Fast Easy
Sourdough Pizza Crust

Name: Fast Easy Sourdough Pizza Crust
Prep time: 90 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 100 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 3 cups all purpose flour; 1 teaspoon active dry yeast; 1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar; 2 teaspoons salt; 1 cup freshly fed sourdough starter; 3/4 to 1 cup warm water

Fast Easy Sourdough Pizza Crust Recipe | Oven Baked Pizza Crust | Grilled Pizza Crust | Grilled Sourdough Pizza | Sourdough Discard Recipe | Green Mountain Grill Pizza Oven | Pellet Grill Pizza Oven Review

This recipe will give you excellent results in just one afternoon. Mix the dough using a stand mixer then rise just once and you are ready to bake or grill a great hand made sourdough pizza!

I love my overnight long ferment Best Sourdough Pizza Crust, don't get me wrong, but sometimes you just need it to be fast as well as great tasting.

By starting with a well fed bubbly starter instead of discard starter and adding just a little active dry yeast, this pizza dough is ready in about 90 minutes. While the dough is rising you have time to gather the rest of your ingredients, preheat your oven or grill and maybe even make a homemade pizza sauce!

Mix dry ingredients including the dry yeast in a stand mixer then add the starter and begin mixing on low speed. Slowly add up to 3/4 cup warm water or whey until the dough pulls away from the edges of the mixing bowl. Add more water 1 tablespoon at a time if needed to make the dough come together. Continue mixing to knead for 7 minutes more. The dough should be somewhat sticky at this point and very soft.

Scrape the dough out onto a work board with plenty of flour then with floured hands, knead the dough 4-5 times and form it into a ball.

Place the ball into a large bowl with 2 Tablespoons of Olive oil, roll the ball to cover it with oil then cover the bowl with a towel or plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for an hour or two in a warm place until almost doubled.

When it's warmer outside than in house, like in the summer when I have the AC running, I set the covered dough outside (not in the direct sunlight) to speed the rising.

After the dough has doubled in size, on a floured work space, separate the dough into 2 to 4 dough balls as you would like for the pizzas. 4 will make individual sized thin crust pizzas. 2 will make medium size pizzas about the size of the average pizza peel and little thicker. Two medium sized seem to puff up the best if you want big airy bubbles in your crust.

To Grill the Pizza

Start heating your grill to its highest temperature possible and let it heat for at least 30 minutes. You will need a pizza stone unless you have a pizza oven attachment for your grill like the one we recently purchased.

We have been using our Pizza oven attachment for our Daniel Boone Green Mountain Grill for this recipe but you can also set up a pizza stone on your grill without the attachment as I describe in my recipe for Best Sourdough Pizza Crust which has amazing flavor but takes an extra long overnight ferment to develop. It's very easy but not very fast. Click over to that recipe for grilling instructions if you don't have a Pizza oven attachment for your grill.

You can also bake this in a conventional oven on a pizza stone. Be sure to place the stone in the oven before you pre-heat it. It's also a great idea to line the top rack of your oven with a second pizza stone for extra heat from the top down.

Cooking our pizzas in our new pizza oven attachment for our Green Mountain Grill has been amazing! It basically doubles the heat of the temperature you set it to so when set to 350 degrees I am baking my pizzas in a 700 degree oven! Yay! It literally takes about 6-7 minutes to bake a medium sized well topped pizza.

What we like most about using a Pizza Oven Attachment on our pellet grill is the wood fired pizza taste, aroma and those awesome toasty scorched spots!

It does take some getting used to because you also have to work quickly. We have decided it's time to get a second pizza peel just to keep things moving. We are usually baking 2 to 4 pizzas and can only place one at a time into the pizza oven. After removing the first pizza, our aluminum peel is very hot and you need to start the next pizza on a cool peel. We put the peel into our chest freezer to cool it between pizzas and it's worked out well so far but it's inconvenient to say the least. We will get another so we can rotate between them and it will be much more efficient for multiple pizzas.

Tip: Always start with a cool peel. If the peel is hot or even too warm to the touch it will cause the dough to warm and become too soft to slide easily off the peel and into your oven. Start with a cool peel dusted generously with cornmeal or polenta for best results.

