How to make an amazing pizza in your home oven for under three bucks.

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Welcome to Free The Pizza's "Cheap The Pizza, Part II." The pizza in the picture above? I did it “all wrong.” Still looks pretty good, right? Tasted pretty good, too.
 
To recap last week’s rant: it’s crazy that there are “thought leaders” claiming it’s cheaper to eat out than to cook at home. My counter example: pizza. If you’re interested, you can make a 12-inch pizza at home with an ingredients cost of under $3.00--literally, about $2.50. That pizza, hot and fresh from your home oven, tastes better than one from your local joint that charges $14.00. It’s also easy to make, and I promised to show you how. BONUS: If you’re an experienced home pizzamaker, this is an interesting exercise and it's fun. (I’ve been doing this all week long. I’m having a blast. It doesn’t get old.)

Today is about two things: 1.) an overview of the process, and 2.) a simple pizza dough that requires no kneading and demands only a few minutes of hands-on time. Next week, we’re baking the pizza on an upside-down cast-iron skillet in my home oven. 

ABOVE: This pizza was done "all wrong." On purpose. For this project, I acted impatiently and kinda stupid just to show that doing it wrong still gets a pizza that looks great. (Pizza is more forgiving than people realize.)


To demonstrate the idiot-proofness efficacy of my premise, I’ve been making these pizzas as if I don’t know what I’m doing. You’ll see in the photos: NOT FANCY. Without any special oven, you can make a great pizza at home for under three dollars, and it’s easy to do. Here's the catch: you need to be at least halfway smart and have a modicum of patience. 

ABOVE: Photo of the "wrong" pizza baking on top of an upside-down cast iron skillet inside my crappy old oven. 
 
Also, I’m not going to say that "Pizza ovens are a scam!" like some people do. It’s just a specialized tool for a different kind of job. The job we’re trying to here is simple: make an easy pizza as easily as possible.
 
Why am I doing this warts-and-all production? To prove that you can do it, too. This is not an Instagram-worthy pizza beauty show. It’s down and dirty, real-world, wonky-looking pizza made at home. Here, look at this:

ABOVE: The dough for the "wrong" pizza after a minute or so of mixing it with my hand. That's pretty ugly. Hard to believe it became anything. 
 

That’s an ugly pizza dough. Know what else? It doesn’t matter. Because it turned into this:

ABOVE: Closeup of the "wrong" pizza's crust. Notice the micro-blisters around the edge of the crust. This is what flavor looks like. You also don't see those micro-blisters on commodity pizza. Normally, you see it only in artisan pizza. And I'm no artisan, thank you. 
 

I am not making a perfect pizza here because neither are you. What I’m making is the same pizza you can make: a great tasting pizza that’s so good, it makes you say, “Wow. I did this?” Even if the shape is a little wonky.
 
This pizza-making tutorial is also a work in progress. I have rushed this into service in a week. I reserve the right to update it later if I believe I can make it even easier and better. I also plan to compile this series of instructional primers into a single, downloadable PDF.  If you’re on the Free The Pizza mailing list, you'll get a notification when any of that happens.
 
Also, if you are an expert reading this, understand that these instructions are not written for you.

These are simplified instructions written for a rank beginner. They are not best practices for someone who has developed their technique. These are practices for a beginner with the courage to look pizza in the eye and take on this process.
 
There are instructions here that’ll make you say, “That’s not how I do it!” That’s fine. Do it your way. I’m all for what works. 
 
 
MAKING PIZZA ANY TIME YOU WANT IT
 
As a pizza newbie, the first time you do this, the process will seem cumbersome. 
 
After a few times, that feeling will go away.
 
Once you understand how this works, you can make extra dough and store it in your freezer.
 
Frozen dough takes a few hours to thaw at room temp, or thaws overnight in the fridge.
 
If I know I want pizza tomorrow night, I can take a dough ball out of the freezer today and put it in the fridge.
 
If I decide I want pizza tonight, I can take a dough ball out of the freezer this afternoon and leave it on the kitchen counter.
 
I have the necessary cheeses in my refrigerator, and there’s portioned sauce in my freezer.
 
