Sourdough Pizza Dough Recipe (Crispy Neapolitan-Style Crust)- Crave The Good

Name: Sourdough Pizza Crust
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1440 min
Total time: 1500 min
Ingredients: 600 g bread flour; 375 g water (room temperature); 90 g active sourdough starter; 12 g olive oil; 12 g fine sea salt

Sourdough pizza dough makes the kind of crust that’s genuinely hard to stop eating; blistered edges, a chewy crumb, and a subtle tang that takes a plain cheese pizza from good to remarkable. This recipe uses 63% hydration and a slow cold ferment to develop that flavor without any complicated techniques.

Craving The Recipe Details?

Spreading tomato sauce on stretched sourdough pizza dough before baking.

What it is: A naturally leavened pizza crust made with active sourdough starter and no commercial yeast.

Why you’ll love it: 30 minutes of active hands-on work makes enough dough for 4 pizzas. 63% hydration, bread flour, a 4-hour bulk ferment, and a cold retard of up to 4 days produces a crispy, blistered crust with a soft, chewy interior and genuine sourdough flavor. Psst. the flavor actually gets better on day 3 and 4.

How to make it: Mix active starter with bread flour, water, olive oil, and salt. Bulk ferment for ~4 hours with 2 sets of stretch and folds, portion into 250g balls, proof until doubled, then cold retard in the fridge until bake day.

Sourdough pizza dough is one of those things that sounds more intimidating than it is. Once you’ve made it, you’ll wonder why you waited so long to try it! It’s completely irresistible with a flavor that goes amazingly well with anything, even pineapple!

I’ve included shaping directions to hand stretch your delicious dough, but if you’re wanting to bake in a cast iron skillet or make pan pizza, feel free to shape and bake your pizza as you like, this dough handles all of it beautifully.

This sourdough pizza dough recipe is dedicated to overcoming intimidation!

Jump to:

Craving The Recipe Details?
Why This Recipe Works
Neapolitan vs New York Style: What Kind of Crust Is This?
Key Ingredients
Can I Use Sourdough Discard Instead of Active Starter?
How To Make Sourdough Pizza Dough
Shaping The Pizza Dough
Baking Sourdough Pizza Crust
Expert Tips
Sourdough Pizza Crust FAQs
Baker’s Percentages
Baker’s Timeline
Topping Suggestions
What Kind of Pizza Can I Make With This Dough?
The Traeger Pizza Oven Hack
Recommended Equipment
📖 Printable Recipe

Why This Recipe Works

Bread flour builds the gluten structure pizza needs. The higher protein content in bread flour develops a stronger, more extensible gluten network and stands up to a long fermentation time. That’s what gives this dough the stretch to be hand-pulled without tearing, and what produces a chew in the finished crust rather than a cracker-like snap.

Oil improves texture and flavor. Oil is a truly multi-functional ingredient in pizza dough, it affects everything from crispiness to flavor to how the dough handles during shaping, and it also helps impede the migration of moisture from the sauce and toppings into the dough during baking.

Cold retard develops flavor over time. Parking the portioned dough balls in the fridge for 12 hours to 4 days slows fermentation dramatically, giving organic acids time to develop and deepen the sourdough flavor. It also relaxes the gluten, making the dough significantly easier to stretch on baking day without it snapping back.

A lower inoculation rate extends fermentation time for better flavor. At 15% starter relative to flour weight, this dough ferments slowly and deliberately. Less starter means fewer active microorganisms competing to consume available sugars, which slows the fermentation and gives lactic acid bacteria more time to produce the lactic and acetic acids that define sourdough’s complex flavor. Research on sourdough flavor development confirms that the ratio of these two acids is what separates a flat, one-note tang from a genuinely layered, complex crust.

Neapolitan vs New York Style: What Kind of Crust Is This?

If you’re a pizza nerd, consider this pizza dough to be Neapolitan style with a bit of New York flair and all the flavor.

