Chewy Pizza Dough Recipe for Perfect Artisan Pizza Crust

Do you want to know the chewy pizza dough recipe? You must be looking to achieve that restaurant-like chewy, soft, and crispy pizza crust. 

And, probably, you have been making major mistakes that don’t let you get the perfect dough despite trying several pizza dough recipes. We’ve come up with the best chewy pizza dough recipe to help you get out of this problem and fulfill your craving.

It’s possible to make such an ideal artisan pizza at home!

Once you follow this recipe for homemade pizza dough, we bet you’ll be amazed by the results. So follow this recipe as described and say no compromise on the quality of your pizza dough. 

Let’s get ready to become a pro at making homemade pizza crust. 

What Keeps you from Achieving Perfect Chewy Pizza Dough? Know First!

Most of the time, pizza makers keep wondering why their pizza dough does not come out crispy and soft at the same time. Below we’ve listed a few crucial factors that affect your pizza dough significantly.

• Wrong measurements (measuring ingredients using cups or spoons instead of using the baking scale)
• Using the wrong type of flour— use 00 flour.
• Using the wrong temperature of the water — for the proper activity of yeast, use cold water near about room temperature, neither freezing water nor warm.
• Adding salt along with yeast
• Not following the right temperature at the relevant stages
• Missing any section of the recipe
• You do not preheat the pizza stone for 1 hour if you use an electric oven. Your pizza needs a nearly 660 F temperature, which is impossible when using an electric oven. In such a situation, a pizza stone helps.

We’ve discussed how these things affect your pizza-making process in the later section of this article. So keep reading to get close to perfection.

Chewy Pizza Dough Recipe through Double Fermentation

For this recipe, all you need to have are ingredients. With 70% hydration, we will break down the process for the NEXT LEVEL chewy pizza dough into two sections:

• Poolish making
• Pizza dough making

Tools you need:

• Wooden Bowl (optionally)
• Blade Scraper
• Airtight container for storing pizza dough balls
• Bowl with an airtight lid
• Kitchen Towel
• Pizza Stone

Step-1 Preparing Poolish 

Here is the complete recipe for the first part of our chewy pizza crust recipe. Poolish is fermenting some dough and mixing it with the rest of the pizza dough ingredients. This fermented dough is full of fragrance and flavor, resulting in excellent taste.

Ingredients

Ingredients	Quantity
00 Flour	300 g
Water	300ml
Sea Salt	25 g
Extra Virgin Olive oil	10 g

Method

The first and the foremost step you’ve to follow is making the poolish. Without this step, you can never succeed in getting the perfect pizza dough that will cause a chewy pizza crust. 

• Take a bowl and add the yeast, honey, and water into the bowl and stir it.
• Put the bowl aside for about 5 to 7 minutes.
• Add flour and mix all the ingredients thoroughly again to make a smooth mixture. 
• Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and keep it at room temperature for 1 hour.
• After 1 hour, shift this bowl into the refrigerator and let the poolish ferment for 16-20 hours.

Note: If you choose to follow this recipe for chewy pizza crust, prepare the poolish 24-36 hours ahead.

Step-2 Making Pizza Dough Using Poolish

Here is the second and last section of our recipe.

Ingredients

Ingredients	Quantity
00 Flour	700 g
Water	400 ml
Sea Salt	25 g
Extra Virgin Olive Oil	5 g

Method

• Take the fermented poolish out of the bowl and put it into a large wooden bowl. 
• Add water to it and mix it well.
• Also, add salt and stir until the salt has dissolved.
• Add flour and mix with a metal or wooden spoon to mix all the ingredients until you get a rough, sticky, and shaggy dough texture. 
• When all the ingredients form a ball, put the dough in a bowl and cover it with a kitchen towel. Let it rest for 15-20 minutes, approximately.

• After 15-20 minutes, shift the dough to the counter and start kneading it with the push-and-roll technique until all the stickiness is gone and the dough has taken a nice ball shape. 
• Knead it for about 10-15 minutes. Add the olive oil and knead the dough ball for 30 seconds.
• Shift the dough into a large bowl, cover it, and rest for 20 minutes.
• After 20 minutes, put the dough on the counter. And oil the dough surface with a few drops of olive oil.
• Deploy the dough by picking it higher over the counter and turning the sides underneath. 
• Spread a layer of olive oil into the bowl, put the dough ball, and cover it.
• Refrigerate the dough for 16-24 hours, at least. 
• After the period, your pizza dough will be doubled and ready to be baked.

