After several years into my sourdough journey, I keep going back to my favorite recipes. This pizza dough is one of them! I got rid of the fussy steps (kneading? nope) and tweaked the measurements so you’ll have the tastiest, easiest sourdough pizza dough of your life.

Finished pepperoni pizza on sourdough crust.

This sourdough pizza crust has ruined us as far as pizza is concerned. Save a trip to New York, it’s awfully hard to find a better tasting crust.

I love baking pizzas in our pizza oven, but years ago I developed an oven hack that mimics a pizza oven and you don’t even need a stone!

I’ll show you my oven baking hack along with all of my best pizza making tips. Just a warning… you won’t be satisfied with your favorite pizza joint any longer.

Simple Sourdough Pizza Crust Recipe

If you’re new to baking with sourdough you’ll love this recipe because it’s super simple. It feels like an accomplishment making those artisan crusty loaves, but all the timed stretching and dough manipulation seems tedious if you’re a beginner.

The hardest part about this recipe is knowing if your starter is ready. (And not eating all the pizza in one sitting. It’s a struggle.) You’ll want the starter at peak activity — bubbly and increased in volume. Use it before it starts to fall.

After that it’s just a dump-stir-chill situation.

Why You’ll Love This Overnight Pizza Dough

First, here’s my disclaimer: this isn’t the type of pizza dough you make on a lazy Sunday afternoon when you’re suddenly in the mood for pizza that night. You’ll want a recipe using dried yeast.

Sourdough is wonderful, but speed isn’t its strong point.

The good news is that there is NO KNEADING.

“Wait!” you ask. “Don’t you need to knead to produce gluten?”

Actually, kneading is only one way to produce gluten in dough. The other way is TIME. Let a dough sit long enough and it will produce gluten all by itself to give you that light, chewy pizza crust texture you love. I’m all about getting great results with the least amount of effort.

My other favorite thing about this recipe? You can easily prep this dough and leave it in the fridge for up to a week! Honest! And I think the flavor is best after it sits for a few days. So if you have the inkling for pizza in your near future, toss a batch of dough together and save it for the weekend.

Ingredients for sourdough pizza crust: bubbly sourdough starter, flour, salt, and water (not pictured.)

Sourdough Pizza Dough Ingredients

Bubbly, active sourdough starter — Your starter should be at peak activity and bubbly. This is NOT a sourdough discard (unfed starter) recipe.

Bread flour — I like to use the same organic, unbleached bread flour as I use for bread making. You can use half wheat half white if you’d like, but if you use all wheat flour it may take your dough longer to bubble and rise. And it will have a stronger wheat flavor.

Salt — Sea salt or pink salt is fine here. Whatever fine salt you have will do.

Water

Helpful Equipment

Kitchen scale — You’ll need a kitchen scale because the recipe (like most sourdough recipes I’ve come across) is measured in grams. You’ll get a more accurate measurement this way. And you won’t have to go to the post office to mail small packages anymore. (You’re welcome.)

Dough scraper — This isn’t necessary, but I love having a dough scraper to divide up my dough and to scrape up any dried bits on the counter. It makes easy clean up when you’re rolling out pie crust or sugar cookies, too. I use mine a lot.

Rimmed baking sheets — Most people have these, but if you want to do my kitchen hack it makes it a lot easier to have big baking sheets like these.

Glass bowl on top of a kitchen scale with flour inside. Water is being poured into the bowl.

Sourdough started poured into the bowl with the flour and water.

How to Make Sourdough Starter Pizza Dough

I’ll give you a more detailed instructions in the recipe, but here’s an overview.

Combine the flour, water, salt, and bubbly starter in a large bowl.
Mix it well to form a craggy dough ball.
Cover it and put it in the fridge overnight or at least 8 hours.
4-5 hours before you want to bake the pizza, take the dough out of the fridge and set it on the counter.
After 4 hours check the dough — it should be close to room temperature and might be bubbly.
Dump the dough out on a floured surface and divide the dough into balls.
Cover the dough balls and let them sit for 30-60 minutes while you prep your ingredients and preheat the oven.
Spread your dough out, add toppings and bake how ever you prefer!

Chilled pizza dough fresh from the fridge.