Neapolitan pizzas are bound by a strict requirements in order to actually be considered as such by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana. The regulations include the type of mixers, the ingredients used, and even approved ovens! When it comes to the pizza itself, you can expect a Neapolitan pizza to be stretched as thin as possible, be cooked in a wood fired oven, and have only four ingredients; 00 flour, water, yeast, and salt.

Sourdough pizza dough doubled in size after 4-hour bulk fermentation in a glass bowl.

New York Style pizzas are a little less rigid in classification. NY pizza is derived from Neapolitan pizzas over a century ago. New York pizzas are generally hand tossed with sturdier crusts that can stand up to the true NY fold. New York style pizza is also made with high protein bread flour and a generous helping of oil before being cooked in gas or electric ovens.

This recipe marries both New York and traditional Italian pizza doughs for what I call Neapolitan-ish ‘zza without any strict regulations only baking enjoyment.

Looking to hit the easy button? Try my Bread Machine Pizza Dough Recipe!

Key Ingredients

Ingredients for sourdough pizza dough: bread flour, water, active starter, olive oil, and salt.

Sourdough starter: The leavening power in this recipe comes from an active, vibrant sourdough starter. Use a starter that has at least doubled in size after its most recent refresh. This recipe is based on a 100% hydration sourdough starter; which means it’s fed equal portions of flour and water by weight.

Bread Flour: Bread flour’s higher protein content (typically 12-13%) builds the strong gluten network that gives sourdough pizza its signature chew and makes the dough elastic enough to stretch thin without tearing. All-purpose flour (10-11% protein) will work in a pinch but produces a softer, less structured crust.

Oil: We’re doing it! Adding a little bit of oil helps to improve the tenderness of the crust because we’re cooking it in a home oven instead of a wood fired oven, the dough will spend more time cooking and the oil will help to prevent it from drying out too much. That said, it will bake beautifully in an outdoor pizza oven too!

Can I Use Sourdough Discard Instead of Active Starter?

Yes, but with an important caveat: discard alone won’t reliably leaven this dough. Sourdough discard is unfed starter that has little to no active yeast activity left, which means your dough may not rise properly – or at all – if you swap it 1:1.

If you want to use discard, you have two options:

Option 1 – Add a pinch of commercial yeast. Use the same amount of discard (90g) and add ¼ teaspoon of instant yeast to the dough. The yeast handles the rise while the discard contributes flavor. You’ll have to pay more attention to the dough’s cues during the process as the timeline may not match completely.

Option 2 – Plan ahead and use active starter. Feed your starter 4-8 hours before you plan to mix the dough. When it has doubled in size and is domed and bubbly, it’s ready. This is the method this recipe is written for and the one that produces the best flavor and texture.

If your starter needs a refresh before you start, here’s how to feed it!

How To Make Sourdough Pizza Dough

Prepare The Dough:

Stirring sourdough starter into warm water.

Step 1: In a large mixing bowl, add 600g bread flour and make a well in the center. Set aside.

Step 2: In a separate bowl, add 375g room temperature water and 90g active sourdough starter. Stir them to combine then mix in 12g extra virgin olive oil.

Step 3: Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour and mix by hand until the dough starts to come together.

Step 4: You may need to knead by hand to ensure the dough is completely combined. Once completely combined, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and rest for 30 minutes.

Stretch + Fold:

Step 5: Dimple the dough by poking it as though you’re poking sourdough focaccia then sprinkle 12g fine sea salt over the dough and stretch and fold the dough. To do this, grab the dough and gently pull it until the flap is long enough to fold over itself, then fold the flap, rotate the bowl 90 degrees, and repeat 4 times. This makes 1 set of stretch and folds. Cover and set aside for 1 hour.

Step 6: Uncover the dough and perform another set of stretch and folds, then recover and set aside for another 1 hour. Repeat the stretch and fold process once more, then cover and set aside for at least 2 more hours to complete the bulk fermentation at room temperature.

The bulk ferment is complete when the dough has grown by about 50% and feels airy and slightly jiggly when you gently shake the bowl, time is a guideline, the dough tells you when it’s ready.

Portion + Proof:

Step 6: Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface to portion.

