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This sourdough discard pizza dough is so easy that you can make with your eyes closed! It gives you a deliciously crispy crust and chewy interior and can be make with your favorite pizza toppings. I’ve also included options to make it fit your schedule, no matter how much time you have!
Table of Contents
- Why You’ll Love This Recipe!
- Ingredients
- Using Sourdough Discard In Pizza Dough
- Real Life Examples
- How To Make Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough
- Kneading Tips
- Go Easy On The Toppings
- How To Serve Sourdough Discard Pizza
- Baker’s Timeline for Sourdough Pizza
- Tips for Cooking Sourdough Discard Pizza
- Let’s Freeze Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough Recipe
Why You’ll Love This Recipe!
Quick and Easy – This recipe is described as quick because you literally have to throw the ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer and let it knead the dough. There’s very minimal hands on time. Of course you will need to shape the sourdough discard pizza dough, however this dough is such a pleasure to work with, you’re going to enjoy every minute!
Your Favorite Crust – I’ve been making this recipe for years and have tailored it to suit many pizza preferences, from thin and crispy to a thick-crust pizza that’s out of this world!
Freezes Well – No matter how you choose to make this sourdough discard pizza dough recipe, it’s so easy to freeze! You’ll never have to order pizza again!
We love this quick sourdough discard pizza served with this delicious sourdough garlic bread or as sourdough pizza bianca! And don’t forget to make this delicious homemade pizza sauce to take your sourdough pizza to the next level! Or for something different, try this white pizza sauce made with sourdough starter.
Ingredients
- Sourdough Discard – I’ve made this recipe with sourdough discard, however you can use an active starter if you prefer. If you’re wanting a quick sourdough discard pizza, you can add commercial yeast.
- Instant Yeast – This is completely optional. You can just use discard, if you have a mature starter. If you don’t have a lot of time, you can of course make it super fast by adding a little commercial yeast, but it’s definitely not essential.
- Water – This recipe is not super high hydration, however, if you aren’t used to working with pizza dough, I would recommend holding back just a little of the water. It’s better to have to add than trying to fix wet dough.
- Honey – I’ve always used honey in my sourdough discard pizza dough recipe. It adds flavor and color to the crust and it speeds up the doubling of the dough for a quicker dough rise. If you don’t want to use honey, you can substitute with a little sugar or leave it out entirely. Adding diastatic malt powder to your dough can also enhance the flavor and color of the pizza crust.
- Olive Oil
- Bread Flour
- Salt
- Semolina Flour – I highly recommend using semolina flour when you are shaping sourdough discard pizza bases.I use semolina on all of my pizza peels to ensure that the pizza bases are easy to slide into the pizza oven. You can read more about the best flour for sourdough pizza dough.
Using Sourdough Discard In Pizza Dough
This recipe has been made using sourdough discard but I do want to explain why and how you should use discard in this recipe so you have the most success possible! Basically, the success of this discard pizza dough will depend on the age and strength of your sourdough starter, so here’s a quick chart so you know what to use and when.
| Sourdough Starter Age | How To Use It In Pizza Dough |
|---|---|
| Sourdough Discard [no yeast] | If your sourdough starter is mature and doubling regularly, you can use your unfed discard with no yeast. It will just take a bit longer to double than if it was active. |
| Sourdough Discard + 4g yeast | If your sourdough starter is only young and not doubling consistently, add 4g of yeast to help it along. If you want super fast pizza dough, add 7g of yeast. |
| Active Fed Sourdough Starter | If you have a mature sourdough starter, this recipe works perfectly with an active, bubbly starter. It will take less time to double than discard will. |
Real Life Examples
Here are a few real life examples of how you could use your discard in this sourdough discard pizza dough:
- Your starter is mature and has been around for a few years. Use 200 grams of fed, active starter to make this delicious sourdough pizza dough.
- Your starter is two weeks old. You have 200 grams of discard in a jar in the fridge from the last week of feeding your sourdough starter. You use 200 grams of sourdough discard from the fridge with an additional 4 g of instant yeast in your dough.
- Your starter is 6 months old. You haven’t fed the starter in the fridge for a week but you want to make pizza. Take 200 g of starter from your jar and use that for your bake (no yeast needed). Then feed your sourdough starter before you put it back into the fridge.
How To Make Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough
This sourdough discard pizza dough is described as quick because it is really easy to pull together – you can literally throw it in a bowl and you’re half way there. You can of course make it super fast by adding a little commercial yeast, but it’s definitely not essential.