Making pizza is just a process that requires simple preparation.

Literally, as I was writing this, I stopped, went to the kitchen, and decided to make that "all wrong" pizza I was talking about. Here's what it looked like:

ABOVE: This is everything that went into that pizza. Really. And also, notice how simply everything is laid out. Simple organization increases your chances of success.


If you do 20 to 30 minutes total of preparation, making pizza dough and sauce, you can have supplies on hand for making great three-dollar pizzas whenever you feel like it.
 
And here’s something you’ll probably learn: once you do this a few times, you will almost never eat takeout pizza again. Your homemade pizza will cure you of that. 
 
 
THIS IS PART ONE OF THE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THREE-DOLLAR PIZZA.
 
We’d planned on giving you the entire process today. However, it seemed like too much. Overwhelming you is not productive.  
 
So instead, we’re doing this: talking about the simple equipment you require, and how to make the dough.
 
Next week is how to prep for baking, and then making the pizza.
 
BONUS: This gives us more time to take photos of the process. I’ve shot only about 120 pictures this week, and we need more. MORE! Excess in everything! (I have so much leftover pizza in my fridge from doing this. My wife looks inside, shakes her head, and walks away in silence looking for a salad.)
 
All righty. Here we go!
 
 
THE PIZZA PROCESS OVERVIEW: DOUGH
 
Active prep time: 10 minutes total
 
Inactive time: 72 hours
 
The first step in making great pizza requires making dough—and doing it ahead of time, not on the same day.
 
The dough we’re making requires about 10 minutes of active time, and a total of 72 hours alone time where it sits and ferments and you do nothing to it.
 
The ingredients for good pizza dough are commonly available: water, flour, salt and yeast. 

Better flour makes a batter tasting crust.

Salt, yeast and water are salt, yeast and water. (I recommend fine sea salt because it has no additives.)

Water that tastes good enough to drink is good enough for pizza.

The type of yeast we’re using is called Instant Dry Yeast.
 
You’re going to mix up the dough components (about 5 minutes active prep time), and let it sit for about 18 hours.
 
At the end of that time, you’re going to break down the dough into dough balls. Then, the dough balls will go into the fridge for 48 hours.
 
NOTE: The dough can be used sooner, but I recommend waiting. The cold fermentation time greatly improves the flavor and the texture. This is the kind of thing they do in artisan pizzerias where a 12-inch pizza can cost as much as 20 bucks.
 
Also, the dough can be frozen for use at a later time. But I recommend using fresh dough your first few times making pizza.
 
 
THE PIZZA PROCESS OVERVIEW: BAKING
 
Active prep time: 10 minutes
 
Inactive time: 2 hours
 
Once your dough has fermented and is oh so very happy, it’s time to bake.
 
For this part, you’re going to require dough, sauce and cheese.
 
The sauce is made from canned tomatoes. The best tomatoes make the best sauce.
 
The cheese is grated low-moisture mozzarella and shredded Romano. Both are commonly available at a good supermarket.
 
You’re also going to need a dusting of flour for stretching the dough, and some semolina or cornmeal for launching the pizza from the peel. (I recommend semolina, as it tastes better, smells better, and doesn’t burn the way cornmeal does. That said, cornmeal costs less. Your choice.
 
Two hours before you’re ready to bake, you want to remove your dough from the refrigerator. It needs to be tempered. We're bringing the dough to room temp so it can be stretched. Cold dough doesn’t stretch easily and it shrinks back. It's like a bad comedy for TikTok.
 
You’re also going to need to make your sauce, which takes about 5 minutes of active prep time. Then it gets about 15 minutes of passive cooking time. After that, the sauce has to cool. (Sauce can be made ahead of time, too.)
 
You’ll also need to grate and shred the cheeses.

ABOVE: This is the cheap peel I acquired for about 15 bucks. Maybe it was less. I don't remember. I bought it several years ago. I like to bring it out when I'm making small pizzas like this. It's convenient. (Dollar bill included for scale only. Eating dollar bills is discouraged by Free The Pizza.)