In case you’re using a dough-kneading machine:

• Add the poolish, water, and salt to the machine and mix it at speed 1.
• Add the flour little by little.
• Keep mixing at speed 1 when the ingredients seem to come together, increasing the speed until a uniform dough ball has been formed.
• Add olive oil at this stage and run the machine for 1 more minute.
• Rest the dough for 20 minutes.

• Put it on the counter and oil the dough surface with a few drops of oil. Pick the dough from the middle higher over the counter and deploy it to add a bit of air so that it attains more gluten. Do the process 4-5 times and form a smooth, silky dough ball.
• Shift the dough into the bowl and place it in the refrigerator for 16-24 hours.

Note: You can check the smoothness and silkiness of the dough by tearing off a small piece of dough and stretching it. If it becomes so thin that you can even see through it, it’s what we call a perfectly smooth dough. 

Stop! Here Are Some Tips For You

When the dough feels sticky and you need to dust the surface, always opt for semolina flour. The first reason to use this flour is that it’s coarser. And second, it doesn’t absorb moisture as quickly as the other types of flour do. So it is better to use semolina flour to prevent your dough from sticking to the surface. 

Second, you can prevent the dough from sticking to your hands by kneading it as fast as you can. Never use water or olive oil to avoid stickiness. 

Step-4 Making Dough Balls and Stretching the Pizza Dough.

The time has come when you’ll enjoy the delicious baking aroma of pizza in your kitchen. So, bring the bowl of dough and start making pizzas following the instructions given below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5t5MEZt6LM

• Put these dough balls in the air-tight container, close the lid and leave them at room temperature for 1-2 hours more.
• Take the dough ball out of the container using the spatula. Take flour in a small quantity on the spatula before putting it under the dough ball. It’ll prevent the dough ball from sticking and misshaping.
• Spread semolina on the counter in moderate quantity. And stretch the dough ball to form a pizza base. Stretch the dough more to make thin crust pizza that is chewier. 

NOTE: Don’t use too much semolina, for it’ll stick to the crust, and the result will be a hard, burnt crust. Also, don’t use a rolling pin for it pushes the gas out of the pizza crust and it’ll not pop up.

Step-5 Preparing Pizza and Baking it

• Preheat your pizza stone in the oven for 1 hour at the highest possible temperature.
• Cover the dough with your favorite pizza sauce.
• Shift it in the oven on a pizza stone using the pizza peel. And Bake it for 5 minutes.
• After 5 minutes, bring the crust out of the oven and spread all your toppings, including cheese and meat.
• Drizzle the edges of the dough with extra virgin olive oil. This thin coat of olive oil will work magically to make the crust crispy. It’s how you’ll get a chewy, soft inside and crispy outside pizza dough.  
• Place the pizza again in the oven and bake for approximately 10 minutes until the crust becomes crispy brown and puffy.

Note: Pre-baking the crust is crucial. Unloaded pizza crust will grow evenly from the center and edges. And the result will be soft, crispy, and popped-up pizza at the same time. 

You can follow the same recipe to make authentic Neapolitan pizza as well.

How Should You Store Pizza Dough?

Made some extra dough and don’t know what to do with it now. Store it in the refrigerator and store it for tomorrow. 

Or do you want to make pizza dough once and then use it twice or thrice? There’s nothing wrong in doing so, but make sure not to store the dough for over 2 days if you’re keeping it in the fridge. 

After kneading, set your dough aside at room temperature for a maximum time of one hour. After that, make it into small portions as per the size of the pizza that you need. Transfer these portions or balls of dough into the bowls or storage trays with an airtight lid. 

It would be better to slightly grease the storage tray or the storage bowl with the oil. Doing this will minimize the dough sticking to the sides of the bowl to a great level. 

Are you thinking of freezing the dough? Yes, you can. To be honest, freezing the dough is better than storing it in the fridge. 

Storing the dough is the same in both cases. Or you can also opt for ziplock bags or small containers. That’s because they occupy less space and mold to your dough balls’ shape. 

But when you’ve to use the dough, bring it out of the freezer and place it on your countertop for three to four hours before using it. The dough will defrost and become its original soft and smooth texture during this time. 

You can also defrost it by leaving it in your fridge overnight. When using it, bring it out of the refrigerator at room temperature, and your dough is ready to hold toppings and cheese and go into the oven. 

What Should you do if the Pizza Dough is Too Sticky? 