It's very important to place a generous amount of cornmeal on the pizza peel, then on a floured surface, roll out your pizza crust. Carefully pick it up or roll it over a rolling pin and place it on the cornmeal dusted pizza peel. The cornmeal will be imperative to get the pizza to slide easily off of the peel and onto the pizza stone.

Working quickly, top your pizza as desired then open the grill or oven and slide the pizza crust onto the hot pizza stone and close the lid/ oven door. You will need to work quickly topping the pizza so it doesn't have too much time to settle onto the the peel. If it settles too long before you slide it onto the stone you may have trouble getting it to slide off smoothly.

Tip: If you have trouble getting the pizza to slide off of an aluminum peel, set the peel directly on the hot pizza stone and close the grill top as much as possible for 1-2 minutes and the pizza will begin to bake. Open the lid again and give the peel a hard horizontal shake and it should slide off onto the stone. Close the lid and continue baking another 3 minutes before turning the pizza.

Check the pizza in 3-5 minutes. It should be about 1/2 cooked and may have large pockets of air forming inside the crust. These will deflate some after removal from the hot oven or grill.

At this point you will want to turn the pizza half way around to ensure even baking/grilling. Use the pizza peel or long tongs to do this then close the lid/door for 3-5 more minutes.

If you are using a pizza oven attachment like ours, your pizza will likely be done or require only a few more minutes.

When baking in a 500 degree oven, you will need a little longer to finish baking your pizza. Keep a close watch until you achieve the level of browning that you like.

That said, the time it takes to completely bake your pizza will depend a lot on how heavily you have topped it. More veggies will add moisture and also extend cooking time. A light hand will help your pizza to cook faster and crisper whatever method you choose.

Cheers!

~Melisa

Fast Easy Sourdough Pizza Crust

By Melisa Smith

Ingredients

3 cups All Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon active dry yeast or instant yeast

1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar

2 tsp salt

1 cup starter freshly fed and bubbly

3/4 - 1 cup warm whey or water

Method

Mix dry ingredients including the dry yeast in a stand mixer.

Add the starter and begin mixing on low speed.

Slowly add up to 3/4 cup water or whey until the dough pulls away from the edges of the mixing bowl. Add more water 1 tablespoon at a time if needed to make the dough come together.

Continue mixing for 7 minutes more.

The dough should be somewhat sticky and very soft at this point.

Scrape the dough out onto a bread board with plenty of flour then with floured hands, knead the dough 4-5 times and form it into a ball.

On a floured work space, separate the dough into 2 to 4 dough balls as you would like for the pizzas.

To Grill the Pizza

Start heating your grill to its highest temperature possible and let it heat for at least 30 minutes. We have been using our Pizza Oven Attachment for our Daniel Boone Green Mountain Grill for this recipe but you can also set up a pizza stone on your grill without the attachment as I describe in my recipe for Best Sourdough Pizza Crust which has amazing flavor but takes an extra long overnight ferment to develop. It's very easy but not very fast. Click over to that recipe for grilling instructions if you don't have a Pizza oven attachment for your grill.

To Bake the Pizza in a Conventional or Convection Oven

Put a pizza stone into the oven on the center rack and start preheating the oven to 500 degrees. Be sure to place the stone inside before preheating the oven.

Continue with the instructions below for both methods of cooking

Place a generous amount of cornmeal on a pizza peel then on a floured surface, roll out your pizza crust. Carefully pick it up or roll it over a rolling pin and place it on the cornmeal dusted pizza peel.

Working quickly, top your pizza as desired then open the grill or oven and slide the pizza crust onto the hot pizza stone and close the lid/ oven door.

Check the pizza in 3-5 minutes. It should be about 1/2 cooked and may have large pockets of air forming inside the crust. These will deflate some after removal from the hot oven or grill.

At this point you will want to turn the pizza half way around to ensure even baking/grilling. Use the pizza peel or long tongs to do this then close the lid/door for 3-5 more minutes.

If you are using a pizza oven attachment like ours, your pizza will likely be done or require only a few more minutes.

When baking in a 500 degree oven, you will need a little longer to finish baking your pizza. Keep a close watch until you achieve the level of browning that you like.