Nearly every Friday night at our house we’re enjoying pizza in some way shape or form. Sometimes it’s a frozen pizza when we’re short on time and mental energy, or pizza quesadillas, and every once and a while we even make homemade pizza dough.
Homemade pizza dough might sound intimidating to you, but it’s really very simple and is an easy pizza recipe for kids to help make.
Make your own pizza night at home and let your kids get a little messy while making this easy pizza recipe for kids with homemade pizza dough. You’ll be forever grateful for the memories made when you make your own pizza night extra fun with this homemade pizza dough.
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How to Make Your Own Pizza Night
Eating out can get really expensive really fast, especially if you’re doing it on a weekly basis.
Every once and a while we order pizza for delivery or head out to a local pizza place, but lately we’ve been enjoying pizza night at home.
We don’t make homemade pizza dough frequently, but it sure did add to the experience!
I surprised my kids with an at home Italian restaurant style pizza night by purchasing just a few products from Amazon to make it extra fun.
Pizza Night Supplies
- Red and white checkered tablecloth
- Paper placemats
- Color crayons
- Cheese and pepper flake shakers
- Candle stick
- Italian restaurant music
My daughter helped me set up our pizza party by making the homemade pizza dough, setting the table, and selecting just the right Italian music to set the mood.
As we sat at the table enjoying our homemade pizza at our dining room table, both my kids told me:
“This is the best dinner ever!”
Why Make Pizza Dough for Kids
Anytime you can get your kids in the kitchen is great, and making homemade pizza dough where they can get messy and watch it double in size over time will surely entice them to participate.
The research is pretty clear that getting your kids in the kitchen comes with many benefits:
- Healthier dietary habits
- Increased vegetable consumption
- More confidence in cooking skills and desire to cook meals at home
When you can get your kids involved in the process, they’re more likely to be invested in the meal and willing to try new foods come mealtime.
Even if they don’t try a new food they interacted with during the preparation, it’s still great to discuss the process, what they learned, and the sensory aspects of the ingredients – the textures, smells, colors, etc.
Pizza for Picky Eaters
Many people assume that all kids enjoy pizza. However, that’s not the case for some picky eaters.
Many picky eaters have a hard time with foods touching each other, making pizza a challenging food for kids who prefer foods deconstructed.
Pizza is a combined food with many different components cooked together; crust, cheese, sauce, and toppings.
Because of the way pizza is prepared, it’s challenging to serve it deconstructed. However, you can help get them involved in making their own pizza, trying the ingredients along the way and allowing them to choose their own toppings, even if it’s just cheese.
To learn more about how to offer pizza to picky eaters, read more here.
What You’ll Need to Homemade Pizza Dough
The great thing about homemade pizza dough is that it uses very basic ingredients. The only one you may find yourself without is yeast.
Flour
We use good ole all-purpose unbleached flour – nothing fancy.
Active Dry Yeast
Yeast might be an intimidating ingredient for you if you haven’t used it before. Look at this easy pizza recipe for kids as a fun science experiment.
Active dry yeast is actually a living organism – crazy right!? Don’t worry, your pizza dough isn’t going to come alive and start crawling around your countertop.
Active dry yeast is actually dormant (asleep) until it’s “proofed” – aka the resting and rising of the dough. Because this takes time, it’s best to make homemade pizza dough on a night where you have plenty of time – 2 + hours.
Yeast is the main ingredient used to help bread products rise. However there are two different types of yeast; active dry and instant yeast. We are using active dry yeast in this recipe, but you can learn more about the difference between the two here.
You can find active dry yeast in the baking section of your grocery store, or here on Amazon.
It typically comes in a jar or in individual packets and is stored in the fridge after it’s opened.
Warm Water
The warm water is what will help activate, or “wake up” your yeast.
Sugar
I just used simple table sugar for this recipe – again, nothing fancy.
Salt
What do you know, another baking recipe with salt.
Olive Oil
If you don’t have olive oil, you can use canola or vegetable oil too.
Ingredient options for Homemade Pizza
- Pizza sauce – I just use canned pizza sauce
- Mozzarella cheese – Lately I’ve been shredding my own cheese and it’s a fun way for the kids to get involved too! Just be careful with graters, as they can be sharp!
- Vegetables of choice – bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, banana peppers, broccoli, zucchini, onion
- Olives
- Pineapple
- Pepperonis – I love using the Hormel mini pepperonis!
- Italian sausage
Ingredients for Garlic Olive Oil
- Olive oil
- Garlic powder
- Italian Seasoning
Equipment for Homemade Pizza Dough
- Measuring spoons
- Measure cups
- Mixing bowls
- Plastic wrap or clean dish towel
- Pizza pan or baking sheet
How to Make Homemade Pizza Dough
As I mentioned before, this is almost like a science experiment and such a fun opportunity for you and your kids to learn how pizza dough is made.
First you will combine warm water and yeast in a bowl. I recommend talking to your kids about how the yeast is asleep and the warm water helps wake it up. Let the yeast work on waking up in the water for five minutes. You’ll notice a little bit of foaming, and that’s the yeast waking up!
After five minutes, you’ll whisk the salt, sugar, and oil into the yeast that just woke up (yeast and water).
Next is the fun part – adding the flour! Your kids will love helping you mix the flour to from a sticky dough.
Before you let the dough rest again, yes another nap, but this one will be for 2 hours, you have to transfer the dough to a new bowl. Drizzle oil into a bowl large enough for your dough to fit once it doubles in size. Make sure the oil is evenly spread out around the edges of the bowl to prevent sticking.
Transfer pizza dough to oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or clean dish towel and let it rest for 2 hours where it will double in size!
