No knead pizza dough recipe

by Jon Sullivan - 2019-12-20 - Food

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I hate dough kneading. And I like a very yeasty tasting pizza dough. So this dough is perfect. You have to wait longer, but the result is great.

I grew up with the idea that if you wanted pizza dough, you had to knead the hell out of it. So when I came across the concept of a pizza dough you didn't have to knead, I was pretty happy. The theory is that the extra time you let it rise gives the dough time to knead itself via all that bubble generation. I'm no food scientist, so I have no idea, but it does seem to work as advertised.

I see lots of variations of this on the Internet, but this one works for me. It ends up being a much wetter dough that most. Which I like. There's no reason to use a stand mixer for this. But make sure the bowl you use is big enough to let the dough triple in size. This makes 2, 10-12 inch pizzas for me.

This is just the dough. A recipe for actually making the pies comes later.

• 1 cup lukewarm tap water
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

In a large bowl, add yeast, honey, salt, oil and water.
Mix to dissolve.
Add flour, 1 cup at a time, and mix.
Once flour is more or less evenly combined, scrape down sides, give it one last mix, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to rise overnight, or 18-24 hours.

Don't coat with oil, knead the dough, form a ball, gets your hands in it, or anything else. Just get it all mixed, cover it, and wait 18-24 hours.

This dough may be wet and sticky. Wetter than you think is fine. Don't worry. It's fine.

A few times while the dough is rising, peel back the plastic wrap and use a plastic spatula to scoop the dough into a ball and turn it a few times. Re-cover and let it sit for the full 18-24 hours.

When you are ready to make pizzas, you have a few options at this point. You can make the dough balls into pizza right away. Or you can wrap them in plastic and put them in the fridge to use later. If using later, use a spatula again to form a ball, pour a couple tablespoons of olive oil over it, and divide it up into 2 oil covered balls.

They will still be very wet and hard to work with if you don't let them cool in the fridge. So if you don't think you have the pizza skills to handle that, best to cool first.

If you do put them in the fridge, be sure to let them warm back up before baking. I usually spread them out on the pan or parchment paper right from the fridge, then let them rise for an hour before adding toppings.

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