No Knead Pizza Dough

I’ll admit, I usually buy my pizza dough in bags from the grocery store. It’s just so much easier than making it from scratch, and it’s immediately ready to use with no kneading or rising required. But sometimes the stars align and you have a bunch of pizza toppings wasting away in the refrigerator and no dough in sight, so it’s time to make your own.

I’m still lazy enough to want to avoid kneading, though, so I chose a no-knead recipe from Jim Lahey that develops gluten through a long rise instead. I mixed up my dough in the morning and left it on the counter all day– when I got back from work in the evening it hadn’t quite doubled (surprising since it was pretty warm in my house) but it was soft and silky, and easy to work with.

I will note that while the recipe suggests you divide the dough into four balls, there was no way that I’d get four actual pizzas out of my dough– I used 3/4 of it to make an almost- half-sheet-pan-sized pizza that was nice and bready around the edges, just the way I like it. I might have been able to get two medium-sized round pizzas out of the recipe.

No Knead Pizza Dough (from Jim Lahey)

500g (about 3 3/4 cups) flour

1g (1/4 tsp) instant yeast

16g (2 tsp) salt

350g (1 1/2 cups) water

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add water and stir to make a soft dough.

2. Cover loosely and let sit at room temperature for 12-18 hours, until doubled.

3. Turn out onto floured board and knead briefly to bring together into a smooth dough. Stretch out onto desired surface, add toppings, and bake at 450 degrees until golden brown.

FYI, the pizza shown here uses this eggplant/tomato sauce as a base, and is topped with pre-cooked hot Italian sausage and kale.