Here’s how to make sourdough discard pizza dough:
Measure out the sourdough starter, water and honey (and yeast if you want to add it). Stir together until the sourdough starter and honey are dissolved into the water.
Now, add the oil, flour and salt into the bowl and gently stir together with a dough whisk or knife. Cover with plastic wrap and allow the dough to sit for around 30 minutes.
Now, tip the dough out onto the counter and knead it really well using your hands. This is a lovely dough to work with and with the right kneading, it will become soft and silky.
Kate’s Pro Tips
Kneading Tips
This dough can kneaded by hand or using a stand mixer or spiral mixer.
Kneading by hand – Knead for around 10 minutes, or until the dough becomes soft and supple. It will be quite elastic and stretchy. You shouldn’t need any flour on your counter top, however, you can add a little if the dough just isn’t coming together. A metal dough scraper can be handy in this situation as well.
Stand or Spiral Mixer – I prefer to knead this dough using a machine. If I’m doing a single batch, my Thermomix or KitchenAid handle the dough well. For double or even triple batches, I alway use my Ooni Halo Spiral Pro Mixer at speed 30 for around 5 minutes.
Once the dough is silky and elastic, pop it into a warm bowl (I warm a bowl with water and then dry it – this speeds up the rising). Cover with a plastic cover and leave to rise until it has doubled.
Once the dough has doubled, separate the dough into smaller balls so they are ready to be rolled out. I use 200 -260 g per pizza (this fits my pizza oven perfectly) but anywhere from 200 g to 300 g is good for a pizza. Leave the balls on your counter top, covered with a tea towel, for around 30 minutes to allow the gluten to relax.
Once you’re ready to make your bases, use your fingers to press your dough into a pizza round. If you need to stretch the dough, pick it up and move your hands around the edges, allowing the dough’s own weight to stretch it out into a round. Avoid using a rolling pin if you can to maintain your dough’s character and give it good structure when baked.
Place your pizza dough onto pizza peels ready to top with your favorite sourdough pizza toppings.
Kate’s Pro Tip
Go Easy On The Toppings
To ensure the base cooks evenly and all the way through, don’t pile on the toppings. Use half as much sauce as you think you need and try to use a low moisture mozzarella cheese. If you place toppings sparingly, it avoids the dough underneath the cheese from boiling and being dough and soft when you take it out of the oven. No one wants a floppy pizza, right?
When you are ready to bake, pre heat your oven to 230ºC/450ºF and make sure it’s HOT!! Place your pizzas into the hot oven for around 15 minutes or until toppings are cooked and bases are crispy on the bottom. These bases are especially good baked in a wood fired pizza oven.
How To Serve Sourdough Discard Pizza
I love serving these sourdough discard pizzas alongside these sourdough discard garlic knots and a dish of homemade pizza sauce to dip them all into! It also goes really well alongside some sourdough pasta and sourdough garlic bread!
My sons’ favorite way of eating these pizza crusts is with a dish of bread dipping oil alongside them. They use this to dip their pizza crusts in at the end of the meal. In Italian, this is called “cornicione”. My boys call this “pizza bones”.
Baker’s Timeline for Sourdough Pizza
One of the questions I get asked the most is around creating sourdough timelines. Here’s the timeline I use when making this sourdough discard pizza dough with no commercial yeast – sourdough discard only. If you are going to add instant yeast, the timeline will be much shorter because the dough will double quickly.
| TIME | PROCESS |
|---|---|
| 7 am | Mix pizza dough with sourdough discard. |
| 8 am | Place kneaded dough into a warm bowl, cover with plastic cover. Pop the bowl into the microwave with the door ajar. |
| 5 pm | Turn the risen pizza dough out onto the counter and divide into balls. Allow them to rest for 30 minutes. |
| 5:30 pm | Shape pizza bases and place onto the pizza peels. Allow to rest while pizza oven heats up. |
| 6 pm | Top pizzas and take to pizza oven to bake. |
Tips for Cooking Sourdough Discard Pizza
I have cooked a lot of sourdough discard pizza crusts. We have pizza every single Friday night (and sometimes we have it during the week and on a Saturday too!). And that adds up to a LOT of sourdough pizza! Here’s what I’ve found helps to get the best results from each style of cooking.
