Guest post from Katy of Finding Home.
To say our family loves pizza might be an understatement. If you ask my husband what he wants to eat, the answer will always be steak, tacos, or pizza.
Our favorite homemade pizza crust is this freezer-friendly one that Crystal shared, because we can get everything ready ahead of time.
The original recipe is set up to make two crusts, which you can freeze as a ball of dough. That works fine, except sometimes we decide we want to eat a pizza around dinner time (or for a late night snack), and we don’t have four hours for the crust to thaw on the counter. So I started experimenting.
First, I wanted to see if we could roll the crusts out ahead of time, and freeze them flat in the freezer.
Yes, it works! Here’s how I do it!
- Line a jelly roll pan or circular pan (the same one you’ll later use to bake the pizzas) with parchment paper
- Flatten the dough to the shape of the pan
- Put the whole thing in the freezer (I wouldn’t recommend freezing a pizza stone, so if you use one of those, find something else flat to freeze your crust on)
- Once the crust is frozen, remove the pan, and wrap the crust with saran wrap.
- To bake, simply unwrap and flip the crust onto the pan.
How I bake it as a frozen crust.
If you’re putting the pizza in the oven right out of the freezer (after topping it with all of your yummy favorites), bake at 425°F for 18 minutes. This allows the pizza dough to come to the right temperature without heating up too quickly. Otherwise you’ll end up with a burnt bottom and a doughy middle!
How I make it a thin crust.
If you’re looking for a thinner crust, you can split Crystal’s recipe into three crusts. The method is the same, but the baking times change slightly. To bake right away right after you mix the dough, bake at 450°F for 10-12 minutes. To bake right away from frozen, bake at 425°F for 15 minutes.
These baking times and temperatures are based on my oven, which cooks a little bit hotter than the temperature it says. You might need to adjust a bit according to your oven, but once you figure it out, you’re all set for easy frozen pizzas!
I like to freeze a few of these crusts, a batch of homemade pizza sauce (which makes enough for 3 pizzas), and a few containers of toppings. With all that done ahead of time, all I have to do is pull out a crust, defrost the sauce and toppings in the microwave, and top with shredded cheese. The whole process takes about 5 minutes — perfect for a busy weeknight dinner!
Katy is a pastor’s wife in Oregon. You can find her blogging about mostly gluten free food, homeschooling, and parenting at Finding Home.
I love the idea of having homemade frozen pizzas ready to bake. I make the crust in my bread machine, roll out the crust in individual size pizzas, prebake them, and store them in the big, plastic ice cream containers. That way they don’t get broken while in the freezer.
What a great idea! -Jordan, MSM Team
I have made my own pizza crust for years and have tried many, but find some to be so stretchy, they’re hard to roll out, so I’m looking forward to trying Crystal’s. I have another yummy idea to share, which is to grill your pizza dough. You roll out large or small pizzas, brush them with oil, grill for a few minutes on one side, flip, quickly top and grill a little more. Delicious! But here’s what we love. I make extra (usually personal size), and freeze the pre-grilled crusts. Same delicious flavor, with no hassle of getting out your grill! Enjoy!
I would also like to add that you can par bake the crusts before freezing, thus eliminating the soggy middle or over done bottoms.
Katy,
What do you put the flat pizza crust in before placing it in the freezer? I’m thinking it’s too long for a Ziploc freezer bag. I’m wondering what you use.
I have parchment paper on the bottom, and then I wrap the whole thing with saran wrap. We usually use them within a few weeks to a month, so I haven’t done anything more than that.
Your pizza looks really awesome.
Brilliant!! Adding the toppings, then freezing, might be an option as well. Frozen food companies do it, why not?? 🙂 And homemade is even better. Our Friday nights consist of pizza, soda, movies, board games and a fire in our fireplace for family fun night. It is a tradition we started a year or so ago. This make ahead recipe will be great for us, so we can just pop it in the oven after work and dinner will be ready. 🙂
What a great idea. Thanks for teaming up, Crystal and Katy!
Would love to know if someone has made a frozen pizza, toppings and all, then froze it. I suppose it could be a skinny pizza and put it in a foodsaver bag after it’s frozen. (to prevent freezer burn.)
That’s one of the reasons I keep the components separate. But I would think a foodsaver bag would be similar to how they come at the grocery store. Definitely worth a try if you have one of those!
Yum! We love pizza too. We now make this grain-free, vegetable-crust version: http://everydaymindfulliving.com/vegetable-crust-grain-free-pizza/
I haven’t tried freezing the crust, so I don’t know how well it would hold up to that.
I’ve never done a grain-free crust, although I am intrigued by them. I just can’t quite wrap my head around them, I guess. One of my daughters is gluten-free though, so we might have to try that one of these days! For now she’s young enough to just eat the toppings when the rest of us have pizza.
Have you or could you post your recipe for homemade pizza sauce?? This is a great post! Thanks, Katy!
Glad you liked the post! I got the pizza sauce recipe from my friend Sarah. We usually don’t like a lot of sauce, so it lasts through 3 pizzas for us. Depending on how much sauce you like on your pizza, it might only be 1 or 2 for you.
Ingredients:
– 6oz. can tomato paste
– 6oz. of water (just fill the can and dump it in)
– 3/4 tsp. onion powder
– 1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
– 1/4 tsp. salt
– 2 tsp. garlic powder
– 1/4 tsp. oregano
– 1/4 tsp. Italian seasoning
– 1/4 tsp. parsley
– 2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese (optional – I usually don’t have this so I just omit it)
Mix all ingredients together. Store in fridge to use within 2 days, or freeze.
This is fantastic. Thanks, Kate! I make my own dough and freeze it but I’ve never THOUGHT of the idea to have it all ready to go. But, why not?! You get them at the store that way. I just prefer to make it homemade. Thanks for this, will try it! 🙂
I know! It was a total “aha!” moment for me too once I figured it out! Let us know how it works out for you.
We’ve been doing this for months now–it is so helpful and tastes MUCH better than a store bought frozen pizza!
A tip that we have done (& need to do again) after you roll out crust prebake for 10 min then bake about 10 more after topped w/ sauce & toppings. I never have froze w/ sauce on may have to try. My recipe is the same as Crystal’s that I have had for years & years
I haven’t tried prebaking the crusts, but that seems like a great way to help shave some of the cooking time off later on.
Genius! Thank you for including details about time and temperature. Often people forget these important and helpful information.
You’re welcome! It took me a few tries to figure it out, so I figured it would be helpful for everyone else.
Just a tip- when i freeze pizza dough already rolled out and ready to go, i also top with sauce and cheese before freezing. Then all you have to do is add the toppings!
I haven’t tried that yet, so it’s good to know that it works!
Thank you for the tip! I was actually wondering just yesterday if it was possible to do this. So excited to find this post today!
Another good idea I’ve not yet tried!
I love this pizza dough recipe!
How cool to see you on this blog! I’ll have to try making some of these before baby. 🙂
Definitely good to have in the freezer before a baby. Anything you can do ahead of time is a bonus there!
Hey there! This looks delicious! Have you ever used Wildtree products when cooking? We just came out with a Bruschetta Blend that would be great for pizza! Let me know if you want to try some samples! We specialize in Freezer Meal Workshops! I just recently read your book “Say Goodbye to Survival Mode” and really enjoyed it!
I’ve looked into using them, but they were really expensive (at least according to my standards! :))
Looks delicious!!!