Par-Bake Homemade Pizza For The Crispiest Crust

Making the perfect pizza at home that has a crispy pizzeria-like crust can be tricky. While wood-fired ovens can cook pizzas with a distinctive smoky flavor in minutes, recreating that inimitable texture and taste with a regular home oven takes practice and technique. Par-baking homemade pizza crust is one such tactic that creates a pie with the crispiest crust.

All you need to do is roll out or hand-stretch your dough as normal before spreading a small amount of sauce on it and placing it in the oven for three to four minutes. At this point, the crust will have puffed up slightly and perhaps even developed some color. Remove it from the oven and add more toppings before giving it a final bake.

Failing to preheat the oven for long enough is just one of the common mistakes people make when preparing homemade pizzas. This is because the dough needs an initial burst of high heat to rise swiftly; without it, the crust won't develop those pillowy, charred, and blistered areas that are full of flavor and texture. Known as oven spring, this phenomenon creates little pockets of air inside the dough, which lends it a complex mouthfeel and structure. The only problem is that this fierce heat can often cause the cheese to melt and the toppings to burn before the crust has risen and set to perfection. Par-baking the crust before adding the toppings is the easiest fix for this timing issue.

Par-baking your pizza crust prevents it from getting soggy when you add ingredients that are packed with moisture, such as mozzarella cheese or briny olives and jalapeños from a jar. This means that each slice is guaranteed to be solid and crisp on both the outer edges and the bottom, instead of floppy, limp, and pale. Drizzling olive oil over the perimeter of your dough and sprinkling over some seasonings is a simple way to amp up homemade pizza crust just before par-baking it. However, you can just as easily add infused oils afterwards too to lend your pie an inviting garlicky aroma, or scatter over fresh herbs for color and freshness.

One of the other benefits of par-baking pizza crust is that you can do it earlier in the day and set it aside for later. This is particularly useful if you know that you need to get dinner on the table fast for a herd of kiddos. When you're ready to eat, simply top your par-baked pie while your oven preheats. After a quick stint in a hot oven, your pizza will be gooey with cheese on the surface but crispy and golden on the bottom.