basic overnight pizza dough (with baking steel instructions)

I've tried at least half a dozen pizza dough recipes since I bought my baking steel earlier this year and this basic overnight pizza dough has quickly become my favorite. I make it all the time now without even looking at the recipe before slinging it on to the baking steel, that's how simple the instructions are.

>> read my full review of the original baking steel here <<

There are plenty of great pizza dough recipes out there, but this overnight pizza dough recipe is one of my favorites so I wanted to share it with you all because it's a really good recipe for beginners.

There's a lot of things I like about this dough, but the one that matters most is that it makes great pizza. The dough is whisper thin, gorgeously bubbly, and also very easy to work with.

If you're new to the world of dough — bread, pizza, or otherwise — this pizza dough recipe is a great way to familiarize yourself with many universal dough techniques. You'll learn how to autolyse (mix the flour and water before adding salt and yeast) and fold the dough (to develop gluten and flavor) and get used to measuring ingredients by weight instead of volume.

It's also a great, sturdy dough ideal for practicing the basics of hand-stretching pizza dough. No rolling pin needed.

This recipe is basically a smaller version of the basic overnight pizza dough from Ken Forkish's book Flour Water Salt Yeast, only, instead of shaping it according to his instructions, I use the deli container technique I picked up the Baking Steel 72-hour fermented pizza dough instructions, which makes it so much easier to stretch the dough in a circle shape.

Flour Water Salt Yeast features a few different pizza dough recipes, one of which can be done same-day, but I prefer the basic overnight dough. I don't usually think to start making dough first thing in the morning, so for my schedule the overnight method works best. I've also found that the overnight dough develops a stronger gluten network, better flavor, and is less prone to tearing.

To make things a little more practical, I shrunk Forkish's dough recipe down by half. The full recipe uses 1,000 grams of flour and makes enough dough for 7-8 pizzas which is just more pizzas than I can eat in a week (I do have a limit, believe it or not).

The version you find here will make enough for 3 large pizzas or 4 medium pizzas.

My recipe differs from Forkish's when it comes time to shaping the dough. Where Forkish's preferred method is to have you shape the dough into boules (that's bread maker terminology for "round balls") and let them rest on a sheet pan in the fridge, I've had much more success using the Baking Steel instructions to store the dough in 16 or 32 ounce round deli containers.

I love the deli container method because it's far easier to store the dough in your fridge without worrying it's going to get bumped or squashed or accidentally dry out. It also helps the dough stay in a perfect circle as you stretch it. Plus, you can easily stack the dough containers on top of one another.

I don't love Forkish's method of shaping the dough and letting it rest on a sheet pan because, while it gives the dough time to relax, it also means the dough spreads out as it rests. This makes for a looser, stretchier gluten network. While stretchy is usually a good thing when it comes to pizza dough, a dough that's too stretchy is a dough prone to tearing.

The deli containers are a brilliant way to rest your divided pizza dough because they hold the dough in a tight, perfectly circular shape.

As the dough rests and relaxes, it doesn't stretch outward, flattening out. It stretches upward creating a tighter, stronger, denser gluten network. The circular shape of the containers also trains the dough to hold that shape as you stretch it.

About an hour before you plan to stretch the dough (around the time you start preheating the baking steel according to instructions), you'll take it out of the fridge and let it rest at room temp in the container.

Depending on how warm your kitchen is, you might see it double in size during this hour. This loosens up the gluten network just enough to make the dough stretchy and elastic to work with, but not so stretchy that the dough tears easily when you handle it.

a quick autolyse explainer

Wait—come back! Don't be scared. Autolyse might sound like a fancy scientific (or French?) term but it's actually super simple. The second step step of this recipe is an autolyse step and you don't even need to know what "autolyse" means to do it, but I want to explain it just so you know what you're doing and why it makes a difference. Because #KnowledgeIsPower.

Autolyse is a method common to sourdough baking, but it can be used in non-sourdough recipes too.

