I started this post before I came across my least favorite ad in the world. Tonight is pizza night, so I decided to time myself and see how long it takes to make pizza from scratch. I also priced out the ingredients to see if I could make this meal for under $10.
Homemade pizza is so easy and inexpensive compared to take out or delivery pizza. It is much healthier too. It can even be made ahead of time and frozen for the nights when you need a quick meal.
Homemade Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups hot water
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 4 - 4 1/2 cups flour I use whole wheat, but you can use white or a mixture of white and wheat
- 1 tablespoon yeast
- 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
Instructions
- Put everything in the bread maker on the dough setting. If you want to use a mixer, combine all the wet ingredients, add the yeast, salt, Italian seasoning, garlic and then add flour until you reach your desired consistency. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, a little longer if you are using whole wheat flour. Let rise until doubled.
- After your dough has risen (or your dough cycle has finished in the bread maker), take your dough and roll it into your desired pizza shape. For thin crust pizza roll the dough very thin.
- Add sauce, cheese, and toppings.
- Bake at 425 about 15 minutes or until crust turns golden brown.
Notes
This is probably the main reason I like making our own pizza. We decide on the toppings and we never have to worry about the delivery place messing up our order!
Time Spent
Time it took me to make homemade whole wheat pizza.
- 6 min 22 seconds to gather ingredients, put crust ingredients in bread machine, and clean up mess.
- The bread machine took 1 hour and 25 minutes to make the crust. I did nothing in the kitchen during that time, I checked email, worked on school with the kids and finished some chores.
- After the dough was finished I spent another 14 minutes and 30 seconds rolling out the dough, grating cheese, topping the pizza and doing the dishes.
- This brings the total hands on time to 20 minutes and 52 seconds. The total time from start to finish was 2 hours. If you have a bread machine you can start this recipe in the morning, and then spend about 30 minutes before dinner making the pizza and baking it. I think this is a very convenient meal.
Cost
- olive oil ~ $.60
- honey ~ $.60
- salt ~ $.05
- flour ~ $.20
- yeast ~ $.10
- Italian seasoning $.15
- garlic powder $.05
- sauce $.99
- 1 pound mozzarella cheese $3.00
- pepperoni $1.00
We usually add a salad and carrot sticks, so I will count an additional $1.50 for those.
Total meal cost $8.20 for 8 people. This recipe makes two huge pizzas, one thin crust and one thick crust. That beats KFC’s $10 for 4 people. If you add more toppings to your pizza your cost might go up, but I use leftovers to top our pizzas so there is no extra cost.
Lisa says
I love to make homemade pizza and this looks sooo much better than KFC!
Lawanda says
Oh that looks delish. I make homemade pizza but it never turns out so good. I think I will try your recipe next time and see what happens. I will let you know if I fly or fall 😉 hehe
Lisa@BlessedwithGrace says
That is awesome. You did great. I love that you took on the tv ad. ha ha. Thanks for participating in TMTT.
Lesli says
This looks so good and super easy! Thank you so much for posting. This will be perfect for the weekend after Thanksgiving while decorating. Quick and easy!
Sherry says
Woohoo! Homemade is so much better. 😀
Tina says
We have also perfected the “stay at home pizza”! We have got ours down to 4.00 per one 16 inch pizza due to bulk buying. We do two pizzas per meal. We do have to plan way ahead and do sales on bulk. I also put pizza kits together in the freezer: a dough ball, cup of sauce, pepperoni, ham, cheese, bell pepper, mushrooms, all wrapped and in a zip lock for the freezer. We actually buy our dough balls from Sams. They are just under a dollar a piece. We could make it a bit more economical from scratch. But time is money too! The pizza kits make for an easy ready to go meal.
Stacy says
DD and I love homemade pizza! When you use the whole wheat flour, you don’t need to eat as much to fill you up either! They really are easy to make. I spend less than 5 minutes putting my crust ingredients together, another 5-10 making my sauce, then less than 10 minutes getting my pizza crust in the pan and loaded with the toppings. Such an easy meal, provided that I remember to start the crust in the bread machine on time! LOL!
