This vegan pizza dough recipe makes the best fluffy and crisp pizza crusts I ever had the pleasure to eat. And it’s so easy to make because you don’t have to knead it!
We cracked the pizza code! This pizza dough is not only simple and easy. It is also super, super yummy! We love it because:
- It's light and soft on the inside
- And crisp on the outside
- It can be made in just one bowl
- And there’s no need to knead!
🇮🇹 Is pizza dough vegan?
Traditionally, Italian pizza dough contains just four ingredients - flour, yeast, salt and water. So, yes, pizza dough is often vegan. But many modern recipes include milk in the dough, which is not necessary.
In addition to the four traditional ingredients, our vegan pizza dough recipe adds extra virgin olive oil into the mix. This adds more flavour and a lighter texture to the inside - YUM!
📋 Step by step instructions
We promised it's easy to make our delicious pizza dough. So let's prove it! (baking pun intended)
Step 1: Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl - flour, dried yeast, sugar, salt, olive oil and warm water. The warmer the water, the quicker the dough will rise. If the water feels warm, but not hot to your fingers, it’s just right.
Step 2: Cover and leave in a warm place to rise. After about an hour the dough will have risen and me about twice the size as before (this is why you need a big bowl!). The dough will be light, moist and full of air.
Step 3: ‘Knock back' the dough. If you are a beginner dough maker this just means to mix it all together to press all the air out of it again so you have a compact dough. We use a spatula for this, you could also use your hands or a spoon.
Step 4: Tip the dough onto a well floured board. Fold the edges inwards and let the dough relax for 5 minutes. Now you are ready to shape your dough however you wish!
Step 5: Cut or divide the dough into equal pieces. 2 for large pizzas; 4 for small pizzas, calzones or smaller for breadsticks.
✋How to shape the dough
You can roll out the dough with a rolling pin, but for best results we like to stretch the dough. It's so soft and elastic that you can just do it by hand.
Take a piece of dough into your hands and begin to pull and stretch it into a flat sheet. Use your thumbs to roll the fat edges further outwards, going in a circle. Also, you can carefully stretch the dough even thinner from underneath, using your knuckles and back of your fingers. Keep going for a until you have a well-sized flat pizza base.
🔥 Cooking tips
Moving a topped pizza
If you don’t have a pizza peel – and who does? – (Pizza peel is that thing with a long stick as a handle that pizza cooks use to slide the pizzas into and out of the oven) I recommend you top your pizzas one at a time on a WELL floured wooden board, and slide it off and onto a (preheated) baking sheet ready to go in the oven, before topping the next pizza on the board. That’s the easiest effective way to get a pretty pizza onto the baking sheet.
You can, of course, just top the pizza directly on a cold baking sheet, but this doesn’t produce such a crispy and well baked base.
Baking in the oven
Preheat your oven and a baking sheet or pizza stone to 250˚C on top/bottom heat. Transfer your pizza or calzone onto the preheated sheet and cook for 10 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
Cooking on the hob or over a campfire
Place your untopped pizza base in a preheated frying pan or cast iron skillet. Cook on medium/high heat until cooked on one side, then turn over the base. Top your pizza in the pan, put a lid on the pan and continue to cook until the dough and toppings are cooked on top.
For calzone, simply cook the filled calzones on each side until the dough is golden brown and crusty.
🍕 Vegan pizza topping ideas
We think the best thing about making your own pizza is getting creative and playing with the toppings!
We like to load them up with veggies and sauces. Mediterranean veggies are a natural choice. If you use root veggies we recommend cutting them into fine slices so they cook through well.
Here's some of our favourite toppings to inspire you:
- Homemade tomato sauce
- Lentil ragu
- Pesto
- Vegan bechamel sauce
- Vegan chorizo
- Vegan mozzarella
- Artichoke hearts
- Mushrooms
- Onion
- Peppers
- Courgette
- Kale
- Pineapple
- Potato or sweet potato (cut finely)
- Sweetcorn
- Rocket (after the pizza is cooked)
Whatever toppings we choose we always love a good sprinkle of oregano and a dash of garlic and chilli oil!
