Our Favorite CRISPY Sourdough Pizza Crust Recipe

How to make a crispy sourdough pizza crust at home!

Want to know the secret to crispy sourdough pizza crust?

Wait'll you try this recipe, your whole family will love it.  I've also got a version below that's made with yeast for those of you who haven't jumped into that world yet, or for the days you didn't remember to feed your starter ahead of time–that's about half of the time for me.  🙂

Not only is this crust SO crispy, the dough itself is delicious, and the sauce is out of this world!  Our favorite toppings are just this no-cook pizza sauce (the 2nd recipe at that link), soft mozzarella cheese, and basil for a Margarita version, but obviously, any toppings you like will taste amazing.  Once I made a bacon cheeseburger pizza that we all loved too.  See other variations/options in the recipe notes below.

This is my adaptation of a Cook's Country recipe.  

I've changed a few of the ingredients, added a sourdough option, and nailed down the amounts for more servings as well–8 pizzas is about right for our family of 6 big eaters.  Depending on who is home and who is working, we sometimes have leftovers.  This is all good because the pizzas warm up nicely in our convection oven–if you have an air fryer I think those are pretty much the same.  (Please comment below if you know more about that?)

The secret to this crispy crust…

The secret to this crispy delicious crust, besides that the crust AND sauce recipe are both amazing, is using cast iron pans!  It's because you start cooking it on the stove and get the bottom all crispy-licious, and then you pop it into the oven on broil to finish it up.

I like these cast iron pans:

• I have this set of 3:

• And also recently bought this one to give our son for his birthday–I love that it comes with a hot-pad handle.  (He makes a tasty cast iron steak in it now and then.)

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Crispy Sourdough Pizza Crust (Yeast version too)

Have your cast iron pan ready, that's the secret to this crazy delicious crispy pizza crust!

Servings: 8 10-11" pizzas

Ingredients

Crispy Sourdough Pizza Crust (Yeast version is below)

• 2 cups well fed sourdough starter, stirred down--see instructions-- go here for the easiest sourdough method ever and how to get your own starter going!
• 4 Tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil-- or some of both is fine too.
• 2 cups water-- read about water filtering here.
• 6 cups organic bread flour-- you may need a little bit extra, see instructions.
• 1 Tablespoon sea salt

OR Crispy Pizza Crust-yeast version/no sourdough

• 4 1/2 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
• 3 cups warm, but not hot, water
• 4 Tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil
• 8 cups organic bread flour-- again, you may need a bit extra, see instructions.
• 1 Tablespoon sea salt

Also needed for making the pizzas:

• 1 cup avocado oil or olive oil-- I use a little of both
• Your pizza toppings of choice! See the notes below.

Instructions

Crispy Pizza Crust

• TIMING: For the sourdough version, I feed my starter the night before, and once again in the morning--just to be sure it's nice and active. Other times I may forget until early morning so I feed once then and again then late morning. For both the sourdough or yeast version, I mix up the ingredients around 1:30-2:30 pm so I can start feeding people around 5-6 pm. (You can adjust your feeds if you want to eat earlier or later.)
• Add all ingredients to your mixer--with the salt going in last. Knead until combined and then feel the dough--if it's too sticky, add a bit more flour until it cleans off the sides as it goes around. Knead about 5-6 minutes more. I use my beloved Bosch for this. (I've had it since 2004 and it's still going strong, I've heard that even Kitchen Aid motors don't last that long!)  You could also knead by hand, but it'll just take a little longer.
• Remove the dough hook and cover with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray, let set until doubled in size, about 1.5-2.5 hours or so depending on how warm your kitchen is. At this point I get my other toppings prepped. See recipe notes below.
• When the dough has risen to about double its size, heat your oven on broil to 500*.
• Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured countertop. Use a bench scraper (one of my FAVORITE kitchen gadgets!) to divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and shape each into a circle-ish. Keep the dough pieces you're not working with covered with the sprayed plastic wrap. Roll out one piece of dough at a time into about a 11-12" circle--it doesn't have to be perfect.
• Heat your cast iron skillet on medium heat--I usually have 2 going at once. (I have a 10" and an 11" and they both work well.) Add 2 Tablespoons of oil and swirl it around so it covers the bottom of the pan. Put the dough in your pan and press into the corners a bit--it'll come up the sides a little. Add 1/2 cup sauce and spread around almost to the edge, then add your other desired toppings--see below. Cook until edges are starting to set/firm up and bottom begins getting crispy and golden brown--lift it up a bit with a spatula to peek, it'll take about 3-4 minutes. (Watch closely so it doesn't burn.)
• Using potholders, transfer skillet to the oven and broil until the cheese is melty and edges are starting to get golden brown, 3-6 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is. Again, watch this so it doesn't burn!
• This will be very hot. Using potholders, transfer from the oven and slide pizza onto a wire rack with a spatula. Sprinkle with basil if using. Let cool a few minutes before slicing and serving, otherwise everyone will burn their lips off.

Notes

NOTES:  For toppings, here are a couple variations we like, but obviously the options are endless!

Margarita pizza is our Friday favorite:

• No-cook pizza sauce (<-- the 2nd recipe at that link), 1/2 cup per pizza
• 8 ounces soft mozz for each pizza, sliced
• After it comes out, add chopped fresh basil

Bacon cheeseburger pizza is pretty yummy too:

• 1 # burger browned with 1 onion & 6 cloves garlic, add 1 # pd cooked bacon & 1 green pepper chopped, along with sea salt and pepper to your taste preference--about 2-3 Tablespoons of this mixture on each pizza (when making the batch above for 8 pizzas)
• Soft mozz or regular shredded mozzarella cheese
• Sometimes we'll add shredded cheddar as well

I also love chicken bacon ranch pizza (use ranch dressing instead of pizza sauce).

Or "Hawaiian" is another favorite:  homemade BBQ instead of pizza sauce, mozz, pineapple tidbits, chicken, and chopped peppers.

What're YOUR favorite pizza toppings?

I can't wait to hear if you try making this crispy sourdough pizza crust–please share in the comments!

More you might like:

• Check out the crazy pizzas we made!For pizza night a while back (this is an older recipe, not the crispy crust that one we use now), we made a couple of different pizzas.  For one we just made this simple sloppy Joe pizza (a good way to do something different with your sloppy Joe leftovers), but for the other one, we were trying to recreate a pizza we had with our son in Detroit from a place called Ottava Via that we all loved because of the unique ingredients and how good they all were together.  I was fresh out of foie gras and rosemary apple butter (bet you never heard of putting those on pizza!), but we winged it with the rest.  We used bacon, onions caramelized with balsamic vinegar, a little bit of homemade apple sauce, fried potatoes, arugula and spinach, parmesan, and pastured eggs on top–crazy, right?  It's like breakfast and a crazy mix of yumminess all together in your mouth.  As expected, it wasn't as good as we had hoped, because I didn't know yet how to make a crispy crust like I do now (see above!), but it was darn close.  Check out the actual picture of when we had it in Detroit.

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