Most people complain that the dough is sticky when you mix the ingredients. You can solve this problem by adding more flour and then kneading it. Some of the stickiness will be removed with flour and the rest with the kneading. The more you knead, the less sticky your dough will be. 

How Can I Refrigerate the Dough Till Tomorrow? 

If you make dough today and want to refrigerate it until tomorrow, knead the dough and immediately put it in the refrigerator. 

No need to set it aside for rising; when you need it, take it out of the refrigerator, and let it sit at room temperature for some time. After this, roll it and assemble the toppings on it. 

Yay! Your pizza is ready to go into the oven. 

What is the Right Water Temperature for Proofing Yeast?

Yes, the yeast can truly make or break your pizza. But it won’t go wrong if we say that the correct temperature of the water is the real star behind, giving you a crispy outside, chewy, and soft inside crust. 

Water should be neither too hot nor too cold. If you use hot water, your yeast will die off. And as always, you’ll make an unrisen and hard dough. On the other hand, if the water you’re using is cold, your yeast will not activate. Or it’ll take too much time, probably 2 to 3 days, to give you the results. 

So, it has to be cold but not freezing: 15 to 20 degrees celsius.

How Should you use Instant Yeast for Making Chewy Pizza Dough?

The instant or rapid yeast is not to be mixed directly in water. Instead, it is mixed with flour, followed by the addition of water. But here, the water temperature is a little different from the method you directly mix the yeast in water. 

You need to bring water at 120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit to add to the flour yeast mixture. The temperature difference is because instant yeast doesn’t require proofing. 

Why Should I Use Cold Water when Kneading Dough in the Mixer? 

Yeast and warm water don’t always make a good combo. Sometimes cold water works well to activate the yeast. It’ll let the dough rise properly and will become soft and chewy. 

But when is this technique applicable?  

When you want to mix instant yeast and flour in a food processor, you’ll have to add cold water to the yeast-flour mixture. Add the cooler water when the processor is running. 

When the processor runs, it’ll slightly heat the flour or the dough. And if you add warm water to the warm dough, it’ll kill the yeast. 

What’s the Best Type of Flour for Making Chewy Pizza Crust?

No matter how pro you’re at making chewy pizza dough, all your efforts will be in vain if you don’t use the right ingredients. And the main ingredient that plays a key role is the type of flour you use. 

You’ll find many options among the flour for making the pizza dough. Some include all-purpose unbleached white flour, gluten-free 1-to-1 baking flour, spelt flour, bread flour, cake and pastry flour, 00, and cassava flour. These have different amounts of gluten, and so does the texture.  

00 and bread flour are the two best options for getting a chewy pizza dough. But what makes these flours best among a lot of other options? 

It’s a level of gluten. The gluten gives a doughy and chewy texture to your dough. About 13% gluten in the bread flour while the second one, i.e., 00, has about 12%. And if we compare these two, 00 mostly wins the show. 

Why is Double Fermentation Better for Achieving Chewy Pizza Crust?

During the double fermentation, the pizza dough ferments at a lower temperature (it is usually inside the refrigerator). This allows the development of better fragrance and flavor in the pizza dough. Additionally, this controlled process ensures the best results in the form of bubbly crust.

What’s the Ideal Hydration for Making Chewy Pizza Dough?

The ratio of water that you add to make your pizza dough according to flour determines the hydration. Usually, the pizza dough has the following ratios:

• 60% water makes the dough crispy but not as soft. It’s why the pizza doesn’t attain the required puffiness. The dough is easier to handle.
• 70% water ratio gives a balance of crispiness and softness. It also results in much-required puffiness. The dough requires some skill to handle. You need to work faster to knead the dough. Otherwise, it’ll stick to your hands.
• 80% water ratio will make a super-duper puffy and soft dough but less crispy. Yet, this dough is pretty hard to manage, and it’s better to be a professional.

In short, go for 70% hydration, which will bring balance to your pizza dough to make it chewiest.

Wrapping it Up!

All your problems will vanish with the best pizza dough recipe discussed. No need to compromise for having chewy dough anymore. Just give this chewy pizza dough recipe a try, and all your dough-making problems will vanish. 

We’re sure this recipe will be a lifesaver for all pizza lovers. Once you try it, you’ll follow no other dough-making recipe. So what are you waiting for? Open your kitchen cabinet and bring all the ingredients out to try this fantastic recipe. 

We wish good luck to all the pizza lovers sitting on the other side of the laptop screen!