​6 Tips for Homemade Pizza

If you enjoy cooking, you must be always on the lookout for new recipes to try. If you’ve never made your own pizza before now is the best time to do it. You can try making your own at home with your own oven and a steel pizza stone, baking steel, or other pizza-cooking surface. But before you begin, here are a few tips that can help make your homemade pizza something special:

1. Knead the dough by hand.

You might think that using your hands to prepare your pizza dough is messier and slower than using a stand mixer, but it gives you a chance to better feel what the texture of the dough is like. By hand kneading, you can more easily tell if the dough needs some more flour (if it keeps sticking to your hands) or if there is too much water (if it cannot hold its shape).

2. Don’t skip the preheat step.

You have to preheat whether you use a baking steel, pizza stone, cast iron skillet, or baking sheet so that your pizza will be cooked evenly. Without preheating, all heat will come from the bottom and end up burning your pizza crust and not melting the cheese on top. For best results, allocate about 20 to 45 minutes for preheating your oven along with your pizza stone, baking steel, or other surface.

3. Set the oven temperature to high.

Restaurants and pizza shops cook their pizza at a high temperature. If you want to make a homemade version of their pizzas, you should cook your pizza at the highest temperature on your oven, up to 500°F.

4. Try different cheeses.

Mozzarella is the most widely used cheese to make pizza. It has a creamy yet chewy texture and tastes great with any toppings. But if you want to do something interesting, get creative with your cheese options. There are many other different types of cheese, so you can try mixing in some feta, cheddar, goat cheese, brie, or Parmesan to create a more explosive taste.

5. Be adventurous with toppings.

If you want pizza that has more to offer than just tomato sauce, cheese, and pepperoni, why not be more creative with your ingredients? There is a wide range of toppings that you can use to make your pizza more enjoyable to eat. If you like meat, you can use bacon, grilled chicken, ham, or sausage. If you like vegetables, use spinach, peppers, kale, olives, broccoli, or red onions.

6. Par-bake crust for a crispier base.

For many people, crispy pizza crust makes eating pizza a more satisfying experience. If you want to try making homemade pizza with a crispy crust, you should par-bake first. To do that, preheat your baking steel, pizza stone, cast iron skillet, or baking sheet, and then place the pizza dough on it. Bake for 5 to 8 minutes. Once you see the crust start to turn brown, take it out of the oven and add your desired toppings. Then return the pizza to the oven to finish baking on steel.