Gas Pizza Oven – Our gas pizza oven is small and easy to fire up. The stone inside does take quite a while to heat up, but it’s definitely worth waiting until it’s fully heated through so that it cooks the base from underneath, not just the toppings. For the best results, I find you need to wait around 10 minutes between each pizza to ensure the oven comes back up to temperature. You also need to turn the pizza constantly to stop it burning on one side.
Electric Pizza Oven – I’ve also just started using the Ooni Volt 2 Electric Pizza Oven and I’m so excited by how well these sourdough discard pizza bases cook in there! I use this oven at 430ºC (800ºF) for 2 to 3 minutes. You do need to try not to use as much semolina when using this oven as it tends to create a lot of smoke.
Home Oven – The best way to cook these pizzas in a home oven is to use a pizza stone. Just like the gas pizza oven, the trick is to make sure the pizza stone is super hot before you put the pizza in. You want the crust to cook almost instantly on the searing hot stone! I set our home oven to 230ºC/450ºF and this gives us a fairly good result, although definitely not as good as our wood fired pizza oven! You can also use a perforated pizza tray in your home oven to make these pizzas and this gives a fairly good result, although definitely not as good as the stone.
Wood Fired Pizza Oven – This is my favorite way to cook sourdough discard pizza bases, although it is only something we do if we have a quiet weekend because it is a lot of work to light the oven and get it to the right temperature.
Let’s Freeze Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough
Yes! Sourdough pizza dough is so simple to freeze and it can free up so much time! I’ve got two options for freezing your pizza dough, depending on what you’d prefer:
Freeze Sourdough Pizza Dough Balls
If you want to have some pizza dough in the freezer at all time, you can divide the pizza dough into balls after it’s doubled. Place each ball into a zip loc bag and then place into the freezer.
When you want to make a pizza, a bag of dough out of the freezer and allow it to defrost at room temperature. Once the dough is at room temp, shape it into a pizza base as you normally would.
Freeze Sourdough Pizza Bases
For an even faster frozen sourdough pizza, shape your dough into pizza bases. Place each pizza base onto a piece of parchment paper and then onto a pizza peel. Snap freeze the base by allow the base to freeze uncovered in the freezer for around an hour. Once all the bases are frozen, stack them (ensuring you leave the parchment paper between them) and then wrap the stack in aluminium foil or place into a large zip loc bag.
When you want to use one, take out a base and top it with whatever you like – you don’t even have to let it defrost, it will defrost as you add the topping! You’ll never have to order pizza in again!
You can also check out my ultimate guide to freezing sourdough pizza dough which details my method for par-baking bases for freezing too!
Frequently Asked Questions
No, you do not have to use honey in this recipe but it definitely adds flavor and color to the crust and it speeds up the doubling of the dough for a quicker pizza. If you don’t want to use honey, you can substitute with a little sugar or leave it out entirely.
Sourdough pizza crust can become tough if you use too much flour. The dough should be silky and elastic (no wet and sticky) but never be tempted to add extra flour as you will risk a tough crust. Knead the dough until the gluten develops and stops it from being wet and sticky.
Absolutely! You can use sourdough starter fed or unfed. The wild yeast contained in sourdough starter is perfect for a pizza crust. It will give you an amazing bubbly pizza dough perfect for oven or wood fire baking.
As with most things, you don’t have to use a pizza peel, however it does make it much easier to transfer the pizza from the counter to the oven and out again. I have two types of pizza peels I use. The wooden peels are great when coated in semolina. They let you lay out your pizza dough and add the toppings. They’re also wonderful for serving your pizzas. Metal pizza peels are great for transferring pizza into hot ovens and out again.
I often have portions of sourdough discard pizza dough leftover, so I’ve created a few recipes to make sure we don’t have any food waste! You can use leftover dough in Easy Sourdough Pizza Rolls, Fried Sourdough Pizza Dough, Sourdough Pizza Pockets and Sourdough Zucchini Pizza.
The great thing about sourdough discard pizza dough is that it’s really forgiving. If you want to make sourdough pizza dough in advance and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to shape, place the dough in the fridge once its doubled. It will last for up to 24 hours like this. If you’ve used commercial yeast with your discard, you can leave it in the fridge for up to 3 days after doubling.
Sourdough Discard Pizza Dough
Equipment
- Digital Scales
- Mixing Bowl
- Pizza Trays
Ingredients
- 200 g Sourdough Discard
- 7 g Instant Yeast, optional
- 280 g Water
- 20 g Honey
- 30 g Olive Oil
- 500 g Bread Flour
- 20 g Salt
Instructions
- Measure out the sourdough discard, water and honey (and yeast if you want to add it). Stir together until the sourdough starter and honey are dissolved into the water.
