Oven baked thin crust pizza - Made right in your own kitchen...No pizza stone, no wood burning oven,
I love making my own pizza at home. And I know, I know ... you can get your fave kind of pizza delivered right to your door within minutes BUT I find it so fun and satisfying creating and crafting my own pizza with all my fave toppings right in my own kitchen!
The great part about this recipe is that I use store bought pizza dough (the kind you find in the fridge section with all the bakery pre-made pizzas) but it still results in quality, thin crust deliciousness. I also just use a standard kitchen oven, no need for a pizza stone or any other fancy pizza making contraptions. Just a hot hot hot oven and a couple baking sheets are all you need. Trust when I say you can definitely pull this off yourself, in your own kitchen.
No pizza stone, no wood burning oven, no problem!
I do however recommend making your own pizza sauce. I used to use store bought pizza sauce but found they were too salty/sugary/tangy for my liking. So after realizing pizza sauce is made up of only a few key ingredients I've started to make my own homemade sauce. This recipe will make way more than you need for two pizzas, but the beauty is you can store and freeze the sauce for months... until your next pizza party!
And I can't forget to mention the toppings!!! Oh the possibilities!!! This time around I made two vegetarian options: my famous mushroom & truffle oil pizza as well as a tomato & mozzarella pizza. But again, the toppings are totally up to you! To give you some more pizza inspo, some other pizza's I've made in the past include: a prosciutto, goat cheese, fig & arugula pizza; a pepperoni, italian sausage and spinach pizza and an oven roasted red pepper pizza.
One piece of advice re: the toppings: when trying to achieve the thin crispy crunch crust, don't overdo the amount of toppings. If you pile on the veggies, meats and cheese the dough will get soggy and not bake to a nice crisp. This goes for the sauce too... a thin layer of sauce is all you need! Keep it light and keep it tight!
Alright now to the good stuff... check out the step by step recipe and pics of the yummy pizza below!
Below: Sautéed cremini mushrooms & truffle oil thin crust pizza
Tomato & mozzarella thin crust pizza
Make sure to flour the bottom of your crust AND the baking pan, so that the thin crust doesn't stick to the baking sheet.
Check out that thin crust! It was so crunchy and yummy <3
Homemade Thin Crust Pizza
Makes 2 pizzas
For the sauce:
1 can of san marzano tomatoes
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp dried oregano
pinch of salt
For the mushroom topping:
1/2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 C sliced cremini mushrooms
pinch of salt
For the other pizza toppings:
4 oz mozzarella cheese cut into thin slices
1/2 a large tomato cut into thin rounds
2 tsp white truffle oil
1/4 cup of shredded cheese (I used the pre-shredded Italian Mix cheese)
1. Make the sauce: Using a colander or sieve, drain a whole can of san marzano tomatoes and reserve the liquid to make a delicious pasta sauce later! Put the drained tomatoes, olive oil, oregano and salt into a blender and blend together until smooth. Easy as that, your pizza sauce is done!
2. Make the mushroom topping: Heat the oil in a pan and then add the garlic, sauté until lightly browned. Add in the mushrooms and a pinch of salt and sauté together until the mushrooms are wilted and cooked, about 8-10 minutes.
3. Prepping the pizza dough: Now this part will take a little bit of muscle! Make sure the pizza dough is completely thawed. Flour your work surface well, and then take the ball of dough and cut it in half (if you are making two pizza's like I did... or you can make one large pizza if you have an extra large baking sheet). While working one half of dough, leave the other half on a floured surface and under plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out.
Knead the first half of the dough well, I like to work the dough a bit to get the glutens stretching so that I can get it as thin and crispy as I like! Remember, make sure your surface is floured and keep more flour within your reach... sticky dough is hard to work with!
After a few minutes of kneading, begin to roll out your pizza dough. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough stretching it out as thin as you can get it. I also like to pick it up and toss and twirl it so that it stretches out even more! And it's kinda fun haha
Once you get it to your desired thickness, flour the baking sheet very well and place the pizza crust on top...now you're ready to top it up!
4. Assembling the pizza: Take a soup ladle and ladle about 1 - 2 scoops of homemade pizza sauce onto each pizza. From here, the possibilities are endless! But here's how I made my two pizzas:
Mushroom and Truffle Oil - On top of the sauce, sprinkle about 1/3 cup of shredded cheese all over top of the pizza. Then place the sautéed mushrooms and garlic all around the pizza. I like to bake the pizza first and then put the truffle oil right out of the oven.
Mozzarella and Tomatoes - On top of the sauce, place the slices of mozzarella all over top of the pizza. Then place the tomatoes around the pizza, top with more mozzarella sauce to cover some parts of the tomatoes.
5. Baking instructions: The trick to getting crispy thin crust pizza in your oven, is to use a really really hot oven! So make sure to pre-heat your oven to at least 475 degrees F. Once the oven is hot, bake your pizzas for about 18 minutes, keep an eye to make sure they don't burn. After 18 minutes, leave them in the oven and use the Broil function for 1 minute or so, it gives the outer pizza crust a little bit more colour! And then that's it! Once you've baked and broiled the pizzas, they are good to go! Cut with a pizza cutter and then serve, devour & enjoy!
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