Beth says
Yummy! I’m definitely going to try this…plus I love the idea of whole wheat crust 🙂 My kids won’t even notice.
Lynn says
We love homemade pizza. It is much better than you can buy. We eat it several times a month. Thanks for sharing.
Live.Love.Eat says
Wow, that pizza looks incredible!!!!! I wish I did dough!
Janice (5 Minutes for Mom) says
Getting out my bread maker RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
You rock!
Tiph says
Do the ingredients listed make enough for two bread crusts? And it all fits in the breadmaker at once? That’s awesome! I am definitely going to have to try this! 🙂
Lynnet says
Our family loves pizza night. I’ve been making homemade pizza for a few years. Something we do is personal pan pizzas. The recipe I use makes 1 large or 2 personal pans. Each person can make the specialty pizza they want. How do we do personal pans??? We use CAKE PANS! Just spray the cake pan with some Pam/Crisco, put you dough in the pan, use your pizza cutter to cut off the excess, and let them create to their hearts desire. All the ingredients are kept within the pan! Just the right size for kids and adults!
Treece says
I always make pizza from scratch!! The only thing I do different is I use milk instead of water (and sugar instead of honey, never thougt of honey…). I saw it on America’s Test Kitchen and tried it. Yum!! So much better than just water!!
kathy says
I am always looking for new scratch type recipes and one of the things we rarely do ourselves is pizza. I think this is our next project to tackle. Bookmarking your recipe so I can come back to it.
Mary @Raising 4 Godly Men says
Someone came from your blog to mine and I followed the link. Some how I missed this TWT ! I love how you broke it down in the cost of making it !! You are such a blessing to us all.
Blessings and ((HUGS)) my SSiC
In Him<
-Mary
Anne-Marie says
Yummy!—
Have you ever made your own sauce? My kids don’t like the pizza sauce from the store. — You don’t pay for water & I don’t pay for salt or yeast (my dad bakes a lot and brings baking goods back from Mexico when he visits).
Alison says
I’m making this pizza for dinner tonight. One question though…how long do you bake the pizza and at what temperature? Thanks!
AJ says
Yummy! We love making homemade pizza, but we definitely would make it more often if I had a bread maker!
Becky says
I’ve made homemade pizza for years. I use a mix that’s like Bisquick but it’s homemade and it doesn’t (k)nead to rise. I like the idea of freezing it though. Never thought about that. I assume it tastes just fine. Do you have to defrost it completely? Maybe I’ll put the crust recipe on my blog to share this weekend.
A funny story, from years ago. I’d told the kids I was making pizza for dinner and my son, which I think was in his teens, decided to call it fake pizza since we didn’t get it from our favorite take and bake place, Papa Murphy’s Pizza. HA!!
Take care and thanks for the inspiration.
http://grandmabeckyl.blogspot.com
Genevieve (MamaOnABudget) says
How long and at what temp, please?!?!?!?!
TheHappyHousewife says
About 10 to 15 minutes at 400 degrees, depending on the thickness of your crust.
Mary says
Wondering if you were trying to say either 4 or 4 1/2 cups??? I used 4 cups and it is not looking right in my bread machine.
Julie Sanchez says
Oh my goooooodness!!! This recipe is amazing! I actually felt guilty getting compliments on the pizza, because it was so simple in my breadmaker. WOW!
Anne says
Ok, I have a largish family (4 kids, 6 people in total, with a semi-present sister-in-law from time to time) and eating pizza out is expensive-plus, my husband loves the hot wings and we usually get soda (a special occasion thing that I monitor). So pizza delivered is usually upwards of $35. At least! In the past two years, I have been in search of the perfect crust; I have a few standbys that are easy, but still taste nothing like delivered. Until this crust; I made this crust on Saturday, made my crusts, and baked them, and then froze them. Monday, my son had surgery and my Mother-in-law and her sister came to “show support.” Anyway, so then we had the pizza (4 of them), a salad and strawberry shortcakes for dessert; and my Sister-in-law and her friend ended up coming over to meet/see my Mother-in-law. I did omit the garlic, but this crust is AWESOME!!! I have definitely found my favorite homemade crust!! Thank you for sharing, and I love your blog! Had to come out of lurking just to tell you that ;). Thank you again.