THE SPECIAL TOOLS YOU REQUIRE

• Cast iron skillet
• Wooden peel or wooden cutting board
• Standard home oven
• ​Box grater (for prepping the cheese)
  

 
There’s nothing fancy here. I’m using a skillet I bought in the camping section of Walmart for $23. It’s the Ozark Trail brand 15-inch cast-iron skillet, which is maybe the best $23 cooking implement you'll ever buy in a sporting goods department. (That link is not an affiliate link. I make no money on this project. I'm doing this as a public service.)
 
I’m also using a 12-inch wooden peel kinda like this one that I bought somewhere years ago (probably at Walmart or Amazon) for about 15 bucks. Keep an eye out for bamboo. It’s usually less expensive. (The link to Amazon, above is also not an affiliate link. Again, public service.)
 
My skillet and peel represent an equipment investment of $38.00, and I can make pizza with those for the rest of my life.
 
I’ve also done this project using tools I already had handy. There was a 12-inch skillet, which has a substantially smaller bottom. I’ve used it to make an 8-inch pizza, which is roughly half the size of a 12-inch pizza. And to launch that pizza, I was using a cutting board instead of the peel.
 
If you’ve already got a 12-inch skillet and a cutting board, and you’re not yet inclined to buy a skillet and a peel, have at it. It’ll work. Just know that you’re going to have to make smaller dough balls.

The dough recipe here is for four 12-inch dough balls. It will also make eight 8-inch dough balls.
 
IMPORTANT: Measure your oven rack. Make sure there’s enough room to close the door without breaking the window. The oven rack has to be deep enough to contain the diameter of an upside-down cast-iron skillet. I know careless people who’ve had to replace oven door windows (I am among them), and it’s not hard to do. There’s always a YouTube video. But it costs money and it’s annoying. Be safe.
 
If your door doesn’t have a window, measure the rack anyway. The oven door still needs to close fully.
 
I moved into a new house and found my 16-inch baking steel didn’t fit inside the oven. I also found that my 15-inch steel fit only if I tilted it up onto the back lip of the oven rack. You don’t want to have to do these things.

ABOVE: The cast-iron skillet is the most affordable, effective thermal mass I've experienced. There are reasons to buy more expensive pizza steels. But for the beginner, this is a great choice that also doubles as a skillet. (No actual dollar bills were harmed during this phootography.)


WHY THE CAST-IRON SKILLET?
 
The baking of bread (which is what a pizza crust is) is an exercise in stored heat. You need a heat-holding material inside the oven to act as a thermal mass.
 
When you give raw dough a lot of heat quickly, the result is called "oven spring."

Pizza dough is a foam. When that foam gets very hot very quickly, it pops. You get bubbles inside, it rises up, it becomes a crust, and you have deliciousness.
 
Thick, cordierite baking stones and A36 carbon-steel pizza steels are great as thermal mass, and also relatively expensive. A cast-iron skillet is much less expensive.
 
 
Placed in the oven upside down, the skillet makes a very good thermal mass at a relative bargain price.
 
Plus, it also does double duty as (get this!) a skillet. Cast iron well seasoned is nature’s nonstick. It’s great for cooking all kinds of things.
 
(If you’ve never made cast-iron steak, you’re in for a treat. I’ve stopped cooking steak on the grill. Cast iron does a better job. I’m not alone in this heretical opinion.)
 
Bottom line: you need some reliable thermal mass to make great pizza happen. Cast iron is the least expensive way to do it that I know of. It's a compromise, yes. But a smart one, I believe.
 
 
WHY THE PEEL OR CUTTING BOARD?
 
We require a means to get the pizza from the counter to the thermal mass inside the oven. In a perfect world, you accomplish that a peel. (Some people call it a "pizza paddle." Please refrain from laughing. It's unattractive.)
 
A peel is a tool that I regard as essential—to a point. When I had a 1,200-pound wood-fired oven in my kitchen, I was making 20-inch pizzas at temps up to 900 degrees. That requires a peel.

But if the biggest pizza you’re making is 12 inches (which is what this project calls for), you have options.
 