Yes, it continues to get messy! Lightly flour your surface and knead dough two times. Kneading simply means to use your hands to push down and into the dough to help the overall texture and structure of the dough.
If you’re planning to use your dough that day, lightly flour your countertop so the dough doesn’t stick. you can split your dough into however many pizzas you’d like to make.
If you’d like to freeze your dough for another time, simply wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in an airtight bag to freeze for up to three months.
Once you have your pizza crust spread out, transfer to a piece of parchment paper and lightly brush olive oil onto the pizza crust.
Add your pizza sauce, cheese and preferred toppings making sure not to add too many toppings or your pizza will not cook thoroughly.
This is a great opportunity for kids to engage with fun pizza toppings like vegetables, olives, and even pineapple – yes, pineapple on pizza is okay!
Let them pick out a new topping to wash, chop, and top on their pizza. Or if that’s too much for them, let them put it on your half of the pizza.
They can even get creative and make a fun picture using their ingredients too!
How to Bake Homemade Pizza Dough
Just as your homemade pizza dough is done resting, you’ll want to preheat your oven to 500 degrees F or the highest it goes, with your pizza pan in the oven as it preheats. This will help make sure the bottom of the crust gets cooked.
Once your pizza is ready to pop in the oven carefully transfer the parchment paper lined pizza to your preheated pan in the oven.
Bake for five to ten minutes depending on how thick your crust is or until the crust is golden brown.
I like to add another layer of the garlic olive oil mixture to the crust for extra flavor.
Slice into triangles or squares, whichever you prefer, and enjoy!
Variations
While making homemade pizza dough can be fun, it’s surely messy and does take more time.
If you find yourself short on time, there are many quick options you can use to make pizza and still give it a homemade feel by adding your own sauce, cheese, and toppings.
For more ways to add variety to your pizza night, check out these 15 ways to make pizza!
Pizza Crust Options
- Prepackaged pizza mix
- Premade pizza crust
- Naan
- English muffins
- Tortillas
- Bagels
- Texas toast
- Garlic bread loaf
- Pillsbury pizza dough crust
- Crescent roll dough
Can You Freeze Homemade Pizza Dough?
This homemade pizza dough recipe makes enough for two 12” pizzas, but maybe you only want to make one pizza.
You can freeze whatever homemade pizza dough you don’t bake for up to three months. Just let the pizza dough rise before you freeze it.
Place the pizza dough in an airtight bag, label with the date, what it is so you don’t forget, and freeze for up to three months to retain the quality of the dough.
Before using the homemade pizza dough that you froze, let it thaw out in the fridge first. Then use it just like you would as if it were fresh.
How to Store and Reheat Homemade Pizza
Many people think leftover pizza is actually better than fresh pizza. I’m not quite sure I agree, but I do love leftovers because it means one less meal I have to make.
Simply place your leftover pizza in an airtight container, we love the Rubbermaid Brilliance containers, or a an airtight bag, and refrigerate for three to five days.
When you’re ready to reheat your pizza, or maybe you like it cold, simply cook it in the microwave for 30 second increments until it’s heated through – 165 degrees F for 15 seconds is the technical food safety rule.
Best Sides for Homemade Pizza
While I have no problem eating pizza by itself without any sides, I usually like to add fruits and/or vegetables since some days are harder to get those in than others.
One of our favorite sides for homemade pizza are salad kits. They’re easy to whip up and I’m not left with a bunch of ingredients that will likely end up going bad before I use them again.
We also like to use pizza nights as an opportunity to eat up any fresh produce that might be on its last leg.
Sides for Pizza
- Caesar salad
- Salad kits
- Fresh fruit
- Fresh vegetables
Other Recipes You’ll Love
The Best English Muffin Pizza Recipe
Easy Homemade Pizza Dough
Equipment
- Measuring spoons
- Measuring cups
- Mixing bowls
- Pizza pan
Ingredients
Homemade Pizza Crust
- 4 cups Flour
- 4 1/2 tsp Active dry yeast or 2 packets
- 1 tsp Salt
- 2 tsp Sugar
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 1/4 cup Olive oil
Garlic Oil
- 1/4 cup Olive oil
- 1 tsp Garlic powder
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
Instructions
- Combine warm water and yeast in a bowl. Let sit for five minutes while yeast activates and foams.
- Whisk salt, sugar, and oil to water and yeast. Add flour, mixing until sticky dough forms.
- Pour roughly 1-2 Tbsp olive oil into a separate bowl. This is to keep the dough from sticking to the bowl. Transfer pizza dough to oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or clean dish towel. Set aside to rest until it doubles in size, roughly 2 hours.
- Just as your homemade pizza dough is done resting, preheat your oven to 500 degrees F or the highest it goes, with your pizza pan in the oven as it preheats.
- Lightly flour your surface and knead dough two times. Form pizza crust using hands to spread as thin as you’d like. The thinner the pizza, the less time it needs to cook.
- Once you have your pizza crust spread out, transfer to a piece of parchment paper. Lightly brush on olive oil to the pizza crust. Add your pizza sauce, cheese and preferred toppings making sure not to add too many toppings or your pizza will not cook thoroughly.
- Carefully transfer the parchment paper lined pizza to your preheated pan in the oven. Bake for five to ten minutes depending on how thick your crust is or until the crust is golden brown.
- Add another layer of the olive oil mixture to the crust for extra flavor.
Garlic Oil
- Mix together olive oil, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning in small bowl.
Notes
- Pizza sauce
- Mozzarella cheese
- Vegetables of choice – bell peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, banana peppers, broccoli, zucchini, onion
- Olives
- Pineapple
- Pepperonis
- Italian sausage