Step 7: Using a dough scraper and scale, portion the dough into 4 ~250g pieces of dough.

Rolling a 250g dough ball into a tight bun.

Step 8: Form into ball shape with your hands by folding it in on itself and rubbing the seam along the edges of your palms.

Step 9: Place the balls on a lightly floured baking sheet, then lightly flour the surface of each ball. Cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap then set aside to proof for 5-6 hours or until the dough balls have roughly doubled in size.

Cold Retard:

Step 10: Once the dough has roughly doubled, transfer the tray to the fridge to cold retard for 12 hours before making pizzas or up to 4 days. A longer cold retard will result in a more intensely flavored dough, likewise, a shorter time in the fridge will give a more mild dough.

Shaping The Pizza Dough

Before shaping the dough, the oven should be preheated and heat soaked – place your baking stone or baking steel in the oven and preheat to 550f for at least 30 minutes before baking.

Pressing the crust boundary into the dough.

Step 11: Pull the dough from the fridge an allow to come to room temperature at least 30 minutes before you plan to bake then carefully remove the chilled dough from the tray and transfer it to a floured work surface and flour the top of the dough ball before beginning the shaping process.

Step 12: Working about 3/4″ from the edge of the dough ball, press a ditch with your fingertips to define the crust edge. The distance from the edge will determine the crust size – further away will give a larger crust while closer will result in a smaller crust.

As a proud member of the no carb left behind club, I’m a big fan of a larger crust.

Hand-stretching sourdough pizza dough into a round on a floured surface.

Step 13: Begin shaping the dough by pressing gently in the center of the dough to flatten the the dough, I like to overlap my index fingers and press my middle fingers together during this stage, it creates a natural curve along my fingertips encouraging the dough into a round shape.

Step 14: To stretch into shape, you’ll be lifting the dough – try to avoid squeezing the crust edge formed in the previous steps. Make a fist with your left hand, then place the dough right side up onto your fist.

Pro Tip: You can always use the finger tip method for stretching your dough but I find my nails tear the dough so I’ve adapted it to this!

Step 15: Make a fist with the right hand, and place them together underneath the dough, from there, you’ll be gently stretching your hands apart, then rotating the dough a bit, stretching, then rotating to make it around the entire circle.

Step 16: I like to stretch to about 8-9″ in diameter per 250g ball – this gives me the perfect mix between thin base and chewy crust.

Baking Sourdough Pizza Crust

Shaped sourdough pizza dough on a parchment sheet.

Step 17: Load your baking steel or baking stone into the oven and preheat oven to 550f or as high as it will go. Allow the oven to heat soak and reach temperature for at least 30 minutes before baking. Prepare a large square of parchment paper.

Step 18: Once the oven has been sufficiently preheated, shape the dough following the directions as above or use your own method. Place the shaped dough on the parchment paper.

Step 19: Spread your favorite homemade pizza or tomato sauce on the dough, leaving a gap around the edge of the pie where you’ve defined the crust.

Step 20: Add fresh mozzarella cheese and toppings before loading the dough onto your pizza peel and baking to perfection in the hot oven. I bake my 8-9″ pizzas for about 7 minutes at 550f.

Expert Tips

Let your dough balls come to room temperature before shaping. Cold dough is tight and will snap back or tear when you try to stretch it. Pull the dough from the fridge at least 45-60 minutes before you plan to bake. Room temperature dough is relaxed, pliable, and significantly easier to stretch to a thin, even round.
Outdoor pizza ovens aren’t the only way to get wood-fired results at home. If you have a Traeger pellet grill, you can configure it to function like a pizza oven and hit temperatures that a standard kitchen oven can’t reach. I’ve written a full guide to my Traeger pizza oven hack – it’s the method I use most in summer.
Cold fermentation controls flavor. The longer the dough sits in the fridge, the more tangy and complex the crust will taste. For a subtle sourdough flavor, bake after 24 hours. For a pronounced tang, let it cold-retard for 48-72 hours. Both produce excellent pizza, it’s a matter of preference, not correctness.
Simulate a wood-fired oven with a second baking steel or stone. Place one steel on the rack you’ll bake on, and a second on the rack directly above it. The top steel radiates heat downward onto the pizza surface, replicating the ceiling heat of a wood-fired oven that’s otherwise impossible to achieve at home. Preheat both for at least 30 minutes.
Whole wheat flour adds a nutty, earthy flavor. Substitute up to 10% of the bread flour with whole wheat, beyond that, the extra bran weakens the gluten structure and makes the dough harder to stretch thin without tearing.
Is it crust or is it dough? In my mind, dough is before baking, crust is after baking, though I’ve used them interchangeably in this recipe guide to account for regional dialect differences!

