Homemade Pizza-Easy and Delicious
By · Mar 20
It’s Friday, and Friday makes me feel like pizza. We love pizza in our house, but ordering pizza every week is definitely not in our budget. So we have started a tradition of making our own pizza most Fridays. We have a great time making our pizza and we save ourselves quite a bit of money over getting a pizza to go from a local restaurant. My kids think it is fantastic because they get to make their own pizza, and then they each have their own pizza to eat!
My husband proudly tells people that his favorite pizza is my homemade pizza, so I thought I would share my process with you. I’ll share with you my secret family recipe along with some tips I picked up working in a pizzeria for two years in high school.
First, make your dough. Don’t be afraid of making your own dough. My recipe only uses 5 ingredients and you do not have to be a pro at making bread to make this simple dough. If you don’t have time to make your own dough, you can pick up dough from many pizzerias or even your local grocery store.
My great-grandma’s bread dough recipe:
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 Tablespoon yeast
A touch of sugar
3 1/2 to 4 C. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/3 C. sugar
Mix water, yeast and the touch of sugar, set aside and let sit. In another bowl mix together 3 1/2 C. flour, salt and 1/3 C. sugar. Mix the water mixture and flour mixture together. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky (I usually need to add another half cup, making the total 4 cups). Knead the dough until it comes together.
Cover the dough and let it raise for about 30 minutes or longer if you have time.
Gather your toppings. We like a lot of different kinds of pizza but we usually use what I already have on hand. Some of our favorites are ham and pineapple (we use the same ham we use for our sandwiches), pineapple and onion, sausage and mushrooms, BBQ chicken and garlic chicken. You will also need cheese. I like to use mozzarella with just a bit of cheddar added in (assuming I have it on hand, which I didn’t today!).
Make your sauce. Of course you can buy pre-made sauce, but making your own is quite simple. I just warm a can of tomato sauce on the stove top and add spices. I use garlic powder, some salt, basil and oregano.
Shape your dough and place on pans. We only have one pizza sheet. For the other pizzas I use my cookie sheets, they work just as well. Be sure and spray your cookie sheets with PAM. If you are having a hard time getting the dough to stretch, just give it a minute to rest.
Prick your dough with a fork. This will help reduce any big bubbles.
Spread your sauce. Leave some room for your crust.
Sprinkle a light layer of cheese over the sauce.
Spread your toppings. We’re using chicken and red onions today.
Sprinkle with more cheese. I also like to sprinkle a little basil on top.
Bake. I put mine in a cold oven and turn it to 400 degrees. I bake it until the cheese is brown and bubbly, or about 15-20 minutes. Just keep an eye on it and see how it goes.
For about $6.00 I feed our whole crew of 6, plus we usually have a little left over. That is a lot better than the $25.00 we would spend on 2 large pizzas.
I linked this post to Tip Junkie’s Talk to Me Tuesday where she asked what is the one post you would most like your readers to know about. This is it!
30 Comments
March 20th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Nicole, you are my hero….You pizza looks delish.
March 20th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Looks delicious!
March 20th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Oh I might add that to my menu for next week. Looks wonderful!
March 20th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I just found your blog recently….I LOVE IT! My husband doesn’t quite understand my love of saving money (and being willing to grocery shop at more than one store so I can price shop), but he’s catching on! Thanks for the pizza dough recipe. I’ll be trying that one soon!
March 21st, 2009 at 12:31 am
Did the one batch of dough make all the pizzas pictured? We also have a make your own pizza night on Friday, but I usually buy dough. I will have to try yours.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:05 am
We love making homemade pizza. We have f”amily night” every Wednesdays and sometimes we make large pizzas and sometimes we let all the kids make their own personal one. It is so much fun and the kids really enjoy it!
March 21st, 2009 at 5:31 am
I love your blog, have you ever tried freezing the prepared pizzas before baking?
March 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Seriously, that pizza look better than many of our local pizzerias! I’m anxious to try your recipes and hints here at home.
p.s. Um! Ms. Frugalisfab… If you’re going to be on the local news, we would like to know so we can see our famous and talented friend! Your clear lack of vanity is commendable, but a little personal horn-tooting is warranted when it comes to a project as awesome and influential as Frugal is Fabulous!
March 21st, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Perfect–tomorrow is Jaxon’s 4th Birthday and he said he wanted pizza. We’ll try this recipe!! Thanks for sharing!
March 21st, 2009 at 9:26 pm
We do pizza every friday for our family movie night and I tried your crust recipe last night for a change and loved it!
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Stacey,
It usually makes 4 individuals for the kids and the medium pictures plus 1 more smaller pizza. We like our crust more on the thin side. It feeds myself, my hubby and our 4 kids, plus some left overs. Hope that helps!
