This is a super simple recipe. It’s very flexible and not at all fussy, and really quick to throw together. I’ve evolved this recipe & method a lot over the years, and learned in the process that making this kind of dough is considerably easier and less precise than most recipes and cookbooks would have you believe.
I actually don’t even usually measure when I make this any more, I just eyeball it and add a bit more water or flour if it seems off. But I’ve measured out the basic ingredients for you so you have an easy starting point. Just remember that this can just be used as a starting point and you can - and should - adapt recipes to suit your personal taste and style. That’s what cooking is all about!
You don’t need fancy tools for this. I used to make dough in the food processor and mixer, but over the years I realized that doing it by hand is just as easy and really just as fast, and you end up with less stuff to wash. I can mix this dough up in a big bowl in less time that it would take me to get out my mixer or food processor, assemble it, mix the dough, put it in another bowl to rise, and then clean the appliance and put it away. Sometimes the old fashioned way is just the best.
The tools I use are a very large wide bowl (like a large wide pasta bowl), and a dough whisk. With this kind of bowl you can do all your kneading, mixing, and rising right in the bowl. It’s really the minimal amount of mess. The dough whisk isn’t strictly necessary, you can just use a wooden spoon, but I find that it helps with the early mixing.
The recipe is below. It’s really quite simple once you’ve done it a few times, but be sure to read through the whole thing so you understand the steps. Also don’t skip the notes at the end - there’s a lot of my knowledge from having done this for many years. If you still have questions after all that, feel free to comment or message me on Facebook or Instagram - I’m not quite as timely with responding to comments here on the blog.
Lisa's Basic Bread & Pizza Dough:
4 cups flour, plus extra for kneading if necessary (see notes about type of flour)
2+ teaspoons active dry yeast
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
Instructions:
In a large wide bowl add the yeast, sugar, and warm water. Give this a quick stir to combine, and wait just a minute for your yeast to wake up. If you are sure that your yeast is fresh then you can skip this step, but I like to do it because I feel like it gives the dough a bit of a head start.
Add the flour and salt and give it a good stir to start it mixing together. Very quickly you will get to a point where it's no longer useful to stir and you will want to get in there with your hands. Get it together into a ball and start kneading.
You can knead by hand in your bowl. This is why I use a big wide bowl - I don’t even have to get my counter or another surface dirty for kneading. If you didn’t have a bowl wide enough to knead in, then you’ll want to put it out on a flat surface. If the dough still seems a bit too sticky, add more flour just a small handful at a time. You should be able to easily pick it up, folding and squeezing and pushing it together. After a few minutes of working it should start to feel smooth and tight. If you haven’t done a lot of kneading before, don’t worry about it. It’s a weird thing that just takes practice to get a feel for. You can probably find a few youtube videos if you really want to see how it’s done.
At this point I like to set it down and let it rest for a few minutes. Just leave it for 5 minutes or so while you clean up a little. Then come back to it and knead a bit more. It’s much easier to knead after a short rest.
Lay your nice round of dough down in your bowl and cover with plastic wrap to rise. You want it to at least double in size. I’ll say this takes about an hour on average, but rising time is going to really vary depending on your kitchen situation. If your room is very warm, it will rise faster. If it’s rising too fast you can stick it in the fridge to slow it down. Rising will take longer in a cold room. You can speed this up by turning on your oven and setting the bowl nearby.
After it’s risen to more than double, give it a good punch to deflate, and knead again for a couple of minutes
At this point you can decide if you are going for a full second rise or not. If you aren’t in a hurry, the extra rise will give it a bit nicer texture. But if you don’t have the time then you can absolutely go ahead and get it ready for how you are using it at this point.