So, you made a large batch of pizza dough, and somehow, you have managed to have a lot of pizza dough left that you need to utilize in the coming days. If you want to preserve the dough for more than a week, the ideal option is to leave it inside the freezer.
But, when you leave it inside the freezer, the biggest issue happens with defrosting the pizza dough. Since everything is portioned in individual pizza dough balls, thawing these individual servings shouldn’t be as difficult.
This article will walk you through the top tips you need to follow to how to defrost your pizza dough.
How can you Freeze your Pizza Dough?
If this is your first-time freezing pizza dough, be assured that the dough freezes quite well and you shouldn’t have a hard time with it. Freezing the dough also means that you always have some good homemade pizza dough at your disposal anytime you need it.
So, what are the steps involved in freezing your pizza dough?
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Prepare the dough
Your first step is to prepare the pizza dough as per your most followed recipe. You can use the kneading or no-knead recipe, depending on what you think would work best for you. Once you have kneaded the dough, you need to let it ferment and rise. This is crucial. Once it has risen, the last step is to make individual dough balls for present use and future storage.
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Prep for freezing
Once you have sorted the individual pizza dough ball, the next step you need to focus on is prepping the dough for freezing. Ideally, we’d recommend starting with your airtight container. This is a necessity. Also, cover individual dough balls with parchment and brush the top with oil.
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Place it in the freezer
Once everything is sorted, the last step is to place it in the freezer. Typically, you can store the pizza dough for up to 3 months in the freezer.
How to Defrost Pizza Dough?
Once you have frozen the pizza dough, the next step is to take it out of the freezer and use it as per your meal requirements. The main benefit to freezing pizza dough is that you have access to pizza dough anytime you want. It’s amazing for meal prep and allows you to eat fresh homemade pizza at any point in time.
But, when you freeze your pizza dough, the biggest issue that pops up is with the defrosting process. Given that the frozen pizza dough is literally rock solid, it isn’t surprising that you need to focus on finding ways to defrost the pizza to be able to roll it out and eat it at your convenience.
We will discuss more on that in this guide:
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Use a refrigerator
As common sense would suggest, the easiest way to defrost your pizza is by taking it out of the freezer a day before and then transferring it to the normal fridge. Keeping the frozen dough in the fridge for a minimum of 10-12 hours should be enough to thaw the frozen pizza dough and allow you to roll it out comfortably and make any pizza recipe of your choice.
But, keep in mind that when you transfer the dough from the freezer to the fridge, the temperature rise will activate the yeast in the dough and it will restart the fermentation process again. So, always leave the frozen dough in a bowl with enough room for expansion.
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Use a cold water bath
If you aren’t about the long waiting game and you want to thaw the frozen pizza dough quickly, the use of a cold-water bath should work. It is not the quickest method but it is a lot quicker than the refrigerator method wherein you have to wait for a whole day before the dough is thawed.
For this method, here’s what you need to do:
- Take a large vessel and fill it with room temperature water
- Transfer your frozen pizza dough ball into an airtight zip lock bag and close the lock
- Once done, transfer the zip lock bag into the large bowl with water and leave it around in there
You need to wait for one to two hours before the dough should entirely defrost. Many use warm water to speed up the process but we would recommend not using warm water since that will immediately activate the yeast in the dough, restarting the fermentation process again.
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Use a microwave
The last and possibly the quickest method to defrost the frozen pizza dough is by using a microwave. But, it is quite a risky process too. If you don’t know the optimal time for heating the frozen dough in the microwave, there are chances that you’d end up cooking the dough, which is possibly the last thing you want.
What you can do instead is use the defrost setting in the microwave and switch it on for thirty seconds at a time. Open the microwave and check the dough’s consistency and appearance before you pop it back in for another thirty seconds if needed. The thirty-second increment works well in this case.
Once you have defrosted the frozen pizza dough in the microwave, we’d recommend that you leave it out on the countertop for 30 minutes before you roll it out to make the pizza of your choice. Resting the dough for 30 minutes reactivates the yeast, allowing you to have a fluffier and chewy texture of the pizza, which you will be quite appreciative of.
Conclusion
Whatever defrosting method you use, the only thing you need to keep in mind is to keep the dough cool. You don’t want to cook the dough by any means. You also don’t want the dough to become warm in places and then be cold in other spots. That will ruin the texture, taste, and quality of the dough as well. We hope this article gives you a comprehensive idea about defrosting frozen pizza dough in multiple ways.