Sourdough Pizza Crust FAQs

How long does sourdough pizza dough last in the fridge?

Sourdough pizza dough will keep in the fridge for up to 4 days after the initial cold retard begins. In fact, the flavor improves significantly over the first 24-48 hours as fermentation continues slowly in the cold. After making dozens of pizzas, I’ve found Day 2 and Day 3 dough consistently strike the best balance between flavor, extensibility, and oven spring. After 4 days the dough can over-ferment and become slack, sticky, and difficult to shape, so plan to use it within that window.

Can I make sourdough pizza dough the same day?

This recipe is designed for an overnight or multi-day process, and same-day baking isn’t recommended without modification. The bulk fermentation alone takes 4 hours at room temperature, followed by a 5-6 hour proof and a minimum 12-hour cold retard - so even at its fastest, you’re looking at a next-day bake. If you need pizza today, my Bread Machine Pizza Dough is ready in a fraction of the time and still delivers a great crust.

Do I need a pizza stone or pizza steel?

You don’t need one, but you’ll notice a real difference if you use one. A pizza stone or steel absorbs and radiates intense heat that mimics a pizza oven, giving your crust that crispy, slightly charred bottom that’s hard to achieve on a regular baking sheet. A steel conducts heat faster than stone and is my preference for home ovens. That said, a cast iron skillet preheated in the oven works as a great alternative, and even a preheated heavy baking sheet will outperform a cold one. Whatever you’re using, preheat it in the oven for at least 30 minutes at your oven’s maximum temperature before the pizza goes in.

How many pizzas does this recipe make?

This recipe makes four 250g dough balls. Each one yields one 10″ thin crust pizza or an 8-9″ thicker crust pizza. Need more or less? Scale it up or down using the baker’s percentages below.

Can I make sourdough pizza dough ahead of time?

Yes- up to 4 days ahead, which honestly makes this one of the best weekend meal prep wins I know. Mix it up Sunday and you’ve got pizza night ready to go up until Thursday!

Can I freeze sourdough pizza dough?

Absolutely! Once portioned into 250g balls, rub each one with a thin layer of olive oil, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then slide into a freezer bag or airtight container. Frozen dough keeps for up to 6 weeks.
To thaw, move the dough to the fridge the night before pizza night, thawing slowly in the cold keeps the yeast sluggish so it doesn’t over-ferment during defrosting. In the morning, transfer it to the counter so it’s warmed up and ready to shape by dinner. Don’t skip the counter rest, these dough balls haven’t been through their final proof yet, so that time at room temperature is doing real work.

Baker’s Percentages

This pizza dough is a medium-low hydration dough, sitting at 63% hydration. I like this hydration level because it gives me a dough that’s easier to handle than one with more water, the crumb is denser and chewier, and firm enough to hold onto its toppings. Oh, and the crust ends up a little crispier, which is chef’s kiss.

The starter comes in at 15%, and that’s totally on purpose. Less starter means the dough ferments more slowly, which gives the yeast and bacteria more time to do their thing and develop the sourdough flavor we’re after. Basically, patience = flavor here.

100%	Bread Flour
63%	Water
15%	Starter
2%	Olive Oil
2%	Sea Salt

Learn more about sourdough: Sourdough Glossary – 60+ terms to know!

