Super Easy Homemade Pizza Crust

Tonight I wanted to make pizza, but I didn't particularly feel like waiting for the dough to rise.  After looking online and finding a few ok-sounding recipes, I went to gather the ingredients in my kitchen when I read the back of the yeast packet and found just what I was looking for.  The recipe I followed is from a packet of Fleischmann's pizza yeast.  I couldn't tell you exactly what makes pizza yeast different than regular yeast, but I used it once before in a crust recipe and it worked perfect.

I started out by mixing one cup of the flour, the yeast packet, sugar, and salt in a bowl.  I added the oil (I used olive oil) and the warm water and mixed everything together.

Then I gradually added 3/4 cup more flour and used my hands to knead the dough and fully mixed it together until it formed in a soft ball.

The recipe indicated that you could knead the dough "if needed", so I just continued to use my hands for about a minute.  I then spread the dough out on a non-stick pizza pan.

I decided to use a jar of pasta sauce for the pizza because of the extra flavor, and ended up using about 1/3 of the jar.

Then I added the cheese.  I had a package of blended italian cheese and mozzarella so I used both--I used a total of about 3/4 cup of cheese.  I then sprinkled about a tablespoon of italian seasoning over the cheese.

I baked the pizza in the oven for 12 minutes and it was perfectly cooked and smelled fantastic!

The finished pizza tasted really good.  It was crispy and reminded me of a flatbread (I'm already getting ideas for other uses...).  I would definitely pick making this crust again over one of the cheap frozen pizzas any day of the week, so it's a good basic recipe to keep on hand for a quick meal. I considered mixing some seasonings into the dough but decided to stick to the standard this time.  I'm already thinking of putting some garlic powder and parmesan cheese in the crust next time around!

Super Easy Homemade Pizza Crust Recipe

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 envelope pizza yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup very warm water
3 tablespoons oil
Pizza sauce
Cheese
Toppings

Instructions:

Heat oven to 425 degrees F.  Combine 1 cup of the flour, pizza yeast, sugar, salt, and oil in a large bowl, then add the warm water and mix well.  Gradually add 3/4 cup of flour, kneading dough with hands, until you can form it into a soft ball.  Spread dough onto greased or non-stick pizza pan and add sauce and toppings.  Bake for 12-15 minutes until cheese is browned and crust is fully cooked.