Discard Pizza Dough

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I love homemade pizza. It’s so easy to whip together when you’re short on time and haven’t prepared anything for dinner in advance. Discard pizza dough is my favorite way to use up extra sourdough discard. I make pizza dough every week, and I always have sourdough discard on hand – – it’s a match made in kitchen carb heaven!

Discard pizza dough can be made even faster with a mixer. I used to knead the dough by hand, but then I realized I’d happily wash the dough hook in order to save the time kneading.

Any Discard Works in this Dough

Don’t worry if your discard hasn’t been fed in a while. If it’s a bit on the runny side, that’s okay. Just mix it up and you’re good to go!

If you’ve recently fed your discard and it’s still a bit bubbly but on its way down, that’s fine too.

If it’s active and you just made too much, use it! You can’t go wrong here. I’ve used all of these and they all work.

Yeast in Discard Pizza Dough

Yes we are using yeast. Good old fashion active dry yeast. That’s what makes this quick!

If you skip the yeast, you’ll need to use fed, active/bubbly starter and let it do its thing all day to rise. I love sourdough, and if I really plan ahead, I’m okay with sourdough pizza.

However, pizza is my “I didn’t plan/I don’t want to cook” kind of meal. So I’m not going to plan the night before dinner to feed my starter so the next morning I can start making pizza dough for dinner. That’s soooo not how I roll!

Full transparency – – sourdough bread and bagels? Hells yeah I plan for those! And by plan I mean I make them so much every week it’s just a thing I do (like breathing).

How to Make Discard Pizza Dough

I love using a scale when baking bread and working with sourdough. It really takes the guess work out of it. I’ll include standard measurements, too, but I highly recommend using/getting a cheap kitchen scale. Don’t be intimidated by the scale. We aren’t stepping on it 😉

• Weight out the water (232 grams) (not freezing, not scalding), sourdough discard (200 grams), yeast (6 grams), and honey (1 squirt) into the bowl on an electric mixer (or by hand if that’s your thing) and give it a quick stir.

• Add in all purpose flour (500 grams) (King Arthur can’t be beat) and salt (10 grams).
• Using the dough hook, begin mixing on the stir setting, or the lowest setting of your mixer.
• Once a shaggy dough has formed (where you can’t see water anymore) add in the oil (22 grams).

• Mix for about 5 minutes on low until a smooth ball appears. (first image is after 1 minute, the second is after 5 minutes)
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel until the dough doubles in size, or about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (the third image is after doubling)

How to Make Pizza with Discard Dough

• Once doubled, divide the discard pizza dough into 2 parts (for 2 medium pizzas), or 3 parts (for 3 cast iron pan pizzas). Keep the un-used dough covered while working with your piece of dough.
• Using 1 part of the dough, spread it out (using your hands) on a clean counter. If it keeps shrinking back up, pick and up and hold from the edges while letting the weight of the dough stretch itself. Place it back down, onto a piece of parchment paper, and finish stretching it out.

• Spread a thin layer of olive oil around the edges of the dough (optional) and a sprinkle of garlic salt (optional) over the dough.
• Layer with sauce, cheese, and your toppings of choice. We have been loving ham, jalapeños, and artichokes, lately. Super weird yet crazy delicious.

• Hold the parchment paper and slide the pizza (and parchment) onto a pizza pan. Bake 1 pizza at a time (with the parchment paper), at 425 degrees for about 12 -15 minutes, until the crust is golden, or until the crust is as dark as you’d like.

• For cast iron pan pizzas, spread oil in a hot pan, spread out the dough into the pan, and add toppings just like above. When the bottom is golden, put the whole pan in the oven on high broil and broil for 2-3 minutes, until a light black char appears on top.

Storing Discard Pizza Dough

This dough comes together super quick, but maybe you don’t want all of it tonight. It stores well, too! Take a portion of the dough and form it into a ball. Cover the dough with a light layer of oil and seal in a plastic bag. Make sure the bag is bigger than the dough as it may rise in the fridge! I had a serious muffin top incident wrapping my dough in just plastic wrap!

When you are ready to use it, just take it out, preheat your oven, and begin making your pizza as usual. It stays for 1-2 days in the fridge.

If you want back up discard pizza dough in the freezer, do the same as above, but make sure you squeeze out any excess air from the bag, seal it up, and pop it in the freezer. When you’re ready to use it, take the frozen dough out, spray/oil a pizza pan/bowl, place the dough on the pan/bowl and cover with plastic wrap until it defrosts and has risen again. Then bake as usual.

Discard Pizza Dough is an Easy Mid-Week Meal

Homemade pizza has become my go-to for a last minute dinner idea. When I’m about to head out the door for school pick, I’ll throw the ingredients in a bowl and set the mixer with a 5 minute timer while we grab shoes and coats. I turn off the mixer, cover it and head out the door. By the time we get home and I’ve thrown some snacks at the kids, the dough is ready to go!

Discard pizza dough is quick, easy, delicious, cheap, and everyone eats it! AND it uses up extra sourdough discard. It’s practically a super-food (fully aware it’s not though, just saying)!

What if I Don’t Have 200 Grams of Discard?

No problem! Any amount works. You just have to calculate that in.

Here’s how: My recipe is based on a total of 600 grams of flour and 332 grams of water.

Whatever about of discard you’re using, let’s say 100 grams, divide it by 2, and then subtract that number from the flour and from the water.

So… 100 grams of discard divided by 2 equals 50. 600 grams of flour minus 50 is 550 grams of flour.

Then, take the total water of 332 grams of water minus 50 which is 282 grams of water.

You would use 550 grams of flour, 282 grams of water, and your 100 grams of discard.

Does that make sense? You have reduce the flour and water amounts by the amount of discard. Let me know if you have any questions and I’m happy to walk you through it.

If you try my discard pizza dough I’d love to know what you think. I hope you love it as much as we do. Thanks for stopping by!

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