The Easiest Sourdough Pizza Crust Recipe - No Yeast - The Fig Jar (2024)

A sourdough pizza crust recipe without any store-bought yeast? Sign me up! Plus, no overnight rising time and you get to use up your sourdough discard in the most tasty way.

Disclaimer: this post may contain affiliate links, which means if you decide to purchase any of the items linked in this post, I should earn a small commission. This creates no additional cost to you and helps support the work that goes into running The Fig Jar. Thank you! -Becky

When I got the Little House Cookbook (affiliate link) for Christmas, I was instantly drawn to the sourdough starter recipe. I immediately started making it, because hi, first step is put flour in a cake pan and let it sit out for 3 days. I can take action on something that easy immediately.

And after I had that starter bubbling and ready, I started looking for ways to use my sourdough discard. Enter sourdough pizza dough with NO additional store-bought yeast.

Do you really have to let sourdough rest overnight?

There is NO overnight rise time required for this recipe. I’ve seen a lot of recipes that require both overnight resting and/or store-bought yeast and both of these notions bug me a little.

First of all, my initial attraction to making a sourdough starter in the first place was that I would be creating my own natural, wild yeast. The idea of creating my own yeast and being able to make bread without store-bought little packets was very exciting to me. And while that is my biggest beef with the sourdough pizza crust recipes I’ve seen, I also don’t really want to have to wait a day to have my pizza. This pizza dough is hands down one of my favorite ways to use up my sourdough discard! It’s an easy recipe with super basic ingredients and it comes out great every time.

After researching other sourdough pizza crust recipes, I decided to just go for it without any further research and try making my own pizza dough recipe and replacing the yeast with my discard. How hard could it be? And bah bada bah! It worked like a total dream. Amazing, slightly tangy flavor, chewy texture with a modest rise. SO GOOD.

It does take a little longer to rise than my regular pizza dough but it doesn’t take a whole day. Just 3 1/2 hours or so and you could probably get away with less.

With that said…

The sourdough flavor is not as strong as when you let it rise overnight or at least for 8 hours or so. I’ve tested it both ways, but I just want it to be known that we can use our sourdough discard and get great results without waiting such a long time.

Let’s make this sourdough discard pizza crust, shall we?

Ingredients for sourdough pizza dough

• All-purpose flour: I have not tried this with sourdough pizza dough but you probably could sub in whole-wheat flour for part of the flour. I do this with my regular pizza dough recipe sometimes and it works just fine. I would start with no more than 1 cup of whole wheat to start.
• Sourdough discard: I am going to work on creating a how-to-make-sourdough-starter post but I’m not there yet. Here is a helpful guide from King Arthur Flour. Their instructions a slightly different than the Little House book but I definitely trust that King Arthur wouldn’t lead anyone astray.
• Oil: Avocado or olive is what I typically use
• Warm water
• Salt
• Sugar

Equipment

• Large bowl (affiliate link)
• Baking sheet, cast iron skillet OR pizza pan (affiliate links)

Step by step directions for sourdough discard pizza crust

Step 1: Mix warm water and sourdough discard

We start in the very same way as a pizza crust made with store-bought yeast, but instead of combining warm water with yeast, we combine warm water and sourdough discard. I let this stand for a few minutes, then add sugar, oil, salt and flour. See recipe notes for making this a garlic and herb crust!

Step 2: Mix in sugar, salt, oil and flour

Until it looks like the image below. It should still be pretty sticky.

Step 3: Knead the dough

One of my favorite steps in making pizza dough is kneading. Part of me gets the appeal of no-knead breads and everything but part of me also doesn’t, like what’s so bad about kneading? I like feeling the dough and feeling like I am the village baker in some quaint little town somewhere. Maybe that’s not a daydream you’re into but you still have to knead the dough for this 🙂

To knead your dough, turn the dough out onto a clean, well-floured work surface. Fold the dough in half and press down with your hands. Continue doing this until the dough becomes a smooth ball.

Why do we knead pizza dough?

Wondering why we can’t just mix it with the spoon a little longer and avoid the messy work? Well, as I said earlier, I actually really like kneading so it’s not something I want to skip but I was curious as to why. I did a little research and it turns out there’s three basic reasons why we knead dough.

Reason 1: It helps ensure that ingredients are fully mixed. That makes sense to me. With dough being so sticky and pretty dense (as compared to say, cake batter) it would be hard to incorporate everything just by mixing with a spoon.

Reason 2: Kneading hydrates the flour. Flour needs (no pun intended) to soak up the water in order to have a successful dough. Kneading speeds this process up.

Reason 3: Kneading strengthens the gluten strands. Okay, I actually kinda knew this one already! Strengthening the gluten strands creates a more flexible but sturdy dough.

If you want to get even further into the details, check out My Pizza Corner! They go into more detail on each of these points. And just generally has everything you want to know about pizza dough and pizza making.

Step 4: Let it rise!

This might not be something you make on a weeknight as it does require 3 1/2 hours of rise time. If you want to make it the night before, just place the dough in the fridge after letting it rise, then take it out about an hour before you plan to bake and allow it to rest at room temperature.

A little note: Let this rise in a warm place. I have a gas wall heater and I sat it next to that with the heater “off”. If you don’t have that option, just put it in a warm place and cover it with a clean towel.

Step 5: Roll out the dough and add pizza toppings

We are so close to some amazing pizza! Just roll the dough out onto your baking vessel. I used my new BareBones cast iron skillet and it was a wonderful experience.

For this pizza, I went with a classic combo of marinara sauce (try my marinara recipe or use my favorite store-bought marinara), pepperoni, black olives, bell pepper and mozzarella. Marinated artichokes and pepperoncini are also delicious pizza toppings I use often!

Similar recipes

• Jalapeño Cheese Bread: I LOVE THIS BREAD. It’s spicy, cheesey, garlicky and a tiny bit sweet. You can eat it straight up or make some crazy good sandwiches with it. AND I did win a 1st place ribbon for it at the OC Fair last summer.
• Perfect Pizza Dough: This is the recipe for my pizza dough using store-bought yeast. Also very tasty and only needs to rise for 1 hour.
• : Make your own crackers for your next charcuterie board! It’s easy and oh so yummy and kinda impressive.

Tried this Sourdough Pizza Crust recipe?

I hope you give this sourdough pizza crust recipe a try! I love the freedom of being able to use my sourdough discard instead of relying on yeast packets from the store. For the record, I have nothing against store bought yeast and will continue to use in my other yeasty recipes linked below. It’s just nice to have options. If you make this recipe, be sure to give me shout! I’d love to know how it turned out— leave me a comment/rating/question below or find me on instagram @thefigjar.

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