I have a 12-inch peel. (Well, it’s really 11 inches, but I can make a pizza that’s a foot in diameter if I’m careful. Keep the measurement jokes to yourself.)

But I’ve also launched small pizzas off of a small, bamboo cutting board. So if you have or can find a 12-inch cutting board—a thin bamboo one, especially—go for it. Save the peel for your upgrade when you decide to buy a pizza steel.


WHY THE STANDARD HOME OVEN?

Because you already own it. Fuel costs are minimal. And with the added thermal mass, it's an easy way to make a pizza. Part of the reason it's easy is it has a lot more real estate and less heat than a tiny, cruel outdoor oven that goes to a zillion degrees.

If you have a broiler in the top of your oven, that's great, too. We're going to use it. If you don't have a broiler in the top, it will still work as long as it gets hot. (The exception I've found that is that some ovens in other countries don't get hot enough. We're looking for as close to 550F as possible. If your oven is under in the low to mid 400s, this will be a challenge.)

 
THE INGREDIENTS YOU NEED TO MAKE PIZZA DOUGH
 
Flour, water, salt and yeast are the foundation of a great pizza. You can use other ingredients (and should, depending on the situation and the goal). But we’re sticking with the essentials here.
 
FLOUR: This recipe calls for all-purpose flour. I recommend King Arthur products because they’re high quality and consistently reliable.
 
WATER: Water is easy. If you can drink your tap water and it tastes OK, you can use it for pizza. My tap water tastes unpleasant. I use filtered tap water or bottled water.
 
You do not need New York water. The persistent myth that New York water is somehow the secret to New York pizza is nonsense. It’s been proven in double-blind pizza taste tests. Nobody can taste the difference.
 
SALT: Salt is salt. Do not use fancy salt in your dough. But do try to use a salt that’s free of anti-caking agents and iodine. That said, when I started making pizza, I also used a lot of regular table salt. Now I use sea salt. I also use a fine grain salt, which is important to know because of volume measure. A teaspoon of fine salt weighs more than a teaspoon of coarse salt. The crust will taste different with less salt.
 
YEAST: The yeast we’re using here is called Instant Dry Yeast. It’s also marketed by Fleischmann’s as "RapidRise," and is also available as Bread Machine Yeast. Use any of those. Do not use Active Dry Yeast (ADY). It measures differently and isn’t as easy to use. It's a “technology” that dates to World War I. It was developed as an alternative to fresh yeast, which has a short shelf life. It also needs to be activated in water. But Instant yeast can be thrown right into the flour as a dry ingredient.
 
Here now, the recipe and the instructions for your very easy pizza dough…
 
 
MAKING THE PIZZA DOUGH
 
Kneading dough is the act of forcing water into the flour. We’re not doing that here. Instead of lots of vigorous kneading and bouts of resting, we’re letting time and water do the work for us. We are using a no-knead dough that I literally formulated this week. I did it using my standard dough recipe by adding about two tablespoons extra water and not kneading it. Genius!
 
We’re going to mix together the dry ingredients. Then, we’ll add water and combine everything to a coarse consistency.

After that, we cover the bowl and let it sit for 20 hours. At the end of that rise, we remove the dough from the bowl, break it down into balls, put them into zippered plastic bags and brush them with olive oil.

The dough balls will then cold ferment for 48 hours. (They can be used before then. I’m just promoting best practices, which lead to the best tasting pizza under the circumstances. The pizza I made in the “all wrong” photo at the top was never cold fermented at all. It still tasted pretty good--but I know there's better.)
 
Also, this dough is so simple, you can pretty much remember the recipe. As somebody who never commits a recipe to memory, I already know this one by heart. 
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[NOTE: This recipe has been updated since it was first published on 6/13/25. I realized few people have a 1/8 teaspoon measure for the yeast, so I doubled the quantities to provide for a 1/4 teaspoon measure of yeast. That also doubled the recipe from two to four doughballs. Instructions for halving the recipe are below.)
 