Dana,
I haven’t ever tried that. I usually am not that together to make meals ahead of time.
March 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 am
We have been makeing homemade pizzas alot lately to it is much cheaper.one of our favs is chicken alfredo pizza. we make this when we have alfredo sauce on hand.onion mushrooms and of course homemade crust…yummy.My son will love the bbq pizza you posted..thank you!!
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:40 am
The pizza looks great! Never thought of using grandmas bread recipe for the dough. Will have to try it out!
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Love it! You don’t know who I am but I’ve been following your blog for a couple of weeks now. I’ve always wanted to make my own pizza, and these step by step instructions are awesome. Thanks a bunch!
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:06 pm
YUM!! The pizza looks great!
March 24th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I tried this last night and it worked perfectly! It was yummy. I was always scared to make it from scratch, but it turned out to be quite easy and fun. Thank you! This will be something I will be making for years to come!
March 26th, 2009 at 2:52 am
Just found your site…very cute! We make homemade pizza all the time..I use my bread machine for the dough and make a double batch (one to freeze). I will try the garlic and butter next time…DH will love it!
March 28th, 2009 at 2:11 am
I just made this tonight and the dough was excellent. I loved the slightly sweet taste it has. This recipe is a keeper. Thanks!
March 29th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
We just made this pizza and it was HUGE hit! We had company (my dad, brother and grandparents) and I was nervous as I had never made homemade dough before but it was SO yummy! I wish I knew it made more than one pizza per batch as our dough was pretty thick but oh my was it yummy! We had one taco pizza and one that was 1/2 combo and 1/2 pineapple and ham! Thanks for your blog, I LOVE IT, and thanks for this recipe!
March 30th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I made this crust for our pizza today. It made quite a bit more than I needed for pizza crust (just 3 of us). I noticed that this was your grandma’s bread recipe, so I made a small batch of dinner rolls. I just kind of quessed at it and they turned out great, but I was wondering if you used the recipe for bread and/or dinner rolls. Could you give me some more details if you do.(time, temperature, pan size)
Thank you!
March 30th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Margaret,
The original recipe is for breadsticks. After it is kneaded together, you let it raise for 1 hour. Then divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Roll and twist them out and place them width wise in a 9×13 pan. Melt 1/4 cup of butter and pour over top. Grandma’s recipe called for sprinkling with Salad Supreme, but I never have that so I sprinkle with basil, garlic salt and parmesan cheese. Let raise 1/2 hour and then cook at 350 for about 30 minutes. These are SO good!
March 31st, 2009 at 8:51 am
[...] Being Frugal Is Fabulous Frugal Tip Make Your Own Pizza [...]
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:27 pm
[...] to print and organize your recipes, but I often find some excellent recipes on blogs such as this pizza crust recipe from Being Frugal is Fabulous. Until I started using Clipmarks, I would print out the recipe, which would print the whole blog [...]
April 5th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I love this recipe but it does make quite a bit of dough for our small family of three, I was wondering if you ever freeze it to use later and at what point to do your freeze it, before you let it rise?
April 5th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Tara,
I haven’t ever tried freezing it. You might try cutting the recipe in half, or in a comment above I did share the original recipe for breadsticks, which is delicious.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
That looks yummy! I’ve tried homemade pizza a few times and the dough never comes out quite right. I am definitely going to try your Great Grandmother’s Great pizza dough recipe. Thanks for sharing!
May 26th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I just stumbled on your site and LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe for pizza! We almost always have Friday Night Pizza Night at our house too, but I usually just bake which ever pizza I got on sale and with a coupon of course! I have never tried to make homemade pizza dough, but you make it looks really simple so I’m going to give it try!
Thanks for sharing!
July 17th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I am almost 70 years young and you are never to old to learn! My beloved and I love pizza and I am in the process of making the dough and pizza right now. My husband has a lot of allergies and this way, we KNOW what is in it.
I love this idea and I will be reading this site regularly. I brought the computer into the kitchen so I could read the recipe and check all the ingredients.
Thank You
Carolyn
July 18th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Mmmm… that looks yummy! Thanks for sharing and thanks for some good tips here!
Happy Saturday Sharefest!
July 26th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Quick question – how do you avoid a soft crust? When we made these we used a stone and the outside crust was crisp but was soft towards underneath and the middle.
We did manage a quasi solution, by cooking them on a hot stone and closer to the flame (gas oven) but just wondered if you had a similar problem.
Pizza dough was a little sweet for our tastes but overall perfect. My family really enjoyed the pizza and I think with a little tweaking (and everyone tweaks a recipe) it is the perfect recipe for us.
Thanks so much