Make a delicious sourdough pizza with this simple dough recipe!
Place all of the dough ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Knead on medium using the dough hook for 15 minutes. The dough should be elastic and clean the sides of the bowl.
Grease 2 lidded containers. Divide the dough in half. You can weigh the dough if you wish, or just eyeball it (see note). Form into balls and place in the prepared containers.
Allow to rise at room temperature for 4 hours. Transfer to the refrigerator for 12-24 hours to continue to ferment and develop flavor (see note).
Now it’s time to perform the first stretch and fold sequence. Think of the dough as having 4 corners. Grab the edge of the dough from one of the corners, pull it up, and stretch and fold it over to the other side. Repeat with the remaining 3 corners of the dough.
You’re going to repeat this stretch and fold, rest sequence 4-5 more times, for a total of 5-6 stretch and fold sequences. This should take about 2 to 2.5 hours or so. The dough will start out sticky, and eventually become more elastic. If the dough doesn’t seem elastic enough, you can add in another stretch and fold sequence.
After you’ve performed the final stretch and fold, form the dough into 2 balls. Place in greased lidded containers. Allow the dough balls to rise at room temperature for 1 hour, and then either use immediately or transfer them to the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
When you’re getting close to being ready to make your pizza, take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow it to warm up and rise for 2-3 hours.
45 minutes before you’re planning on baking your pizza, place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat it to…really hot. My oven only goes up to about 490°F, so that’s what I turn it up to. But if your oven goes up to 500, 550 degrees F, do that!
Work from the center and push the dough out, leaving the edges of the dough alone if you like that puffy edge crust.
When the dough doesn’t want to stretch out any more, let it relax for 5-10 minutes and then come back to it. The gluten should have relaxed enough for you to shape the dough more. Repeat the stretching and resting until you’ve got the dough to the size you like.
Top your pizza as desired.
Transfer your pizza creation to pizza peel, and then into the blazing hot oven it goes! The amount of time it will take for your pizza to cook will depend on how hot your oven is, how thick you rolled out the crust, and how many toppings you chose to layer on.
I usually cook my sourdough pizza for around 15 minutes at 490 - 500 (see note).
Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before slicing and enjoying!