
I hope so! Enjoy!
Pizza from home or a restaurant works for me! I like to make homemade pizza to have a date night with my husband. It’s a lot of fun to make personal pizzas and watch a funny movie.
Making personal pizzas is a great idea! Thanks!
How long should the liquid mixture sit before adding it to the flour.
I just let the liquid sit for a minute while I’m measuring out the flour. Then I add it right in. That’s one reason I love the recipe–it’s so fast!