Best Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe (Video)
Learn how to make the best sourdough pizza dough with light and crispy edges, a fluffy and chewy interior, and a mild sourdough flavor. Slather the dough with homemade pizza sauce and other toppings raised on your own homestead like hamburger, peppers, onions, and homemade cheese, and you will enjoy a most satisfying meal. Made with just four ingredients that are simple to mix up with or without a mixer, this sourdough pizza dough can be made several hours or days ahead of time, making for almost effortless pizza nights. Making the dough ahead of time also gives you the maximum health benefits from the long fermentation of the sourdough. Most of the phytic acid and gluten will already be broken down in the dough before baking.

Pizza Nights
We eat pizza once a week in our family, and this is always the pizza dough recipe we use. It’s perfect for baking on pizza stones brick oven style, or on a more traditional pizza pan. You can also use this pizza dough to make an amazing deep dish dutch oven pizza over a campfire.
Pizza On The Homestead
I’ve been making things with sourdough for over 15 years, and sourdough pizza dough has been a staple in our home for almost as long. Because we make pizza once a week, I’ve learned to just mix this dough up at the beginning of each week and have it ready for whenever pizza nights fit into our schedule. One of the reasons we eat pizza so often is because it’s a meal I can make with mainly ingredients that we have raised on our own homestead. And the flour I keep stocked in my homestead pantry. We almost always have fresh mozzarella on hand, and making pizza is a good way to use it up. Around here, instead of planning to make all the things needed for a meal (like pizza), I end up making pizza because I have a bunch of things that need to be used up, like mozzarella.
If you’re new to cooking with sourdough, and need to make a sourdough starter, you can follow my simple instructions here.

Why I Like This Sourdough Pizza Dough:
- It can be made ahead of time and even frozen
- Works perfect in a pizza oven or baked at a high temperature like brick oven pizza in your own oven
- Has the perfect tang, without being too sour, and even works great for dessert pizza.
- Can be baked up in 10 minutes or less if using the brick oven method (see below).
- I love the chewy crust, it’s my favorite part, and the light and airy crust can even be stuffed with mozzarella string cheese to make stuffed crust prior to baking.
Some Of Our Favorite Pizza Toppings:
- Pesto Pizza – Pesto, olives, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella
- Supreme Pizza – Pizza sauce, hamburger or sausage, olives, mushrooms, onions, peppers, cheese
- BBQ Pizza – BBQ sauce, onions, hamburger, sausage or canned chicken, and mozzarella cheese
- Reuben Pizza – thousand island dressing, hamburger or sausage, onions, sauerkraut & cheese
- Hawaiian Pizza – pizza sauce, sausage, pineapple and cheese
- Cheeseburger Pizza – ketchup and mustard, hamburger, onions, pickles or pickle relish, cheese and french fries
- Chicken Alfredo Pizza – Alfredo sauce, home canned chicken, fried garlic scapes and cheese
- Spinach Pizza – garlic alfredo sauce, spinach, onions, mushrooms and feta cheese
- Margherita Pizza – pizza sauce, mozzarella, fresh basil, a drizzle of fresh olive oil & some balsamic vinaigrette
- Breakfast Pizza – sausage gravy, fried eggs and cheese
- Dessert Pizza – thickened fruit or pie filling topped with a streusel topping and drizzled with a powdered sugar glaze

What Are The Health Benefits Of Sourdough?
Anytime you add a fermented element like sourdough to a recipe, it becomes more nutritious because it contains live probiotics and good bacteria that help with gut health and digestion. Gluten and phytic acid are naturally present in wheat, and are usually what is to blame for people not being able to digest gluten well. When the grain is fermented through the sourdough process, the gluten and phytic acid are broken down, making it easier to digest. A lot of people that struggle with gluten intolerance (not people with celiac), can digest food made with sourdough without any issue, especially if the recipe is allowed to sit out for a few hours and “long ferment”.
In addition, phytic acid is an anti-nutrient that blocks absorption of the nutrients found in wheat. During the sourdough fermentation process, the phytic acid gets broken down and the nutrients are more bio-available to the body. This is why baking with sourdough is so important for our health.
Benefits Of Long Fermented Sourdough
If you want the greatest health benefits out of your sourdough recipes, you’ll want to long ferment them. What this means is that you’ll want to mix them up several hours before you cook them so they have a long time to ferment. This allows the sourdough starter in the recipe to fully ferment the other added ingredients including the flour which will break down that phytic acid and pre-digest the food making it easier for your body to digest.

