The Workshop · learn the dough · make ahead

Pizza Dough

A reliable, make-ahead pizza dough — mix it days before, let it ferment cold, and you've got pliable, flavorful dough on demand. The Workshop entry for understanding how time and a little yeast do the heavy lifting.

15 min hands-on 1–5 days cold rise

Effort ●●○○ Time ●●○○ Some Doing

Vegan

Pizzasamounts scale to match

Units

Ingredients

The fridge is doing the work — time replaces kneading and builds the flavor. A cold, slow ferment of 1–5 days gives you a relaxed, extensible dough that stretches without snapping back and tastes faintly tangy. Take it out an hour before shaping so it's not fighting-cold.

Easier, if you like

Same-day: rise warm about 1½–2 hours if you can't wait — still good, less complex.
Freeze dough balls after the cold rise; thaw in the fridge overnight.

Method

Cook's notes

Why it's in the Workshop: this teaches the single most useful bread idea — a cold, slow rise trades kneading and waiting-at-room-temp for flavor and easy handling.

Hotter is better. Home ovens struggle; a preheated stone or steel and full heat get you closest to pizzeria crust.

Don't over-flour or roll it — stretch by hand to keep the air in the rim.

Provenance: adapted from Helen Rennie's pizza dough — the cold-ferment method is hers.

Vegan as written

Vegan: it already is.

Note on gluten: this is a wheat dough; a gluten-free pizza base needs a dedicated GF blend, not a swap.