Beth says
Hi!
Thank you so much for sharing all of your recipes – many have already become family favorites! I do not have much experience with baking and was wondering if I could make your pizza crust in advance. Meaning – if it’s Friday and I want to have pizza on Saturday, could I make the crust, let it rise and then refrigerate it?
Thanks,
Clueless in Florida 🙂
Amy says
Love the recipe. I am going to make this for my boys tommorow. I think they will love it. Thanks!
Mayra says
I made this one yesterday and my family enjoyed it a lot. Thank yiu fir inspiring me to be more savvy and cook at home with more pleasure. Since last week I’m cooking in bulk….I’m just getting the hang of it: I prepared ‘pastelon’ that’sbthe equivalent to Shepperd pie in Spanish, i made pancakes in batch and also cereal bars and soup. I started just making double the recipie. I am enjoying it a lot specially now that my parents will be visiting for a month. Tomorrow is granola’s day and pancakes!!!
Kelli says
Can I make it in the bread maker and leave it in the bread maker until dinner time? Or do I take it out and refrigerate it?
Amanda says
Does this recipe make enough for 2 pizzas. I am going to try this tonight for dinner..
Thanks
TheHappyHousewife says
Yes, it makes two large pizzas.
Amanda says
Thank you for replying….I will let you know what we think tonight 🙂
Mandy C. says
How do you get the dough to not stick to everything? LOL I tried flour and EVOO to keep the dough from sticking to my hands but it seemed to doughy? Any tips would be great because we would love to keep making homemade pizzas. 🙂 Thanks!
Tricia says
Question: How much flour? 4 1/3 c.?
Tara says
Thanks for the recipe! I think I’ll try it this week!
Tiffany says
So if I am making it in the bread maker, do I need to let it rise after the dough cycle is finished or do I just go straight into making it? thanks! 🙂
TheHappyHousewife says
You let it rise one time. So if it rises once on your dough cycle then you are ready to go.
Michelle says
It says you can freeze the par-baked crust but I don’t see the directions on how to cook it from the freezer? thanks!!
Melissa says
I recently used the pizza dough recipe and my family LOVED it! It was fast and simple and I was able to make three round pizzas, two for dinner and one to freeze for lunch another day! I see using this recipe a lot in the future, thanks!
jelchi says
I made the pizza yesterday using this recipe and it was AMAZING!!! everyone loved it! It was also my first time making a whole wheat crust, and I don’t think we will ever do it any other way!
Jennifer says
I love this recipe! I use the bread machine, divide it in half and freeze it. Sooooo much better than the frozen pizzas from the grocery store. Thanks for posting.
lin says
Are you wrapping a pizza for freezer in just plastic wrap? This is yummy we made it and ate it tonight!
Julie says
Love this dough! Thank you so much for the recipe. I have already shared it.
P.S. I wanted to let you know that the recipe has a typo. It says 4 – 4/12 cups flour instead of 4 – 4 1/2 cups.
Brittany says
Hi! You may have answered this in one of the previous comments, but I thought it might be faster to ask here. 🙂 What do you bake the pizza on and for how long? Thank you! I have the dough in the bread machine right now and it smells SO wonderful! 🙂
Toni Anderson says
Bake it on a metal pizza pan or you could use a cookie sheet. Bake about 10 to 15 minutes at 400 degrees, depending on the thickness of your crust.
Kendra at New Life on a Homestead says
This turned out REALLY good. I usually make my pizza dough by hand, but I knew I wouldn’t have time today, so I did a search for bread machine pizza dough recipes, and yours popped up. I’m so glad I found it! I have a new go-to 🙂 It worked really well with freshly ground hard white wheat. Thanks a bunch!
Susie says
I have been using your dough recipe from the grilled pizza (although I’ve never grilled it) for YEARS – so quick and works great 🙂