Homemade thin crust pizza recipe using a non-stick 16″pizza tray with holes with a my step-by-step procedure for getting the dough almost paper thin. Video included below.
I’ve tried several recipes for pizza dough and purchased a bunch of different store-bought pre-made varieties. I’ve found that Trader Joe’s whole wheat pizza dough works best. Plus, heck, it’s pre-made, whole wheat and tastes great, so I don’t even bother with a dough recipe anymore.
Thin crust pizza with premade dough is entirely achievable at home. Stretch the dough cold, straight from the refrigerator, and bake it at 485°F. Most home pizza recipes get one of these wrong, which is why homemade thin crust so often turns out thick in the middle and pale on the bottom.
This recipe uses Trader Joe’s whole wheat premade dough, which is consistently the best store-bought option for thin crust. It stretches paper thin without tearing, and crisps up on a perforated pizza pan at high heat. Any good premade pizza dough with a short ingredient list works the same way.
The step-by-step stretching technique below, combined with a video walkthrough, gets the dough reliably thin across the entire pan including the center, which is where most homemade thin crust pizza fails.
Servings: 1 Pizza
Recipe for homemade thin crust pizza using a non-stick 16"pizza tray with holes with a my step-by-step instructions for getting the dough almost paper thin. Video included.
Ingredients
- 1 16-ounce package premade pizza dough Preferably Trader Joes
- 1 tablespoon onion flakes
- 1 tablespoon oregano
- ¼ cup Trader Joe's Pizza Sauce
- 4 sausage patties - I like Morningstar Farms
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or to taste
- 1 tablespoon whole fennel seeds
- 1 teaspoon Extra Spicy Mrs. Dash
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan
- ¼ cup shredded Parmesan
- ½ cup sliced jalapenos and/or sliced pepperoncini
- ½ cup sliced mushrooms
- Serve with: Secret Aardvark Habanero Hot Sauce and lots of good red wine.
Instructions
- Stretch the dough right out of the refrigerator. DO NOT let it sit out at room temperature and rise. If you want to let rise, do it after the stretching.
- Spray a non-stick pizza pan with a bit of canola oil or olive oil spray.
- Dust the pan lightly with corn meal. This helps prevent the dough from sticking.
- Plop the dough onto the pan. The Trader Joe's dough comes out flat and kind of square from the packaging which is perfect.
- Pre-heat the oven to 485 degrees. The thin dough combined with higher heat is what makes the crust more like a cracker.
- Wet a rolling pin with a little bit of water.
- Roll out the dough. After each roll, turn the pan a quarter turn and roll again to even it out on the pan.
- Slightly wet your hands. Pick up one corner of the dough and gently pull it to stretch it towards the side of the pan.
- Rotate the pan to the opposite side and stretch again.
- Rotate the pan one-quarter turn and repeat.
- Keep repeating until the dough is evenly stretched over the sides of the pan. There will be a lot of extra dough over the sides. Don't worry about that. You'll cut it off at the end.
- This may take a bit of practice, so don't give up! It totally worth it to have a lovely thin crust pizza that you made yourself.
- After you've got the dough stretched cut off the extra dough with a scissors. I like to wrap a little back over the edges.
- Sprinkle the dough with the onion flakes and Oregano. Spread the sauce evenly on top.
- If frozen, cook the sausage patties in the microwave so that they are defrosted but not hot. Mine takes 44 seconds. Squish the fennel into the sausages (you can see how in the video) and spread the sausage mixture evenly over pizza.
- Distribute the remaining topping ingredients evenly over the top of the pizza and cook for about 15 minutes or until golden brown and not mushy in the middle, about 15 to 20 minutes.
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