October is National Pizza Month! This is a celebration we can get behind in my house. We love pizza. take out, dine-in, frozen, and homemade are all welcome here. Homemade pizza is a great, kid-friendly, family activity.
I have many fond memories of making pizzas at home when I was a kid and I hope to pass that along to my kids. Making pizza a home can be as simple or as involved as you’d like it to be. This can be a quick weeknight meal or a fun weekend activity.
I’m general, you need a base, a sauce, cheese, and toppings. We love doing “personal” pizzas that allow us to customize to our preference.
Super Simple
The easiest homemade pizza is really more of a “semi-homemade.” Check out the offerings at your favorite grocery store for premade dough and sauce. There are so many options and you can usually find something to meet most dietary needs.
We’ve used Mama Mary’s pre-made thin pizza crusts and their personal pizza crusts, as well as Mama Mary’s pizza sauce. The pizza crusts, sauce, a bag of cheese, and pepperoni cost less than $15.00 total and can feed the whole family. You will likely have leftover sauce and toppings. Target offers the Good & Gather brand for DIY pizza and all ingredients come to less than $12 with tax!
Get Your Hands Dirty
Want to make it all at home. My friend swears by this from-scratch pizza dough recipe from Bobby Flay. It’s easy and takes minimal prep time, but does require at least 2 hours from start to finish.
We make our pizza dough in our bread maker. It takes about 90 mins and then we stretch it out and place it on our personal pizza pans.
As for the sauce, you can of course start with fresh tomatoes and crush them and go from there, but who has time for that? I like to start with a can of tomato sauce and doctor it from there. There are so many options for jazzing up a can of tomato sauce to make it a pizza sauce and if you have extra sauce you can always freeze it for a future lunch or dinner.
Pizza Making Tips
When it comes to pizza dough you don’t want to use a rolling pin or any other heavy item that will push out the air. Pizza dough is best when hand-stretched. Maybe try your skills at spinning and throwing.
You don’t have to use tomato sauce, experiment with other options, barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese with chicken or try olive oil, pesto or an alfredo. Your pizza, your choice!
Get creative with the toppings! We check our fridge and cabinets for fun options. Olives, pineapple, sun-dried tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers, bacon bits and different cheese mixes have all made it onto one of our pizzas at some point.
Check out the spice cabinet. I like to sprinkle Italian seasoning or at least oregano on my pizza.
Drizzle or brush olive oil on the crust and season with spices or cheese.
Alternative Pizza Ideas
For a quick lunch try pizza on an English muffin or bagel. Try a pizza bake like this one from Pillsbury that uses biscuits and jarred sauce.
Maybe you just want to celebrate National Pizza month without all of the extra work. There’s nothing wrong with a frozen pizza; we tend to dress these up too. We add extra toppings and seasoning to frozen pizzas to make them our own. Then, of course, there is always takeout! Check out some local restaurants for great pizza without dirty dishes.