- Now, add the oil, flour and salt into the bowl and gently stir together with a dough whisk or knife. Cover with plastic wrap and allow the dough to sit for around 30 minutes.
- Now, tip the dough out onto the counter and knead it really well using your hands. This is a lovely dough to work with and with the right kneading, it will become soft and silky. I find it takes around 10 minutes to come together when kneading by hand.
- Once the dough is silky and elastic, pop it into a warm bowl (I warm a bowl with water and then dry it – this speeds up the rising).Cover with cling wrap or a damp dish towel and leave to rise until it has doubled.
- Once the dough has doubled, separate the dough into smaller balls so they are ready to be rolled out. I use 200 – 260 g per pizza (this fits my pizza oven perfectly) but anywhere from 200 g to 300 g is good for a pizza.Leave the balls on your counter top, covered with a tea towel, for around 30 minutes to allow the gluten to relax.
- Once you're ready to make your bases, use your fingers to press your dough into a pizza round. If you need to stretch the dough, pick it up and move your hands around the edges, allowing the dough's own weight to stretch it out into a round. Avoid using a rolling pin if you can to maintain your dough's sourdough character and give it good structure when baked.
- Place your pizza dough onto pizza peels ready to top with your favorite toppings (see my notes in the article above for my best tips on using pizza peels).When you are ready to bake, pre heat your oven to 230ºC/450ºF and make sure it's HOT!! Place your pizzas into the hot oven for around 15 minutes or until toppings are cooked and bases are crispy on the bottom.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Rate and comment below!
First time using sour dough discard great insight
I’ve made this recipe many times for my family and it’s fantastic. I’m making more pizza dough for a bachelorette party this weekend! Do you recommend separating the dough into the portions or keeping it together in a bowl after it’s done doubling for later? I usually separate it, but I was curious which way you recommend. Thank you!
I’m so glad you love this recipe! It’s really up to you. I tend to keep it all in the bowl if I’m keeping it for later and then separate it out because if you separate it out, it can dry out a little, so keeping it all together can prevent this 🙂 All the best xo
I made this, using bread flour. It was a nice silky dough as Kate indicated it should be. I will say that I have severe arthritis in my hand and can no longer hand kneed , I really didn’t want to dirty up my stand mixer as we are ;in the middle of a major house reorg. So I needed it for maybe 2 min by hand before I had to do something . So I did the cover it for 20-30 minutes and just reached into my bulk fermenting container and needed it kin d of stretch and holy for 3 times and it was beautiful and silky. I wonder if folks sticky dough issues are perhaps because they are using AP rather than Bread flour?
The dough was beautiful, however I never felt like it got browned on the bottom so it was very soft possibly undercooked. Do you have a solution for that? Thanks for the great recipe.
The best way to cook this is on a pizza stone, this stops the soft, under cooked bottom 🙂
I tried to skim through the comments to see if this was asked yet but can regular unbleached flour be used? I don’t have bread flour specifically? or I have. or I have organic einkorn flour I was given and haven’t used. thanks for your insight!
It’s definitely better to use bread flour for this recipe, you want a strong gluten network. All purpose flour isn’t the best choice for this recipe. You could try your einkorn flour, but it won’t mix up the same as bread flour 🙂
this depends on the ap flour being used. for example King Arthur a.p. flour has 11.7% protein and would work well with this recipe.
This is the absolute best pizza recipe! Thank you!
Hi! Your sourdough tips are the best and have resulted in amazing loaves!
Could this be made with 00 pizza flour or do you recommend using bread flour
You could definitely use 00 but I always recommend a high protein bread flour for best results 🙂
I have yet to try this recipe but am going to do so soon. I am not a fan of honey, for taste and for other reasons. In other recipes I usually sub maple syrup or agave for honey but they would be too sweet for pizza crust. Can I just leave out the sweetener or are there other suggestions?
You can just leave it out if you prefer, or use a little white sugar 🙂
What purpose does the honey serve here? This is my first time using starter in my pizza dough but we make pizza dough fairly regualry and I have never added anything sweet to it so curious if it serves a specific purpose to the process?
It doesn’t really sweeten the dough, but does add depth to the flavor of the dough and helps the yeast to proliferate 🙂 It’s really a small amount of honey in the grand scheme of things 🙂
Been trying different sourdough pizza recipes, and this is the one! Thank you!