🍅 Fun recipes
Our other absolute favourite thing to use this pizza dough is for vegan calzones. These folded over pizzas are the perfect food for cooking over the fire or in our van when we are traveling. We even love to fill them with sweet filling to make these mouthwatering vegan dessert calzone!
And you can also the same dough to make our yummy Campfire Bread on a Stick! Fresh, fluffy bread over a fire never tasted so good.
We hope you enjoy our no knead pizza dough recipe. We just had a family pizza feast in the garden! Today we had ours topped with celeriac, kale, mushrooms onions - the toppings were delish, but it was the dough that stole the show!
Happy dough making,
Paul and Sophie
📖 Recipe
Easy Vegan Pizza Dough
Ingredients
- 1 tsp dried yeast
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 ½ cups (300 g) flour
- ⅞ cup (200 ml) warm water
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) olive oil extra virgin
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
Dough
- In a mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients into a uniform, moist dough. No need to knead!
- Cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm place or in a sunny spot for 1 - 2 hours.
- When it has risen to about twice the size, the dough is ready to proceed.
- Briefly knock back the dough - mix the fragile risen dough back together, making it compact again.
- Tip out onto a floured surface (ideally a wooden board). Fold the edges inwards and let the dough relax for 5 minutes.
- Cut or divide the dough into equal pieces: 2 for large pizzas; 4 for small pizzas, calzones or breadsticks.
Shaping pizzas
- Always keep pieces of dough lightly floured to avoid sticking to surfaces or your fingers.
- (Skip this step if you are in a hurry) - For each piece, fold edges of piece of dough to the center repeatedly to form a round, slightly flat ball. Turn over, let rest on a floured surface for another 15 - 30 min.
- Pull and stretch a floured piece of dough into a flat pizza base.
- Spread it out on a floured wooden board. Again, make sure the finished pizza bases do not stick to the board. They need to slide off the board easily, or you might end up with a holey mess!
Topping or filling
- Top your pizza with your favourite pizza sauce and toppings. Have you tried our vegan lentil ragu?
- For a calzone: fold in half, fill and seal the edges together. Sweet calzones work great, too!
Baking in the oven
- Use a preheated baking tray or pizza stone for best results. Cook for 10 minutes at 250˚C top-bottom heat or until the crust is golden brown.
Cooking on the hob or over a campfire
- Place your untopped pizza base in a preheated pan (cast iron works well). Cook on medium/high heat until cooked on one side, then turn over the base. Top your pizza in the pan, put a lid on the pan and continue to cook until the dough and toppings are cooked on top. For calzone, simply cook on each side until the dough is golden brown and crusty.
Notes
Nutrition
This information is calculated per serving and is an estimate only.
Sasha says
I’ve been making this recipe for years, so good. Have you tried with whole wheat flour?
Sophie and Paul says
So happy to hear that Sasha! I always stick to white flour for pizza dough so I haven't tried it. Whole wheat flour will give a more dense texture and a nuttier taste. If you want to try it, I recommend increasing the amount of water slightly as whole wheat flour absorbs more liquid. Hope that helps! Sophie
Nikky says
This looks delicious! Please could advise me if you think this could be made with gluten free flour as every other pizza recipe we have tried turns out dry and with a nasty taste.
Thank you
Sophie and Paul says
Hi Nikky, Thanks for your question 🙂 It's not something we'd recommend with this recipe, as gluten free flour acts differently especially in a dough like this. If you did try it though, then I think adding some xanthum gum would help. A recipe developed specifically for a gluten free flour would (hopefully!) work out better. If you're not keen on the taste maybe try a different blend of GF flour (Paul for example finds buckwheat to be a very strong taste). Another idea, would be to try something like a lentil based crust which would be naturally gluten free, you could even make our Red Lentil Flatbreads recipe, and then just pop them under the grill with your toppings. Hope that helps! Sophie
Ashley Judd says
I never thought that making pizza would be this easy!!!
It came out really well, soft and tasty. Everyone in my family liked it, esp my kids.
Thanks a lot.