Overnight Pizza Dough Recipe Tips

Let the dough sit in the fridge for at least 8 hours. I prefer 48-72 hours for best flavor.
Don’t add too much flour. The dough should be sticky right up until you start to spread it out for toppings. At that point, just sprinkle both sides with a little flour as you’re working with it. Adding a pinch or so of flour here and there. If you add too much flour the crust will be more dense and tough.
Let the dough sit out for 3-4 hours before emptying it onto the counter. You’ll want to get the chill off and let it wake up. You can see in those photos above — the left one is fresh from the fridge and the one on the right is after the dough had sat for a few hours.
If you’re trying to spread the dough out and it starts ripping, form it into a ball and let it rest again for about 20-30 minutes. If you try to spread it out again after wadding it up into a ball, it’ll be too springy. And you’ll get frustrated. (I’ve been there.)

How to use this Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe

Make pizza, of course!

You can also use this pizza dough recipe exactly the same way you’d use regular pizza dough.

Make calzones, breadsticks, or even flatbread.

Dough spread out on a piece of parchment.

How to cook pizza in your oven if you don’t have a fancy pizza oven

I’ve done a lot of things over the years, but this might be my most favorite kitchen hack.

If you don’t have a pizza oven, you can mimic a pizza oven and you don’t even need a baking stone for this. All you need are a couple of rimmed baking sheets and some parchment paper.

Here’s what you do:

Preheat your oven to 500F. Put a rimmed baking sheet UPSIDE DOWN in the oven on a center rack.
Spread your dough out on a large piece of parchment paper and add whatever toppings you want. Make sure that your dough doesn’t exceed the width of your baking sheet.
Slide your pizza (with the parchment) onto another UPSIDE DOWN rimmed baking sheet.
Transfer the pizza + parchment over to the preheated baking sheet in the oven. Use quick, short back and forth movements to get it over there. This takes a little practice, but you can do it. (See photos below.)
When the pizza has finished baking (check the bottom!) transfer it back to the cold, inverted baking sheet to get it out of the oven, leaving the hot baking sheet in there for the next pizza.

Parchment with the pizza on an inverted baking sheet.

Parchment and pizza have been transferred to the preheated sheet pan in the oven.

How to store Sourdough Starter Pizza Dough

You don’t really need to “store” it because you just leave it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.

If you’re planning an event and need to transport dough balls, I’d suggest forming the dough balls and putting them on a large baking sheet and chilling if they’ll be sitting out for more than an hour. Let them come to room temperature before using.

Can Sourdough Pizza Dough be frozen?

Yes. After you form the dough into balls, freeze them on a baking sheet and then store them in a large ziptop bag.

Several hours before you’ll need to bake them, pull them out of the freezer and let them sit on the counter until they’ve come to room temperature and they’ve bubbled a little.

Finished pepperoni pizza cut into slices.

If you make one of my recipes, be sure to post it on social media and tag me at @perrysplate or #perrysplate so I can send you some love!

Sourdough Starter Pizza Dough

Name: Sourdough Starter Pizza Dough
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 12 h 10 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 600g unbleached bread flour; 1 Tablespoon sea salt; 425g warm water; 200g bubbly sourdough starter

Yield: Makes 4 12-inch pizzas

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Additional Time: 12 hours

Total Time: 12 hours 10 minutes

After several years into my sourdough journey, I keep going back to my favorite recipes. This pizza dough is one of them! I got rid of the fussy steps (kneading? nope) and tweaked the measurements so you'll have the tastiest, easiest sourdough pizza dough of your life.

Ingredients

600g unbleached bread flour
1 Tablespoon sea salt
425g warm water
200g bubbly sourdough starter

Instructions

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Stir well until all of the flour is combined. Dough should form a craggy ball and be way more sticky than you think it should be. It's OK.
Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 8 hours. I like to leave mine for 48-72 hours for best flavor.
4-5 hours before you plan to bake, pull the bowl out of the fridge and set it on your counter.
After 4-ish hours, the dough should be room temperature and bubbles should be forming again.
Empty the dough onto a floured surface and divide the dough into as many pizzas as you need.
Form the dough into tight balls, sprinkle with flour, and cover them with a clean kitchen towel. Let them sit for 20-30 minutes to relax before you stretch them out.
Stretch the dough out and make the pizzas however you prefer! See my blog post for instructions on how to use your oven like a pizza oven!

Overnight Pizza Dough