Quick and easy pizza recipe

Easy pizza recipe

This is a really easy pizza recipe that can be made by anyone. You don’t need much experience for this recipe, making pizza is not as difficult as many people think.

The most important thing is that you give it a go. You may be suprised at just how much you love making pizza, as well as tasting it!

I’ve made slightly more complex pizza recipes before, such as my Authentic Neapolitan pizza recipe, and my Poolish pizza recipe.

But for this recipe, I wanted to do something that was as easy as possible and accessible to more people. I’ve still linked to my various other articles which should help you if you want to dive into a bit more detail.

If you want to cut to the chase, you can skip to the recipe by clicking here. If you want to learn more about this recipe first, then keep reading!

Quick pizza dough

This recipe is for a quick pizza dough. As well as being easy to make, it can be ready in as little as an hour.

Previously, I’ve recommended long proves with most of my recipes, such as my Authentic Neapolitan pizza recipe and my Poolish pizza recipe.

I am still a firm believe that a long prove produces a better flavour and improved texture in the dough. However, that doesn’t mean that quick pizza dough can’t be good too.

Sometimes you just don’t have the time, or maybe you’re intimidated by the long prove.

Firstly, don’t be intimidated by a long prove because other than a little bit of extra planning, it doesn’t really take any more work. But secondly, there’s nothing wrong with a quick prove and it’s a great place to start.

5 minute pizza dough?

In general, I would say that 5 minutes isn’t a very practical amount of time for a beginner to make pizza dough. However, with a bit of practice, I believe most people could make this recipe with just 5 minutes of hands-on time.

• The rough mixing of ingredients can be done in around 1 minute
• The kneading can be done in around 2-3 minutes
• The shaping and topping can be done in less than 1 minute

Altogether, that’s less than 5 minutes, including the topping and shaping of the dough!

Of course, it does take a bit of practice to get to this stage but it’s all good fun!

When it comes to the kneading, you could actually skip this altogther, I have a recipe for no-knead pizza dough here. However, I would encourage everyone to try kneading as it’s really not difficult and it helps to make the dough easier to stretch. It also helps you to develop a feel for the dough.

Pizza for one recipe

In addition to being quick and easy, this is the perfect pizza recipe for one. I realise that some people just want to make pizza for themselves, or they just want to experiment with one at a time. Also, a recipe for one is really easy to scale up for more people – simply multiply the ingredients by the number of people.

One thing I would say is that making more pizzas at a time is better if possible because you get more practice with the shaping. Having said that, sometimes you just want to make one pizza as it saves time and effort (and money).

With this recipe, there should be plenty of pizza for one person, without needing any sides (such as salad or fries etc). However, you could share it between two, particularly if you serve sides with it.

How much dough do you need for one pizza?

For one pizza, you don’t need much dough at all. This means that making the dough becomes very quick, easy, and affordable.

Some people like to measure out dough and ingredients in cups. But I highly recommend using grams. Cups are inaccurate and make replicating dough recipes very difficult.

If you haven’t got some already, I highly recommend getting yourself some digital scales. They’re relatively cheap, extremely accurate, and very quick and easy to use. I’ve provided a link to some digital scales on Amazon below.

How many grams of dough do I need for 1 pizza?

For 1 pizza, you typically want around 250-270g of dough. This should be plenty enough dough to produce a pizza of around 10-12 inches.

The final size of the pizza will depend how thinly you stretch it and how large your crusts are. This is mostly personal preference but for a traditional pizza you generally want a very thin base with medium to large crusts. This should give you a classic pizza shape.

Is a 12 inch pizza enough for one person?

A 12 inch pizza is plenty enough for one person. In fact, 12 inches is quite large for just one, particularly if the pizza has “medium” size crusts.

A 12 inch pizza with medium crusts contains roughly 30% more dough than a 10 inch pizza with medium crusts, coming in at around 340g. That’s significantly more than the roughly 250g that’s normal for most pizzas.

However, bear in mind that if the crusts are very small (especially if the dough is rolled out), then a 250g dough ball could be stretched to around 12 inches. This would then be a fairly standard size for one person.

Is a 10 inch pizza enough for one person?

A 10 inch pizza is generally considered to be fairly standard for one person. This assumes that the pizza base is very thin and the crusts are about a “medium” size. Also, a 10 inch pizza wouldn’t generally be served with any sides, for most people it’s a good size meal on it’s own.

Bear in mind that if the pizza is made with thin crusts, an equivalent pizza would tend to be a bit larger than 10 inches.

Also, if the pizza is served with any sides (such as salad or fries etc), then 10 inches should be more than enough pizza for one person.

Can pizza dough be used immediately?

One question that comes up quite often is whether pizza dough can be used immediately. To be truthful, the answer is “no, not right away”. This is because pizza dough has to be risen, or “proved”.

This rising, or proving, is actually a natural process that’s taking place known as “fermentation”. It involves yeast and it’s the same process that makes regular bread rise as well as producing alcohol in beer and wine.

The prove helps to give the pizza a light and airy texture which makes it a pleasure to eat. It also helps to produce flavour in the dough.

What happens if you don’t let pizza dough rise?

If you don’t let pizza dough rise you will almost certainly end up with a dense and doughy pizza with little flavour in the base. This is known as “underproving”. The rising, or proofing, of pizza is one of the things that makes the dough so nice.

In general, the longer you prove the dough the better (up to at least 24 hours). Longer proves (such as my Authentic Neapolitan recipe) tend produce more flavour and improve the texture of the dough.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make great pizza with a short prove. Once you get some practice with this recipe, you’ll be able to make wonderful pizza dough quickly.

Pizza dough for one without yeast?

I certainly wouldn’t recommend making pizza dough without any yeast at all. This would typically produce worse results than using yeast but not letting it rise. In my view, pizza without yeast is not pizza – it’s flatbread.

Just as all traditional bread (except flatbread) has yeast, so does all traditional pizza. For me, yeast is the magic ingredient that cannot be replaced or skipped.

You would probably be better off adding yeast but not allowing the dough to rise. Although not ideal, at least you would probably still get some rising from the yeast as the pizza cooks.

But almost certainly the best option is to add some yeast and allow the dough to proof, even if it’s only for a relatively short time.

How can I quickly proof pizza dough?

You can proof pizza quicker simply by adding more yeast. In this recipe, I’ve included enough yeast for around a 1 hour proof.

In general, it’s probably not a good idea to proof pizza dough for less than hour. Proofing for less than this makes the process a bit unpredictable since you would need to use a lot of yeast.

For this recipe, I chose the quickest prove that I felt worked. In my opinion, 1 hour is the shortest amount of time you should prove pizza dough for.

Is 2 hours enough for pizza dough?

2 hours is plenty enough time for a quick pizza dough. In fact, a 2 hour prove would generally be considered better than a 1 hour prove. It may help to produce a slightly more even fermentation for improved texture.

If you want to try a 2 hour prove, simply half the yeast in this recipe from 3.5g to 1.25g. Or, if you’re making 4 pizzas you can use 7g of yeast. This is handy since yeast often comes in 7g packets/sachets.

Quick and Easy pizza recipe

Now it’s time to get into the recipe below! Don’t worry if your first pizza doesn’t turn out prefect, becoming confident at pizza making takes a bit of time.

If you stick to this recipe, it shouldn’t take you many attempts before you start making beautiful pizzas. Remember to enjoy the process and be proud of yourself! Making pizza from scratch is an achievement. It also tastes amazing!

If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments section at the bottom of this page. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.