How to make homemade pizza from scratch

• The hardest part of homemade pizza is taking the time to make a great dough.
• Making your own pizza sauce is easy and worth it for a brighter, fresher flavor.
• Mix your dough gently and allow enough time to proof for an artisanal pizza at home.

Making pizza at home can be a fun activity with your partner or the whole family. The variety and combination of toppings is endless and each person can personalize their pie. At Lock & Key in Los Angeles, Chef Tony Hernandez serves three different types of pizza: Chicago deep dish, New York-style thin crust, and Sicilian-style pizza with a sourdough crust.

Hernandez shares his dough-making and baking tips, so you can make a pie that looks like it came straight out of an artisanal pizza shop.

Below, we break homemade pizza down into each of its components: dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings, making it easy to master at home.

Make your pizza dough

There are so many different styles of pizza, and many different types of flour can work for pizza dough depending on your preference. Superfine 00 flour is best for Neapolitan-style pizza, and Hernandez recommends it for a chewier bite. While all-purpose flour won't create a dough that's quite as stretchy, it will result in a crispier crust. Quad Cities-style pizza includes malt in the dough for a sweeter, nutty flavor.

What you'll need

• 1 ⅓ cups of warm water between 100 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit

• 2 tsp. instant yeast

• 2 tsp. honey

• 2 ⅛ Tbsp. olive oil

• 1 tsp. Kosher salt

• 3 ⅓ cups bread flour (all-purpose flour works if you can't find bread flour)

How to make pizza dough

1. Proof the yeast. Add yeast and honey to your bowl of warm water and let it dissolve. Then let it rest for 15 minutes.
2. Mix the dough. Add the flour, olive oil, and salt and mix with your hands until there are no dry lumps of flour left in the bowl.
3. Let it rise. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest until the dough doubles in size. "If your kitchen's overall temperature is between 80 [degrees Fahrenheit] to 90 [degrees Fahrenheit], it'll generally take 90 minutes for the dough to rise," Hernandez says. "In cooler kitchens [under 80 degrees Fahrenheit], we are talking two hours and a half on average."
4. Let it rest. Put the risen dough in your fridge overnight or for up to 48 hours. Hernandez recommends the full 48 hours for maximum flavor. Pull your dough out of the refrigerator and let it rest for 30 minutes to one hour ahead of time before final shaping. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit while the dough comes to room temperature.
5. Build your pizza. The next step is shaping your dough and topping it with everything that makes it delicious. Keep reading for more.

Select your sauce

Hernandez recommends making your own sauce using fresh ripe tomatoes, assuring that it's a lot less complicated than it seems. But if you are short on time, he says canned tomato sauce works too. "If you use traditional tomato sauce from a can, add herbs like basil, parsley and oregano to give it a little extra flavor," he says.

Quick tip: To make tomato sauce at home, blend one can of San Marzano tomatoes lightly with a few leaves of fresh basil. It's that simple. If you have time, Hernandez says simmering the tomato and basil blend on medium heat for 30 minutes with a little salt, pepper, and olive oil will help develop a darker color and deeper flavor.

Choose your cheese

Mozzarella is the most popular cheese for pizza for its simple, pure flavor that plays well with other ingredients as well as how easily it melts. But the sky's the limit, so feel free to experiment.

"I have used everything from Monterey jack, cheddar, and fontina to manchego, asiago, and truffle-infused cheese," Hernandez says. Grated cheese will yield a more evenly covered traditional pizza, whereas torn pieces of fresh mozzarella or any other cheese will create pockets of cheese.

"Most cheeses will melt so the texture is going to be soft, but you can use dry-aged cheese, like Parmesan or Grana Padano to garnish your pizza once it's out of the oven to get a different texture," he says.

Pick your toppings

Classic pizza toppings include pepperoni, sausage, garlic, mushrooms, basil, and spinach. Hernandez recommends playing around with creative flavor combinations at home - maybe roasted cauliflower with tahini or blue cheese with figs and caramelized onions.

Begin with a thin layer of sauce - too much sauce can make your crust soggy. "Put cheese evenly on top of the tomato sauce," Hernandez says. "After that, you can add the rest of your toppings, including any vegetables or meats."

Baking your pizza

1. Shape your dough. Pizza dough should feel bouncy, airy, and relaxed before the final shaping. Otherwise, give it more time and make sure it's not cold. Working from the middle of the dough outward stretch a dough round into a 10 to 12-inch circle that's slightly thicker towards the rim to form a crust.
2. Place stretched dough on a floured baking peel. If you're not transferring your pizza to a pizza stone or into a pizza oven, instead place your dough on a baking sheet.
3. Add sauce and toppings. Traditionally, the sauce goes first, then the cheese, then the toppings, but you can always experiment to discover new textures and flavor combos.
4. Bake until the bottom is crispy. In a traditional oven, cook pizza for 15-20 minutes at 500 degrees Fahrenheit. If you're baking in a high-temperature pizza oven, bake time is reduced dramatically, and the pizza will be ready in mere minutes. You can use a pizza stone to mimic the hearth, but you don't necessarily need one to get a crispy bottom.

Insider's Takeaway

There are many different types of pizzas and pizza doughs, but for a simple pizza at home, use bread flour or all-purpose flour. Mix your water and flour gently with a touch of honey and olive oil to make the dough, and let your dough rest and refrigerate it overnight and for up to 48 hours. Then pull it out to temper at room temperature before the final shaping and baking. It's worth it to make your own sauce with flavorful tomatoes, and have fun with the cheese and topping combinations you choose. Depending on how crispy or soft you like your crust, you can bake your pie for longer or a shorter time at a higher temperature.