Hi Kate, can these be frozen after you separate them for future use?
Absolutely, you can read my guide on how to freeze sourdough pizza dough here.
looking forward to trying this recipe, can you freeze this dough and if yes at what stage would be best thanks
You absolutely can freeze this recipe! I’ve put together a full guide to freezing sourdough pizza dough!
Hi Kate, I am enjoying making your discard pizza dough. I am trying it for the second time. Both times I have followed your instructions to the tee. The dough both times has been very sticky, I am used to sourdough bread dough that is smooth and gorgeous. I live in hot humid Sunshine Coast in Queensland snd I’ m wondering if that has a bearing on it at all. My started was given to me from a mature starter which I have been feeding regularly, collecting discard and popping the Fridge. This is one question, another question I have is if I make the discard pizza dough as per directions and it has doubled a few hours or so before I want to make pizzas, what do I do? Can i put it in the fridge for a couple of hours as I don’t want it to over prove? Hmm thanks for any suggestions you can give me,
Cheers Melanie
Hey Melanie, I’m sorry you’re having issues with this one. I would say that it might be your flour. I would double check the protein content of your flour and if it’s not high enough, add a little vital wheat gluten. This should help to make the dough less sticky. Diastatic malt is also great for pizza dough too! Heat and humidity will definitely have a bearing on your dough, so if adding vital wheat gluten doesn’t help, reduce the amount of starter you use to 100g.
And if your dough has already doubled, yep just pop it in the fridge until you’re ready to shape, it will be fine. Pizza is much more forgiving! xo
Thankyou, about go buy more baking flour so will check that out.
Cheerd Mel
Can I use active starter instead of discard?
For sure! I do this all the time! That way you can leave out the yeast 🙂
This is the best pizza crust ever!!!! Comes out perfect every time and freezes wonderfully!
what does „door ajar” mean?
It means with the door slightly open – so that the light stays on 🙂
I’ve been making pizzas for decades. This is by far the best pizza dough recipe.
I live alone so divide the dough into nine balls, wrap each one in plastic wrap and freeze them.
On Thursday I take a ball out and place it in an oiled dish to rise ready to cook on Friday.
The best trick is to cook the pizza in a greased cast iron skillet on the stove. On very low heat it cooks in only a few minutes.
How do you get the dough to spread in the pan?
I had a large amount of starter that just wouldn’t wake up so I made this pizza dough to use it up. We loved it but I wanted to know about freezing the dough. Is this dough suitable for freezing and do I let it go thru first rise before freezing? Sorry if silly questions but I’ve fallen in love with breads and doughs but I’m still very much lesrning
So glad you love the recipe. I’ve put together a complete guide to freezing sourdough pizza dough 🙂
This pizza is OUTSTANDING! For those who were having trouble getting it crispy on the bottom.. for the last 5 minutes slide it off the stone and on to the rack. It made all the difference in the crust! FABULOUS.. As per usual Pantry Mama is my “go to” for anything sourdough! I make 2 loaves of bread/week since finding this site. Thanks so much!
Awwhhh thank you so much for your lovely comment and review Lesa! That made me smile so much! I’m so glad I’ve been able to help you on your sourdough journey! K xx
Just wondering if I can halve the recipe as only have 100g of starter atm. Even though I haven’t made this yet thanks in advance as it sounds easy & you cover all fthe details.
Yes you can use less starter, it will just take a lot longer to bulk ferment (unless you add some instant yeast) xx
Can I freeze the pizza dough? I’d so how do I wrap and for how long can it stay in the freezer?
Thank you.
Absolutely you can freeze it – you can check out my guide to freezing sourdough pizza dough here.
This is really good for naans.
Great dough it’s just too thick…more of a deep dish. I will make 2 pizzas, thin crust versus 1 pizza as way too breads for me.
I’ve been the homemade pizza guy in the family for years. This was an excellent change-up from my normal dough recipe. In fact, I had so many compliments, it’ll now be my go-to recipe. Great flavor and crust! I did the discard with yeast. I started at noon and the dough was easily ready by 6pm.
Can you store extra pizza balls in freezer?
Absolutely! Coat the outside of the balls with some olive oil before freezing so they don’t stick together. Kate wrote a whole guide on freezing sourdough pizza dough that is super helpful. 🙂
I would give 5 stars but the salt may be a typo. For 500g of flour I only use 9g of salt, so 20g of salt was WAY TOO MUCH! Once I cut back the salt, the dough was amazing! Thank you!