Baker’s Timeline

Day 1:

9:00 AM: Combine water, starter, oil and flour.
9:30 AM: Add salt. First stretch and fold
10:30 AM: Second stretch and fold
11:30 AM: Third stretch and fold, set aside
1:30 PM: Bulk ferment complete, portion and proof
6:30 PM: Proof complete, place dough in fridge to cold retard.

Day 2 or 3 or 4:

6:00 PM: Load oven with baking sheets, preheat oven and remove dough from fridge.
6:45 PM: Shape and bake pizza
7:00 PM: Enjoy pizza for dinner!

Topping Suggestions

Pizza is such a fun food because it can be endlessly transformed by swapping out ingredients! Here are some of our favorites:

Sliced mozzarella, fresh basil, and a drizzle of olive oil
Mozzarella, pesto, and diced tomatoes
Sour cream instead of red sauce, lacto fermented dill pickles, minced onions, and mozzarella
Leftover smoked pulled pork, pickled jalapenos, shredded mozzarella, and a BBQ sauce drizzle

What Kind of Pizza Can I Make With This Dough?

This dough is versatile enough to handle just about any pizza style you’re craving:

Neapolitan-style: Stretch it as thin as possible, top lightly with crushed tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil, and bake at your oven’s maximum temperature on a preheated stone or steel. The edges will puff and blister beautifully.
New York-style: Stretch it slightly thicker, top generously, and bake at 475-500°F. The oil in this dough gives it the chew and foldability that makes a true NY slice.
Pan pizza: Press the dough into an oiled cast iron skillet or sheet pan, let it rest and puff for 20-30 minutes, then top and bake. You’ll get a thicker, focaccia-like crust with a crispy, oily bottom.
Cast iron skillet pizza: A great option if you don’t have a stone or steel. Preheat the skillet on the stovetop over medium-high heat, add the shaped dough, top it, then transfer to a 500°F oven. The direct stovetop heat gives you a deeply crispy bottom crust.
Grilled pizza (including Traeger): This dough handles high, direct heat exceptionally well. See my Traeger pizza oven hack for the full method.
Calzone or stromboli: The same dough folds and seals well. Fill, fold, seal the edges, brush with olive oil, and bake at 475°F until deeply golden.

The Traeger Pizza Oven Hack

If you own a Traeger, you’re sitting on a pizza oven you don’t know you have. The design of the pellet grill pizza oven is such that the stone can reach temperatures of 700°F+ and the wood-fired, convection-style heat they produce is remarkably close to what a traditional pizza oven delivers.

The result is a blistered, charred crust with a smoky undertone that will genuinely change how you think about homemade pizza.

I’ve written a full step-by-step guide on how we retrofitted a pizza oven to work in our Traeger, if you want the complete breakdown – it’s one of my favorite things on this site and I think it’ll change your pizza game too.

Recommended Equipment

Baking Steel: I have two 14 x 16 ” baking steels in my cooking arsenal. These are the perfect size to fit into my residential oven, and subsequently into my cookie sheet cupboard when I’m not using them. Not only are they pretty much the best thing to happen to homemade pizza, they’re also amazing for baking sourdough without a dutch oven!

Pizza Peel: A pizza peel is super handy when making homemade pizza and working at high temps! We use ours whenever we’re baking pizza on the Traeger, open oven baking sourdough. I got an inexpensive pizza peel from a restaurant supply store similar to this one from Amazon.

More Sourdough Recipes To Try

If you tried this Sourdough Pizza Dough recipe or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. Thanks for visiting!

📖 Printable Recipe

Sourdough Pizza Crust

Allyson Letal

Sourdough pizza dough made with active starter and no commercial yeast. This recipe uses 63% hydration and a slow cold ferment, up to 4 days, to develop a crispy, blistered crust with a chewy crumb and genuine sourdough tang.

Makes four 250g dough balls, each yielding one 8–10″ pizza.

5 from 6 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 1

Bake Time 30

Total Time 1 1

Course Sourdough

Cuisine Italian

Servings 8-10″ pizzas

Calories 588 kcal

Ingredients

600 g bread flour
375 g water, room temperature
90 g active sourdough starter
12 g olive oil
12 g fine sea salt