Do you really need to throw pizza dough in the air? Here’s exactly how to stretch pizza dough, including step-by-step instructions and a video!

How to stretch pizza dough

Hi there. We’re Sonja and Alex, and we’re pizza obsessed. We’ve spent the last 10 years researching the best way to make homemade pizza. Luckily, we’ve put in all the leg work so that you don’t have to! We’ve created our master recipe for pizza dough, which has been made by hundreds all over the world. And, we’ve answered the question: Do you need to throw pizza dough in the air? Well, you can if you’d like: and if you’re super coordinated. But what we’ve found is that you don’t need to get dough on your ceiling to stretch the perfect pizza. Here’s our step-by-step tutorial on exactly how to stretch pizza dough.

Video: How to stretch pizza dough (1 minute)

Some things, like shaping pizza dough or sourdough bread, are just easier to learn by watching! Even if we wrote the most perfect instructions for how to stretch pizza dough (and we hope we have), the best way to learn it is to watch it. So we’ve got a video for you! Alex is the dough master in our household, so he put together this video tutorial of how to stretch pizza dough.

What you need

To stretch pizza dough, you actually don’t need any special tools at all. But you’ve got to start with a great pizza dough recipe! You can use this same method with store bought pizza dough, of course. But our master dough recipe is truly sublime. For the baking of the pizza, though, we recommend a few tools.

Here’s what you need to stretch pizza dough and then bake it:

Pizza peels and stones

A pizza peel is a paddle that’s used to slide the pizza onto the hot pizza stone. Why use a pizza stone? It makes for that perfect pizza crust that’s crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

Got all the required tools? Let’s go.

How to make pizza dough
Yield: 3 medium pizza doughs

How to Stretch Pizza Dough

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Active Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

Do you really need to throw pizza dough in the air? Here's exactly how to stretch pizza dough, including step-by-step instructions and a video!

Materials

  • 1 Pizza Dough Master Recipe

Instructions

Step 1: Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Dust the top of the dough with flour.

Step 1: Place the dough on a lightly floured surface

Step 2: Use your fingers to gently the dough into a circle, flipping several times and adding a pinch of flour if it is too sticky.

Step 2: Press the dough into a circle

Step 3: Once you have about an 8-inch circle, pick up the dough and gently drape it over the knuckles on both of your hands. Slowly rotate it around, allowing gravity to stretch it into a circle about 11 inches in diameter.

Step 3: Drape the dough over your knuckles and gently rotate

Step 4: If the dough starts to resist stretching, put it down and allow it to rest for a few minutes, at which point it will stretch more easily. Then repeat Step 3 until you have an 11-inch circle!

Step 4: If it starts to resist, set it down for 1 minute

Pizza recipes

Now that you’ve learned how to stretch pizza dough, you’re ready for pizza recipes! Here are the top pizza recipes you should make with your new knowledge:

About the authors

Sonja & Alex

Meet Sonja and Alex Overhiser: Husband and wife. Expert home cooks. Authors of recipes you'll want to make again and again.

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2 Comments

  1. Hey, I think the pizza dough video has disappeared. I watched it last week and it was here and now it says it is here, but there isn’t a video.