How to Form Pizza Dough

We make a lot of pizzas at home and the question I get asked the most about pizza is, “How do you form your dough?”

I am by no means an expert on the issue, but this is what works for me.

My grocery store’s bakery offers a wonderful dough ball, so I just buy that. I am sure this technique will work with a homemade dough as well.

Let the dough sit on the counter for at least 20-30 minutes and come up to room temperature.

This is a good time preheat your pizza stone and prep your ingredients.

Dust the foil and pizza ball with flour.

You don’t have to use foil but it makes cleaning up easier.

Make sure you have a light coating of flour all over the ball of dough.

Now press all around the outside of the ball and make a spaceship.

I think it looks like spaceship. Go with it.

Pick it up and put your hand on each side like this:

Now swing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…

It will start to grow.

Swing some more and give it a toss if you want to.

That is about as high as I toss.

Now stretch it out all the way around as needed.

It isn’t going to be a perfect circle and it doesn’t need to be.

Also, don’t worry about tiny holes or tears you can fix those later.

Lay the dough on the hot pizza stone and stretch it out some more.

See those bubbles? Bubbles are good!

Now is when you can fix any small holes or tears. Just carefully pull the dough together. The heat from the stone will help it stay together.

I used to roll the dough out with a rolling pin but I didn’t like how tough it made the crust.

One day I watched my local pizza guy do a much better version of what just I explained above, and I’ve been doing it his way ever since.

So, now that you know how to form the dough, what pizza do you want to make?

Mango Bango?

Bacon Leek and Goat Cheese?

Mighty Meaty?

Pizza Rosa?

Jalapeño Popper?

BBQ Pork?

Grilled?