When I was a grad student on a tight budget, I found that homemade pizza was a cheap way to eat decent food. Around 2009, I calculated that my wife and I could both eat dinner for around $2. Food prices have gone up since then, and I buy higher quality ingredients now that I can afford it, but it’s still a low cost way to feed the family.

This is a recipe I spent a long time refining. I went through a lot of iterations, trying different crust recipes and tweaking them until I found something that consistently turns out well.

Over the coming months, I will be adapting this recipe into something I can make from the rawest ingredients I can get my hands on. Once I’ve covered all of the individual ingredients I’ll post an updated version of the recipe.

Time

• Prep Time: 25 minutes
• Cook Time: 10 minutes
• Waiting Time: 1 hour
• Total Time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Equipment

• Mixer
• Grater
• Pizza Stone
• Pizza Peel

Ingredients

Dough

• 1 Packet Active Dry Yeast¹
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup corn meal

Sauce

• 1 24 oz jar spaghetti sauce
• 1 8 oz can of tomato paste

Toppings

• 8 oz block of Mozarella Cheese²
• 8 0z block of Sharp Cheddar Cheese²
• 8 oz block of Cream Cheese
• 8 oz pepperonis

Instructions

1. In a measuring cup, mix warm water, yeast and sugar.

   

2. Wait 10 minutes for the yeast to activate. When it’s done, it should look like this

   

3. In a mixing bowl, mix together the yeast mixture, all-purpose flour, and 1.5 tbsp olive oil.³ When it’s mixed, add whole wheat flour until it reaches a nice doughy consistency, like this:

   

4. Coat the dough with the remaining olive oil and cover the bowl with a towel. Leave the dough to rise for at least an hour. If you’re planning ahead I recommend making the dough 12-24 hours in advance and letting it rise in the refrigerator. While you wait for the dough to rise, you can prepare the sauce and toppings.

5. Mix together the jar of spaghetti sauce and tomato paste.⁴ This will create a thicker sauce.

6. Grate your cheddar and mozzerella cheese. I recommend grating pieces of cheddar and mozzerella together, so that the shredded cheese mixes together as you grate it.

7. When your dough is about ready, put your pizza stone⁵ in the oven, and preheat to 500 degrees (or as hot as your oven will get).

8. Lay out your pizza peel, and spread half of your corn meal out on the peel.⁶

   

9. Split your ball of dough into two equal pieces. Spread one ball out on the peel on top of the corn meal. Spread it out with your hands or use a rolling pin. You don’t want it to get too thin, but it should take up most of the peel.

   

10. Rub a little bit of olive oil into the top of the spread out dough.

    

11. Spread the sauce out on the dough.

    

12. Take half your block of cream cheese. Cut off small chunks (1/2 to 1 tsp each) and spread them out on the pizza.

    

13. Sprinkle the shredded mozzerella and cheddar mixture out over the sauce and cream cheese.

    

14. Spread pepperonis over the pizza.

15. Turn the oven down to 425.⁷

16. Transfer the pizza from the peel to the pizza stone. This is done by shaking the peel back and forth while the pizza slides off onto the stone. If you didn’t use enough corn meal for your pizza, it may be stuck to the peel and be very hard to get off. This is the hardest part of making a pizza with a pizza stone, and no matter how much you read about it online, there’s no substitute for practice.

17. Bake for about 10 minutes. You’ll take it out when the crust is golden brown. Transfer the pizza back to the peel. This tends to be easier than getting the raw dough off of the peel.

18. Transfer the pizza to a cutting board to cut. Most pizza peels are pretty soft, and won’t hold up to having many pizzas cut on them. Your finished pizza should look like this:

    

Variations

There are lots of ways to vary this recipe:

• Before I had kids, I typically split the dough into three pizzas instead of two.
• Obviously, toppings can vary wildly. I’ve used the same crust with all sorts of toppings, including different sauces (some day I might cover my alfredo sauce).
• My wife prefers fresh mozzerella to the grated mixture with cheddar cheese. This will probably be the approach I take with my scratch pizza.
• Instead of a pizza stone and peel, you can make a deep dish pizza. At my house we have pans made for deep dish pizza, but I used to cook them in my cast-iron skillet.

Footnotes