Brick Oven Pizza
The easiest and fastest way to bake this pizza dough in your home oven is using the brick oven method of baking. This method mimics an outdoor pizza oven, which you can also use if you have one. To do this, you’ll want to preheat your oven at 500 degrees, or as hot as it will go at least 30 minutes before baking your pizza. Put your pizza stones in the oven to preheat also. Then assemble your pizzas on parchment paper, and when it’s time to bake them, just slide them into the oven on the hot stones using a pizza peel.
This is how I bake several pizzas quickly using 2 or 3 pizza stones on different racks in the oven:
Put the pizzas into the oven on the hot stones using the pizza peel, filling the top rack first. It’s okay if the middle and bottom rack pizzas are a couple minutes behind. This sometimes happens if we’re doing make your own pizza night because not all the pizzas are ready to bake at the same time.
Set the time for 5-7 minutes.
After 5 minutes, check the pizza to make sure it looks done, and turn the oven on broil. Set the time for 2 minutes.
Shuffle The Pizzas
Take out the first pizza, move the second pizza up to the top, and the bottom pizza up to the middle rack. Put another pizza on the bottom rack (assuming you have several pizzas to cook).
Check the top pizza to make sure it’s ready to broil. If so, set the timer for 2 minutes and then take it out of the oven.
The middle and bottom rack pizzas will continue to cook in the hot oven even though it’s only on broil. Once in awhile the oven will get a little bit behind because I’m opening the door so often. So then I just turn it back on 500 degrees and bake the pizzas for an extra 3-5 minutes before continuing to rotate pizzas from the bottom to the top rack and broiling.
Using this method, you can bake a lot of pizzas in a short amount of time, it usually takes me less than 15 minutes to bake 4 pizzas for our family.

Regular Pizza
You can also roll these out on regular pizza pans, and bake at 400 degrees for 13 to 15 minutes, and the crust will still be beautiful.
Tips For Making Sourdough Pizza Dough
- If you make the dough several days ahead, it will have the puffiest crust and best flavor
- Don’t forget to preheat your oven and pizza stones before baking
- Gently spread out the dough before adding toppings, try not to flatten it too much, and leave it thick on the edges
- You can roll string cheese into the edges before baking and you’ll have stuffed crust
- For best results, bake this sourdough pizza dough on a pizza stone or cast iron pizza pan. The even heat makes it bake up perfectly!
- If you plan to make the pizza the same day you mix up the dough, just mix it up 6-8 hours ahead of time and let it bulk ferment on the counter instead of putting it in the refrigerator. Just be careful not to overferment it, or you’ll have a sloppy mess. If you need to slow down it’s rise, or pause at any point, you can just refrigerate the dough
- You can mix the dough in a stand mixer, or do stretch and folds to develop the gluten
- Brown the meat, chop the veggies and mix up the dough ahead of time, and you can have a simple and easy pizza party with no fuss and minimal mess.
FAQ:
Is pizza dough the same as sourdough?
Most pizza dough uses conventional yeast to make it rise, while sourdough uses wild yeast from the sourdough starter to not only make it rise, but give it some added depth of flavor.
How long can you store sourdough pizza dough?
Sourdough pizza dough can be made several days or even weeks in advance. Store it for less than a week in the refrigerator, and up to 3 months in the freezer.
How Can I Freeze Sourdough Pizza Dough?
Divide into desired sections (that is if you want to be able to only bake one pizza at a time). Place in an airtight container and freeze for 2 to 3 months.
Other Sourdough Recipes You’ll Enjoy:
- Best Sourdough Waffles
- Easy Sourdough Pasta
- Pourable Sourdough Tortillas
- Homemade Sourdough Stromboli
Ingredients:
- Warm water
- Sourdough starter – active sourdough starter is bestd
- Salt
- Flour – the best flour is either all purpose flour or bread flour from Azure Standard. You can use whole wheat flour as well, but it won’t be quite as fluffy.
- Fat – melted butter, beef tallow or coconut oil
Tools You May Need:
- Pizza stone, cast iron pizza pan, or regular pizza pan. It’s nice to have 3 so you can bake 3 pizzas at once, but use whatever you have.
- Large mixing bowl or Stand Mixer – Bosch mixers are my favorite!
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Danish Dough Whisk, optional
- Parchment Paper
- Bench Scraper
- Pizza Peel (for brick oven pizza)
- Pizza cutter
How To Make This Delicious Sourdough Pizza Dough
In a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, add the water, sourdough starter, oil and salt. Stir or mix until combined.

Add the flour and mix until it’s a shaggy dough. If mixing by hand, let it set for a few minutes and then begin a series of 3 or 4 stretch and folds about 15-30 minutes apart. This will develop the gluten. If using your mixer, let it mix for 10 minutes to fully develop the gluten.

After the gluten is developed from the stretch and folds, or the mixing, let the dough rise or bulk ferment at room temperature for 2 or 3 hours.
Place the dough in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you’re ready to make pizza. It’s best if it’s in the fridge for a couple of hours, but it can stay in the refrigerator for up to a week. The dough will slowly continue to rise in the fridge, but that is totally normal. If you don’t have time to put it into the fridge, it can be shaped and baked right away. It can also be frozen at this point for 2 to 3 months.
When you’re ready to make pizza, take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it warm up for an hour if possible. This step is optional and just helps the yeasts in the dough to wake up a little bit.
Brick Oven Pizza
Preheat your oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stones or cast iron pans in it for at 30 minutes.
Tear off a piece of parchment paper for each of your pizzas.
Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces using a bench scraper (or whatever sized pizzas you want to make).

