How to Hand Stretch Pizza Dough

Stretching pizza dough is a lot easier than you think! The more you do it, the better you’ll get!

There are a lot of different methods for stretching pizza dough out there. This is just the method that I like best.

Pre-shape the dough in round, lightly greased containers. Flip the dough onto a generously floured counter. Generously flour the top of the dough too.

Use your fingers to indent around the edge to create a “crust,” rotating the dough as you go.

Gently pick up the dough. Rotate it through your hands, letting gravity pull it down.

Hold the dough on the back of one hand. Use the back of your other hand to lift & rotate the dough over your stationary hand.

Keep rotating and stretching on the backs of your hands. Using the back of your hands is gentler on the dough. Your fingertips won't poke through it!

If the dough gets too thin in the center, you can lay it flat and stretch the edges gently with your fingers.

Transfer the pizza dough onto a well floured pizza peel and gently stretch back into a circle shape.

Add your sauce, cheese, and toppings.

Give the pizza a shimmy to make sure it doesn’t stick to the peel.

Bake on a preheated Baking Steel at 500F for 5-8 mins. Broil for 1 min to finish. Enjoy!

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