The BEST Pan Pizza is made with handmade pizza dough, a perfectly seasoned crust, crispy cheese ring and a simple, flavorful pizza sauce. Follow these tips and tricks to make the best pizza ever!
If you have a bread machine, add all of the ingredients to the bread machine, push the pizza dough button and let it do it’s thing.
After the dough is made in the bread machine, remove it from the machine, place it in an oiled bowl and cover it with a towel. Let it sit covered for at least one hour, or up to 8 hours.
If using a stand mixer or electric hand mixer, follow the steps below.
Add the bread flour, salt, sugar, yeast, olive oil and 5 ounces of water to a stand mixer or large bowl.
Use a dough hook on the stand mixer or an electric hand mixer to combine the dough for 2 minutes.
Add the remaining 5 ounces of water and continue mixing the dough together for 15 minutes on medium speed.
Cover the dough in the mixing bowl and allow it to rest for 1 hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.
After an hour, punch the dough and fold it in half, repeating this process six times.
Cover the dough for a minimum of one hour, or up to 8 hours. Leaving it in a warm place on the counter.
This recipe makes enough dough for two pizzas. When ready to cook the pizza, divide the dough in half. If you’re only making one pizza, store the other half of dough in an airtight container, that’s been coated with olive oil.
Sauce
Remove three whole tomatoes from a can of San Marzano tomatoes. Use your hands to crush the tomatoes into a bowl.
Add the fresh basil, oregano, salt, sugar and olive oil, combine all of the ingredients. Set aside.
Pizza
Preheat the oven broiler to high.
Brush the olive oil in the bottom and sides of a 12 inch nonstick skillet, or cast iron skillet.
Sprinkle the cornmeal evenly over the olive oil, in the bottom and edges of the pan.
Sprinkle the salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried basil and dried oregano evenly in the bottom of the skillet.
Use your hands to stretch the pizza dough out to about 12 inches wide, then place the dough in the skillet.
Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise for 20-30 minutes.
Place the skillet with the pizza dough on a burner on the stove.
Turn the stove to high heat and wait for the oil to start to bubble around the edges of the dough.
Once the oil begins to bubble, turn the heat down to medium-high, add about half of the mozzarella cheese around the edges and set a 10 minute timer.
Wait 8-9 minutes, then use a spoon to spread the sauce evenly over the pizza and sprinkle the parmesan cheese on top of the sauce.
After the 10 minute timer is up, turn the heat on the stove off and add the remaining cheese and toppings evenly across the pizza.
Place the pizza under the broiler on the middle rack of the oven for 2 minutes, or until the cheese turns brown.
Remove the pizza from the oven and lift the pizza out of the skillet immediately, or it will continue cooking in the hot skillet.
Transfer the pizza to a cutting board, then wait 3-4 minutes before slicing the pizza to allow the cheese to cool slightly.
Notes
The nutritional information provided is for one slice of pizza, calculated with one pizza dough, 6 ounces of mozzarella cheese, with onion, bell pepper and jalapenos as the toppings.
Feel free to add the toppings of your choice, but I do not recommend adding more than 1/2 cup of toppings or the toppings will weigh down the pizza and can make the crust in the middle soggy.
Never roll the pizza dough. You always want to use your hands to stretch the dough vs. rolling it with a rolling pin. Rolling the dough will push out all of the air in the dough, resulting in a tough texture vs. a light and airy texture.
Always use bread flour to make the pizza dough. Bread flour contains more protein than all-purpose flour, which helps it produce more gluten and will give the dough the elasticity it needs to be stretched into a pizza.
If you hand stretch the dough and end up with a small hole in the middle, simply pull off a small piece of dough from the outside edge and use it to fill in the hole.
To avoid a greasy pizza, immediately remove the pizza from the oven as soon as the cheese turns brown. Otherwise the cheese will release all of its oils and you’ll end up with a greasy pizza. Also, be sure to cook out any grease from meats like pepperoni and sausage, before adding them to the pizza.
Leftover pan pizza will stay good in the refrigerator for 5 days, stored in a sealed container.
The pizza dough will stay good in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
You can use store-bought pizza dough. Most grocery stores will sell a 12 ounce ball of refrigerated pizza dough near the deli section of the store. You can use this to make the pizza. You will want to remove the dough from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before starting the recipe, so that it can come up to room temperature.
To reheat the pizza in the oven, place it on a sheet pan under the broiler for 2-3 minutes, or preheat the oven to 350°F, wrap the pizza in foil and place it in the oven for 15 minutes.