New York Crust (Our Favorite Pizza Dough Recipe) (2024)

Elevate your homemade pizza with the perfect New York crust. This New York pizza dough recipe yields a tender chew and just the right thickness for topping. And it's easy, promise! Here's how to do it.

Why this recipe works

As a native of the tri-state area, New York-style pizza crust will always be my favorite. It's based on classic Neapolitan thin crust, but has a few additional things going for it. This recipe:

• Has the perfect amount of tender chew
• Holds up to topping, but is still foldable
• Loves all the pizzas YOU love (top it any way you want, and it'll fit right in)

New York crust browns beautifully due to the hint of sugar, and olive oil keeps it supple and tender. I've been making this recipe weekly for a LONG time, tweaking it to perfection. I'm so glad to finally share it with you.

What you'll need to make this recipe

The dough comes together with just a few ingredients. Here's what you'll need:

• Bread flour has a higher protein content than all-purpose flour, which gives the dough its strength and perfect chewiness
• Instant yeast is different from active dry yeast. They look about the same, but the instant variety doesn't need to be mixed with water to activate it.
• Use salt that isn't iodized and doesn't have additional additives that might interfere with yeast fermentation. I use fine sea salt.

How to make it

Here's all you need to do to make New York-style pizza dough. You can see all the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post.

1. Mix together the dry ingredients. Make sure that the yeast, sugar, and salt are well-distributed throughout the flour.
2. Mix in the water until all the flour is hydrated. Then mix in the olive oil.
3. Knead for 10 minutes in a stand mixer with the dough hook or by hand.
4. Let the dough rise in the fridge for at least 24 hours, up to 72.

Equipment

You don't really need anything fancy to make this recipe. But if you're getting into making pizza at home on a regular basis, a few basic tools go a long way toward a great result. Here's what I use:

• Digital kitchen scale for measuring ingredients accurately. I use this literally every day. It dramatically improves all kinds of baking.
• Instant yeast
• Stand mixer for kneading
• Pizza stone for retaining heat in the oven and creating a crisp crust. Pizza steels are a very popular alternative these days.
• Pizza peel for transferring pizza into and out of the oven
• Parchment to make oven transfer easier

Expert tips and FAQs

How to make a classic cheese pie

Top the stretched dough with:

• ¾ cup of thick tomato sauce. I use my favorite homemade tomato sauce mixed with a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste to add thickness.
• 1 ounce of grated pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano
• 4 ounces shredded mozzarella. I use good old whole milk, low-moisture mozzarella and shred it right before topping.

How to make a classic white pie

Brush the stretched dough with olive oil. Then top with:

• 4 ounces of whole-milk ricotta. You can spread it evenly or dollop it
• 1 ounce of grated pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano
• 4 ounces shredded mozzarella. I use good old whole milk, low-moisture mozzarella and shred it right before topping.
• Freshly ground black pepper
• For the pizza pictured below, I also added a couple of ounces of thickly sliced deli ham, diced up and sprinkled onto the pizza right before the mozzarella // and some snipped chives after the pie came out of the oven

More of our favorite pizza recipes

Here are some of our favorite pies. You can use this New York pizza dough recipe for any of them!

• Prosciutto and arugula pizza with balsamic drizzle
• Cauliflower pizza amatriciana
• Spring vegetable pizza with asparagus and mushrooms
• Watercress pesto pizza

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