Autolyse basically just means “mixing your flour and water together before you add salt, yeast, or anything else.” In sourdough recipes, sometimes the autolyse includes the starter too, but what an autolyse step never includes is salt. (King Arthur Baking has a great in-depth article about the history and benefits of an autolyse step here.)

Autolysing your dough gives the flour a chance to fully hydrate and start forming gluten strands (which makes the dough strong!) before you do any kneading (folding, in this case).

The dough isn't shiny or smooth or even kneadable at this stage. It's just a shaggy, messy mixture of flour and water. It also gives the dough more flavor and makes it stretchier, which is really important for pizza dough.

If you added salt at this stage, the salt would tighten the gluten strands. Same with yeast. So salt and yeast get added in the second step when you mix the dough. 

• You'll use a technique called folding both to develop gluten in the dough before the overnight rise and again when you divide and shape the dough. If you skip this step, the gluten strands will be weaker and your dough will be more likely to tear when you stretch it.
• To get your pizza dough to stretch in a perfect circle head to my post about how to hand-stretch your pizza dough which has lots of visuals to guide you through the process.

a few quick notes

• You definitely want to use a kitchen scale to make this dough. Scooping flour in measuring cups can throw off your whole recipe by A LOT and you'll end up with a wet sticky dough that doesn't form a strong gluten network or a dense dough that never develops any elasticity.

• Use wet hands when mixing the salt and yeast into the dough and when doing your folds. This helps incorporate some water into the dough and prevents it from sticking to your hands. Re-wet your hands as needed; they shouldn't be dripping but they should be more than just damp.

• My overnight pizza dough schedule usually looks like this: 8:30 p.m. mix the flour and water (autolyse), 9 p.m. mix in the salt and yeast, 9:30 p.m. first set of folds, 10 p.m. final set of folds. I divide the dough at 10 a.m. the following morning, pop it in the fridge, and it's ready to bake with by 4 p.m. that day.

• Forkish's original recipe is very precise with the water and dough temperatures and I encourage you to buy his book if you're interested in precision. What I can tell you, however, is that you'll be just fine with water that's just barely on the warm side of lukewarm to the touch. If your kitchen is cold, use slightly warmer (but not hot) water. If your kitchen is hot, use slightly cooler (but not cold) water.

• Instant or active dry yeast both work just fine here. No need to make any adjustments, just use whichever one you already have. If you forget to mix the yeast with 1 tablespoon water and set it aside while the dough autolyses, just sprinkle the yeast in when you add the salt.

• If you plan on using the dough the same day you divide it, 16 oz deli containers are fine. If you plan on keeping the divided dough in the fridge for 2 or up to 4 days, I've found the 32 ounce containers are ideal because it gives the dough room to keep rising without risking the top popping off.

• When you go to stretch the dough you'll find that on day 1 it's slightly more resistant to being stretched. The longer it sits in the fridge the looser and stretchier it will get. Take care not to tear the dough when you stretch it; if it fights you, pause for a few minutes and let it rest, then stretch it again. If the dough does tear, gently pinch it back together.

• This pizza dough, like all pizza doughs, is best when cooked on a scorching hot baking steel on the top rack of your oven. If you have a pizza or baking stone, you can use it the same way but baking steels get hotter and cook the pizza faster — just like wood fired pizza ovens do.

• When I first starting making pizzas at home on the baking steel I was surprised by how hard it was to find instructions for how to actually bake the pizza. Most recipes stop once the dough is made and expect you to do the rest. That’s because depending on your toppings, oven heat, whether you’re using a steel or a stone, the baking times can change dramatically. But I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so I’ve included instructions for making pizza on a baking steel with this dough. IMO a baking steel is the best way to get a restaurant-quality, as-good-as-wood-fired pizza at home, and I don’t really recommend making pizza at home without one.

other recipes you might like

• breakfast pizza with béchamel sauce and a fried egg on top
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• when should you put fresh basil on pizza?
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• how to hand stretch pizza dough