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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.
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I’d like to know if I could halve this recipe, I only need enough dough to make a cookie sheet size pizza, would I just cut everything in half?
yes you can cut everything in half 🙂
Hello, can I add all the toppings and freeze the whole thing?
Can I make this night before?
This recipe is amazing! I can’t believe how easy it is. My two year old and I have so much fun making it, and my husband told me he’d be disappointed if we ever ate any other pizza! Thanks for a great recipe!
I love this pizza. The recipe is easy to follow. I froze the pizza dough in balls, as suggested, let them come to room temperature, and formed them. Next I’ll try freezing the pizza already formed. I love having wonderful, homemade pizza available any time!
Hi I don’t have any semolina flour, could I use rice flour?, thanks
After kneading the dough is super sticky…any tips?
I have been trying to print out this recipe, but every time I hit the print button it just takes me back to the top of the post. I would love to print it if you could fix the link! I have printed your recipes before with no problems
Hey, does 200g create 1 10” pizza dough, or all 5? Also, can you freeze dough balls if you’re not using all 5 at once? And proper way to thaw them out if they can be frozen? I’m a little bit new to this.
Is the nutritional information per pizza base?
If I want to proof the dough in a bread proofer, can you suggest a temperature to proof at? Thanks so much for the recipe! We are excited to try it!
Can I use maple syrup instead of honey?!
Yes you can use maple syrup instead of honey, or even just a little sugar 🙂
Hi, made this twice
Works well and impressed. First with 4g of yeast and then 100% starter.
Can you confirm what hydration your starter is please as mine is quite difficult to handle, all beit very tasty
Can you make a dough without any sugar?
Yes you can make this sourdough pizza dough without the sugar if you prefer.
My dough seemed super sticky. what did I do wrong?
My dough was super sticky, both before and after kneading and bulk fermenting. What am I doing wrong?
Hi,
I like this recipe a lot and have tried few times. For some reason while kneading, my dough is always sticking to hands and counter- my hands are never clean like you show yours in video. After bulking also dough comes out very sticky and difficult to shape. I am using exact measurement as in recipe. What should I do ? Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Followed the instructions and my dough was super sticky, I couldn’t even knead it by hand so tried to use a stand mixer but it never came together. I’ve let I bulk ferment but it was really difficult to shape into balls. I ended up shaping it like little boules of sourdough bread to give some structure and added some extra flour. Hoping it will still cook alright!
Wondering if you could add some tips as this seems to be a very common issue?
Thanks!
The hydration of your sourdough starter and the type of flour you use can impact the stickiness of the dough. Adding a some extra flour or reduce the water may help. Semolina is also really helpful for shaping pizza dough that is a little sticky 🙂
Can you use fed starter instead of discard?
Can you use rice flour instead of semolina?
Your recipe was amazing! Detailed and turned out as expected. Thank you
Hi can you tell me if Einkorn AP flour would work ok in this (and most of your other) recipes? I have trouble with gluten and have zero problems with Einkorn. 🙂
If I wanted to use a mix of whole wheat and bread flour, does the total grams of flour stay the same?
Kneaded mine with dough hook in stand mixer, until smooth and silky. Doubled beautifully but sticky. Should I have kneaded longer than the 5 mins?
Help! I may have added too much water (my scale turned off while adding water so I did my best at guessing where it was before the shut off) then when it was too sticky, I added more flour. I bulk fermented and then must have gone too long? The dough was bubbling over but it was webby and very wet. I know in a SD boule, you can put dough in the fridge and sometimes salvage it… what can indi to save the pizza dough, or is it done for?
How do you suggest cooking the crust with the pizza stone?
My dough was very sticky and I tried kneading it with flouring my hands as well as wetting my hands with water until it looked like it’s elastic enough. It’s currently resting to double in size.
My questions are: Will this batch turn out okay considering what I did? What could be the issue? What can I do or change for next time so the dough doesn’t get sticky?
Thank you for your response!
Made these tonight! Discard + yeast.
Wow!!! They were incredible! Crispy on the bottom and bubbly on the top. Can’t imagine that I will ever do store bought again.
Thanks Pantry Mama!
Oh…we just used our little electric indoor pizza oven and it cooked these perfectly!
Firstly, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, and clear instructions.
One query, in this recipe and instructions you say the recipe can be made by hand mixing or a stand mixer/Thermo. When you click the link to go to the stand mixer instructions, the recipe changes from 200 g Sourdough “Discard” to 200 g Sourdough “Starter active and fed”.
Is there any reason for changing the discard to an active, fed starter when using a Stand Mixer?
Thanking you. Chris
This is my second time making this dough, first time without yeast. It was the first thing I made with my sourdough discard. I used my hands to knead the first time. Not this time! Used my mixer with dough attachment. Sooo much easier for my arthritic hands.
I’ll divide and freeze the one. I’m assuming the nutritional facts are for the whole batch?
I see where you say not to roll out. I didn’t but did use a fork to poke holes. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to do that either, as I read “you want the air bubbles.”
Thanks for your time helping out this newbie.
We have been making this weekly for a few months now and we love it! I am curious what your suggestion would be if my dough is coming out sticky? I have tried slightly less water and it did not help, any suggestions? It always ends up tasting amazing, it would just be nice to have that lovely “silky” dough vs the sticky mess! Thank you in advance.
How do you use the dough after freezing?
I will be trying this recipe tomorrow for my daughters birthday! Making individual pizzas. If I dont need 4 or 5 crusts could I just freeze what I dont use for the next time? If so, after what step would I put into freezer?
Great taste, but I ended up needing quite a bit more flour just to get it to knead into a ball; and they only needed about 6 minutes to bake. I’m glad I didn’t go the full 15 like the recipe said.
How long does it take to dbl with the added yeast?
Loved this and so did my kids! We used spelt flour and starter to great effect.
Your recipe states 20g of salt, which has to be a typo. Is it supposed to be 2g? I just used my best judgement.
Thanks again!
So glad you love it 🙂 Definitely not a typo, but you can reduce it if you wish 🙂
Can I leave overnight in the frig?
If so, how long to leave on the counter before shaping? Any extra time needed to rest before adding toppings ? Thank you.
Have made this several times but never the day before. 🤞🏼