All-American Pizza and Homemade Pizza Sauce
A great crust is the key to a great pizza, and this quick pizza dough recipe from Red Star yeast makes the perfect crust for an All-America pizza loaded with gooey cheesy, pepperoni, and a spicy homemade pizza sauce.
Red Star Yeast, one of my favorite companies, and I have teamed up again. Red Star invited me to choose three recipes from their website to bake and blog about on Barbara Bakes. They’ll feature my photos with their recipes on their website with a link to my post. The first recipe I picked is their All-American Pizza.
We make pizza often at our house, and my family usually prefers a typical All-American pizza topped with a spicy sauce, pepperoni and cheese. I’ve include my homemade pizza sauce recipe, but feel free to use whatever pizza sauce you like.
One great thing about the recipe is that it uses instant yeast, so it’s quick to put together and only needs a 15 minute resting time before you make the pizza. I also liked that you sprinkle a little bit of your favorite cheese on the crust before baking it, which helps keep the crust from getting soggy.
Margherita pizza is one of my and my daughter’s favorite pizzas. Not quite as all american, but definitely a classic pizza. The crust is spread with olive oil instead of sauce, and topped with tomatoes, basil, and fresh mozzarella. I didn’t have fresh mozzarella and substituted shredded mozzarella. Grilled vegetables are also a perfect addition to a vegetarian pizza.
I doubled the recipe and made four 12-inch pizzas, one margherita and three pepperoni pizzas, for eight of us. The doubled recipe is listed below. For the original recipe, visit Red Star Yeast. You can also find Red Star Yeast on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
My family loved this pizza. The dough was easy to work with and the crust crisped up nicely on the bottom and edges, but was still soft and tender in the middle. I’ll definitely be making this recipe again.
All-American Pizza and Homemade Pizza Sauce
Ingredients
Dough
- 4 1/2 - 5 cups bread flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoons (1 package) Red Star Quick Rise yeast*
- 3 teaspoons salt
- 2 cup water
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
Homemade Pizza Sauce
- 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
- 1 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
- 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes in rich puree
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Instructions
Homemade Pizza Sauce
- In a small saucepan, sauté garlic in oil until tender. Stir in the remaining sauce ingredients. Bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until sauce reaches desired thickness. Sauce may be refrigerated for up to 1 week.
Dough
- In medium mixer bowl, combine 2 cups flour, yeast, and salt; mix well. Combine water and oil; heat to 120° to 130°F; add to flour mixture. Blend at low speed until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed.
- By hand, gradually stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. (I used my KitchenAid dough hook attachment.) Knead on floured surface 3 to 5 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball, cover, and allow it to rest for 15 minutes.
- Divide dough into 4 parts (2 parts if you want larger pizzas). With well-floured or greased fingers, press each half into greased 12- or 14-inch pizza pan.
- Sprinkle 1/4 cup of your favorite shredded cheese over dough to prevent a soggy crust. Spread prepared pizza sauce on each pizza (approximately 3/4 cup of sauce per pizza). Add your favorite toppings---mushrooms, onions, olives, green peppers, pepperoni, cooked Italian sausage, anchovies, etc. Cover with shredded cheese of your choice- Mozzarella, Parmesan and Asiago.
- Bake at 400°F for 25 to 30 minutes until edge is crisp and light golden brown and cheeses are melted. Serve immediately
Notes
*Use any of the Red Star instant yeast products for this recipe.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Red Star Yeast, but all opinions expressed are always my own.
More pizza recipes you might like:
Easy Pizza Monkey Bread, Barbara Bakes
Whole Wheat Pizza Dough, Barbara Bakes
Greek Pizza, Two Peas and Their Pod
Loaded Mini Taco Pizzas, Taste and Tell
Chicken Enchilada Pizza, How Sweet It Is
Do you have metric measures for the flour? I’m wondering if subbing 00 flour would compromise the texture of the dough. I’d like to make the dough the night before. Is there any reason why this wouldn’t work?
Hi Sadie – King Arthur Flour has a good chart for conversions https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart. There should be no problem making the dough the night before. Just be sure and put it in a large container because it will still rise in the fridge some. Also, allow plenty of time for it to come to room temperature before using. Enjoy!
Thanks Barbara. I’ve used the KAF chart many times for conversions, and it’s a great guide but not always foolproof. Unfortunately there’s no consistency in the weight conversions provided by KAF, Cooks Illustrated and other reliable sources, so when converting you can come up with a few possibilities depending on which chart you use. I was just curious if you had made the dough measuring the flour by weight instead of volume. I’ll experiment. Fortunately bread doughs are somewhat forgiving and flexible.
Hi Sadie – I do like weighing my ingredients more and more, and should start updating the recipes with grams as well. I don’t remember ever weighing the ingredients with this recipe. It is nice that doughs are so forgiving because even the weather can make a difference in the ratio of flour to water that you need. Let me know how you like the dough.
Hi Barbara, this recipe is for 4 or 2 pizzas? Because you say that is for 4 pizzas but then in the directions you divide the dough into 2 parts!
Thank you in advance!!
Hi Sara – it’s for two regular size pizzas, but if everyone wants to make they’re own, divide the dough into 4 individual-size pizzas. I’ll update the recipe. Enjoy!
I guess I have more of a question… on your bread and pizza recipes is the flour sifted? I am falling in love with your site! I have been so tired of recipes that don’t work and so far everything I make from you is a hit! Right now I have french bread rising beautifully! :o)
Hi Vanessa – thank you so much for the sweet compliment. I live in a very dry climate and have never found a need to sift flour. It’s my understanding that today’s flour is so much better that it really doesn’t need to be sifted. However, I do fluff my flour a bit in the flour bin before measuring it, and I never scoop the flour from the jar with the measuring cup. I always use a scoop to pour the flour in to the measuring cup. Scooping the flour can compact it and you’ll get more flour than you need. Thanks for the great question! I wish I had a loaf of French bread rising today. Enjoy!
Hey Barbara this is my favorite cooking site-not only for the baking but the pressure cooker:}
I know spaghetti sauce can be cooked in the pressure cooker, but what about pizza sauce? I prefer homemade to store bought any day. No preservatives and it tastes so much better. In fact it would be IMO much better in a batch. Some for now some to freeze for next time. Do you think that this recipe would work in the pressure cooker? Are you up to a challenge? I think I will try a single batch and keep you posted. But if you have any input, it would be awesome before I begin, I need to buy some crushed tomatoes in a 28 oz can first. Most pizza sauce I have seen call for tomato paste which I buy by the case at Costco. Keep up the fantastic work!
Hi Susan – what a sweet comment! Homemade is so much better. Yes, I think the recipe would work well in the pressure cooker. You could probably even start with diced tomatoes and tomato paste and just puree them after cooking until they’re the consistency you like. I would try a 5 minute cook time and then simmer it after pureeing to thicken it if necessary. Have fun!
Is this the one you made for Josh and I?! I really want to make it soon!
Oh, Barbara. You and yeast make a wonderful team. 🙂
This pizza looks incredible. Love the thick crust! Nothing better than a pizza like this after a long day. Or you know… whenever.