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Here’s how to stretch pizza dough, with step-by-step instructions and a video! As two cookbook authors and pizza experts, we’re sharing our tips and tricks to a perfectly round crust for your homemade pizza. Plus, find our why so many readers love our pizza dough recipe!
Hi, we’re Sonja and Alex—two cookbook authors and recipe developers who are pizza obsessed. We’ve spent the last decade researching the best way to make homemade pizza. Luckily, we’ve put in all the leg work so that you don’t have to! We’ve created our master recipe for pizza dough, which has been made by hundreds all over the world.
Today we’re answering the question: How do you stretch pizza dough? Do you need to throw pizza dough in the air? Don’t worry: you don’t need to get dough on your ceiling to stretch the perfect pizza. Here’s our step-by-step tutorial on how to stretch pizza dough.
Want to skip stretching? Try our popular pan pizza or sheet pan pizza instead!
How to stretch pizza dough
Step 1: Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Dust the top of the dough with flour.
Step 2: Use your fingers to gently the dough into a circle, flipping several times and adding a pinch of flour if it is too sticky.
Step 3: Once you have about an 8-inch circle, pick up the dough and gently drape it over the knuckles on both of your hands. Slowly rotate it around, allowing gravity to stretch it into a circle about 11 inches in diameter.
Step 4: If the dough starts to resist stretching, put it down and allow it to rest for a few minutes, at which point it will stretch more easily. Then repeat Step 3 until you have an 11-inch circle!
Watch the video
Some things, like shaping pizza dough or sourdough bread, are just easier to learn by watching! Even if we wrote the most perfect instructions for how to stretch pizza dough (and we hope we have), the best way to learn it is to watch it. Alex is the dough master in our household, so he put together this video tutorial of how to stretch pizza dough.
Pizza dough equipment & recipes
To stretch pizza dough, you actually don’t need any special tools—but of course, you’ve got to start with a great pizza dough recipe! You can use the stretching method with store bought pizza dough, of course. For the baking of the pizza, though, we recommend a few tools. Here’s what you need to stretch pizza dough and then bake it:
- Pizza dough: Here’s our master pizza dough recipe that we use every time we make it.
- Extra flour: Extra flour is helpful for stretching.
- Pizza peel: We recommend this aluminum pizza peel. Or if you’re ready to invest in your pizza habit, this super pizza peel makes it easy to slide onto the pizza stone.
- Pizza stone: We use this pizza stone and love it. (Plus, here’s how to clean a pizza stone.)
More pizza recipes
With your newfound stretching skills, we’ve got loads of pizza recipes and toppings to try! Here are some favorites:
- Try Margherita Pizza or Neapolitan Pizza Recipe
- Try these 35 Great Pizza Recipes or 25 Popular Pizza Toppings
- Make our Burrata Pizza, Mushroom Pizza, Spinach Pizza, Avocado Pizza, Taco Pizza, or Pizza Bianca
Like others who have commented, I can’t find the video. I don’t have an ad blocker on my iPad…
Cannot find the video anywhere. I’ve scrolled up & down a number of times searching. Where do I find it??
Right after the heading “Video: How to stretch pizza dough (1 minute)”. Do you happen to have an adblocker turned on. That would cause it to be hidden.
Hey, I think the pizza dough video has disappeared. I watched it last week and it was here and now it says it is here, but there isn’t a video.
I’m not sure what happened! I am seeing it now.