Making pizza at home with store bought dough

Avoid all the major home pizza fails, even if you’ve never had success making homemade pizza in the oven. There are just a few secrets and tips for making pizza at home with store bought dough. Fortunately, this recipe is so simple you can make pizza at home without a pizza stone or a rolling pin. All you need is a sheet pan and a desire to eat delicious homemade pizza with a chewy, golden crust.

Things to know about make pizza at home:

How to store pizza dough
Tips for getting pizza dough to rise
Techniques for stretching store bought dough
Pizza toppings
Oven temperatures for making pizza at home

Fortunately, you’re in the right place to learn all of this!

Plus, at the end of this post is a step by step at home pizza recipe.

The secrets to making pizza at home with store bought dough

Storing pizza dough in the fridge or freezer

If you don’t plan to use store bought pizza dough for a few days or weeks, keep it fresh in the fridge or freezer. In the fridge, pizza dough will stay fresh for a few days.

In the freezer, pizza dough can last a couple of months. When you’re ready to defrost pizza dough, move it to the fridge overnight. Then take it out in the morning to expand in time for dinner.

How to get pizza dough to rise

Many people struggle with the very first step of making pizza at home with store bought dough. That’s because stretching store bought dough is difficult when it’s cold. It needs 30 minutes, up to 3 hours, to rise. To allow the dough plenty of time to rise, set it near a window or wrap it in a kitchen towel. Bonus points if the towel is straight out of the dryer. The heat will help. Likewise, if you’re making pizza at home soon after buying ingredients at the store, let the dough sit by a sunny car window on the ride home.

Shaping a pizza

If you’re shaping a round pizza, start by forming the dough into a ball.

Work the outside of the dough, pinching it with your fingers to make the round crust. Working against a cutting board or flat surface, move to the center and push the dough outward. Continue pushing out the thick center of the dough in a circular motion so the dough. Once the dough has spread as far as possible against the cutting board, gently pick it up and use your knuckles and the back of your hand to stretch the dough in a circular motion.

Shaping a rectangle pizza is similar, but you don’t need to begin with the dough in a perfect ball. Use your fingers to pinch the dough into a log shape before moving to the center. Instead of stretching the dough in a circular motion, focus on pulling it in two directions – vertically and horizontally.

Pizza topping ideas

Sauce – Classic red pizza sauce, BBQ sauce, Alfredo sauce, or a simple garlic and olive oil for a white pizza, as used in this pear and goat cheese pizza.

Cheese – Traditional mozzarella is a popular melting cheese, as is fontina and cheddar. If you’re looking for a cheese with bold flavor, try bleu cheese, smoked gouda or goat cheese sprinkled on top of a melting cheese.

Meats, fruit and veggies – If you’re looking for something outside of traditional toppings (pepperoni, ham, chicken, sausage), get creative with seasonal fruits and vegetables. For fruits, try pineapple, pears, cherries, and apples. For vegetables, try butternut squash, zucchini and caramelized red onions. And don’t forget about fresh herbs for pizza! Add delicate herbs like basil after the pizza is done baking in the oven.

The perfect beer & pizza pairing – Not a pizza ingredient, per se…. but beer can be a great addition to pizza, even if you’re no longer in college. Looking for a beer + pizza pairing? My friend Sarah, another Portland blogger at Twenty Something and Tipsy has milkshake IPAs to share with you… She made this recipe for homemade pizza and topped it with mushrooms and vegan sausage. Photo below…

Avoid pizza fails when making pizza at home

One major pizza fail that happens all the time can be easily avoided. This is when the toppings fall right off the dough. Usually, this means home chefs added toppings to raw pizza dough. The result is a catastrophic, limp and floppy pizza experience. In this recipe, the store bought pizza dough cooks twice. First, the dough cooks “naked” without any toppings. On the second trip to the oven, ingredients are piled on and the pizza cooks to completion. This technique ensures a thick, solid dough so you don’t have to call for last-minute pizza delivery.

Don’t forget to season the crust. This recipe for homemade pizza creates a thick, golden and chewy crust. How? A light brushing of olive oil, and sprinkle of parmesan and salt before it pops in the oven. This step is important if you’re going for gourmet pizza at home.

Avoid the struggle of stretching pizza dough by letting it rise in advance. In the recipe you’ll find tips for stretching dough without a rolling pin. If you’re the visual type, see this YouTube pizza stretching video.

The best temperature for making pizza at home

When making pizza at home, it’s crucial to using a really high temperature to get restaurant quality pizza.

One key secret to fluffy pizza crust is cooking pizza dough before toppings. In the recipe at the end of this post, you’ll par-bake the pizza dough at 450 degrees in the middle rack of the oven. Then add the toppings and finish baking pizza in the oven at 500 degrees until the cheese melts.

A big fat pizza fail…

I’ve been making pizza at home in the oven or on the grill for over a decade. One time a grill accidentally caught on fire, but that was a manageable fail.

Another time, I left store bought pizza dough outside on deck furniture to rise. Can you blame me? It sounded like a great idea to have the dough rise in the sun, mother nature’s original dough heater. Well, this turned out to be a horrible idea due to a hungry critter. When I glanced out the window to check the progress of my dough, I found a squirrel eating the dough through the bag. Long story short, don’t get rabies when making pizza at home with store bought dough. Let it rise inside.