Lightly grease the parchment paper if desired, and gently spread the dough out on the parchment paper, leaving the edge to be the thickest part.

Add desired toppings, and place each pizza into the oven onto a preheated pizza stone using a pizza peel (see video below).

Set the timer for 5 to 7 minutes.
Check to make sure the pizza crust looks done, and turn the oven onto broil for 2 minutes.
Shuffle The Pizzas
Remove the pizza from the top rack of the oven, and move the pizzas on the next shelves down up one shelf. Add another pizza to the bottom if applicable.

If the crust looks done, let the pizza sit under the broiler for 2 minutes and remove from the oven.
Continue shuffling the pizzas from the bottom and middle racks to the top shelf as the crust is baked enough and then let them broil for a couple of minutes to really melt the cheese. The pizzas on the lower racks will continue to bake in the hot oven while the pizza on top gets broiled.
Using this method allows you to bake several pizzas in just a few minutes, and makes the most beautiful puffy pizza crust.
Regular Pizza Pan Or Baking Sheet
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Spread your dough out gently on a greased pizza pan.
Add your favorite toppings.
Bake for 15 minutes or until done.
Cut The Pizza
Cut the pizza with a pizza cutter or large knife. Serve with a side of garden salad or microgreens and enjoy!
If you try this sourdough pizza recipe, let me know by leaving a comment. And if you like it? Give it a 5 star rating!
Tag me with your sourdough pictures on instagram@wagonwheelhomestead21
Best Sourdough Pizza Dough

Learn how to make the best sourdough pizza dough with light and crispy edges, a fluffy and chewy interior, and a mild sourdough flavor. Slather the dough with homemade pizza sauce and other toppings raised on your own homestead like hamburger, peppers, onions, and homemade cheese, and you will enjoy a most satisfying meal. Made with just four ingredients that are simple to mix up with or without a mixer, this sourdough pizza dough can be made several hours or days ahead of time, making for almost effortless pizza nights.
Ingredients
- 3 cups warm water
- 1 cup active sourdough starter
- 2 Tablespoons salt
- 2 Tablespoons oil
- 7 cups all purpose or bread flour
Instructions
In a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, add the water, sourdough starter, oil and salt. Stir or mix until combined.
Add the flour and mix until it’s a shaggy dough. If mixing by hand, let it set for a few minutes and then begin a series of 3 or 4 stretch and folds about 15-30 minutes apart. This will develop the gluten. If using your mixer, let it mix for 10 minutes to fully develop the gluten.
After the gluten is developed from the stretch and folds, or the mixing, let the dough rise or bulk ferment at room temperature for 2 or 3 hours.
Place the dough in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you’re ready to make pizza. It’s best if it’s in the fridge for a couple of hours, but it can stay in the refrigerator for up to a week. The dough will slowly continue to rise in the fridge, but that is totally normal. If you don't have time to put it into the fridge, it can be shaped and baked right away. It can also be frozen at this point for 2 to 3 months.
When you’re ready to make pizza, take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it warm up for an hour if possible. This step is optional and just helps the yeasts in the dough to wake up a little bit.
Brick Oven Pizza
Preheat your oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stones or cast iron pans in it for at 30 minutes.
Tear off a piece of parchment paper for each of your pizzas.
Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces using a bench scraper (or whatever sized pizzas you want to make).
Lightly grease the parchment paper if desired, and gently spread the dough out on the parchment paper, leaving the edge to be the thickest part.
Add desired toppings, and place each pizza into the oven onto a preheated pizza stone using a pizza peel (see video below).
Set the timer for 5 to 7 minutes.
Check to make sure the pizza crust looks done, and turn the oven onto broil for 2 minutes.
Shuffle The Pizzas
Remove the pizza from the top rack of the oven, and move the pizzas on the next shelves down up one shelf. Add another pizza to the bottom if applicable.
If the crust looks done, let the pizza sit under the broiler for 2 minutes and remove from the oven.
Continue shuffling the pizzas from the bottom and middle racks to the top shelf as the crust is baked enough and then let them broil for a couple of minutes to really melt the cheese. The pizzas on the lower racks will continue to bake in the hot oven while the pizza on top gets broiled.
Using this method allows you to bake several pizzas in just a few minutes, and makes the most beautiful puffy pizza crust.
Regular Pizza Pan Or Baking Sheet
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Spread your dough out gently on a greased pizza pan.
Add your favorite toppings.
Bake for 15 minutes or until done.
Cut The Pizza
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
16Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 243Total Fat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 797mgCarbohydrates: 49gFiber: 2gSugar: 0gProtein: 8g
Looks and sounds wonderful! Question: You mention “add the water, sourdough starter, oil and salt.” However, no oil is listed in the ingredients. So, to oil or not to oil, that is the question! 🙂 Thx
Great questions, yes 2 Tablespoons of oil is what I add. Let me know if you have any other questions.