Tools
Large mixing bowl
A metal kitchen spoon
A wire whisk (optional)
Plastic dough scraper (optional)
Plastic cling wrap
 
Ingredients
5 cups of all-purpose flour (King Arthur brand recommended)
2 teaspoons of fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast
2 cups of water, room temperature

Yield: Four dough balls for 12-inch pizzas, or eight dough balls for 8-inch pizzas.

Feel free to cut this recipe in half. Use 2.5 cups flour. 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 cup of water, and 1/8 teaspoon of yeast.

However, a lot of people do not have a spoon for measuring 1/8 of a teaspoon. If you do, great. Proceed. If you do not, try this: 

1. Use a gram scale to weigh a .5 gram of yeast. Really easy.

 

1. Eyeball it. Measure 1/4 teaspoon of yeast. Using a clean work surface, gently put the yeast in a little pile. Divide it in half with a knife blade, a credit card, or some other straight-edge tool. Be careful. Yeast like to roll away. Less easy, but still simple enough. 

 
Instructions
Combine all the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl, stirring them together thoroughly with a whisk or a metal kitchen spoon.
 
Add the water and stir with a metal kitchen spoon until everything is combined. It will be sticky. Scrape any dough off the spoon and return it to the bowl.
 
Using your hand, get into the bowl and continue mixing the dough. Squeeze it, press it, and do what it takes to incorporate all of the dry ingredients into the dough ball.
 
When all of the dry ingredients are incorporated and the dough ball is coarse or shaggy, form it into a ball in the bottom of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Leave the bowl someplace comfortable. (I have a mantel in my living room that is the most temperate room in the house. That’s where I put my no-knead dough.)

ABOVE: This is what the dough looks like after 20 hours of alone time, rising in a room all by itself. 


After 18 hours…

Overnight, the dough will have risen in the bowl, filling it part way.
 
Take the bowl to your work surface in the kitchen. Dust the surface lightly with flour. Using a plastic dough scraper or a metal kitchen spoon, scrape the dough gently out of the bowl, persuading the dough to drop onto the floured surface. (Pizza dough is your friend. Sometimes, it helps to be gentle.)
 
Divide the dough into four equal parts. (You may weigh the dough, or you can eyeball it. Weighing is more accurate.)
 
If you’re making 8-inch pizzas because you have a smaller skillet, divide the dough into eight equal parts. ​(You can freeze the extra.)
 
Form each piece of dough into a dough ball. You can accomplish this by folding it over itself in one direction, and then the other. Then, gather all the open edges together at the bottom of the ball and close them. Squeeze and pinch then together and even turn them until the ball is relative smooth and uniform.
 
Put the dough ball down on the worksurface, and rotate it with your hands, cupping the ball and smoothing it as you spin it.
 
Try as much as possible to close up the openings on the bottom of the dough ball.
 
Put each of the dough balls into their own zippered plastic bag and brush the dough with olive oil. (I have a lazy man’s approach to this. I drizzle a little olive oil inside the bag. I press the bag to distribute the oil around the inside. Then, I put the dough ball inside, close the bag, and rotate the bag by grabbing it at each of the corners in succession, turning it and letting the ball roll around in between the oil-coated sides of the bag.)
 
Put the bagged balls into the fridge. For optimum flavor development, allow them to stay there for 48 hours before using.
 
 
THUS ENDETH PART I
 
Next week, Part II deals with committing the act of pizza.
 
We’ll get the dough out of the fridge, make the sauce, grate the cheese, and make a pizza.
 
It will change your world. You will gain confidence. You will change the course of mighty rivers and persuade warring nations to sign a peace agreement.
 
Until then, you can wrap your head around everything you’ve read here today, perform your due diligence, and get yourself together for the pizza to come.
 
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A lot of big-time professional artisan pizza makers once made their first pizza in a home oven just like yours. You can do it, too. My weird little award-winning book is one way to make it so. The book is about how to get from zero to pizza using the oven you already have. Besides learning to make great pizza, there’s not much else you can do with it. In fact, you can’t even use it to level a table leg if you buy the Kindle edition (which is less expensive than the print editions and has links to instructional videos and printable kitchen worksheets). To learn more about Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have, click here. ​​