Do you like pizza? If yes, which kind? Do you prefer fast-food pizza, frozen pizza, or the ones from high-end restaurants? Do you like making pizza at home? If you answered yes to the latter question, we are sure that you have a hard time storing your pizza dough.
To be fair, the process is quite complicated, involves a lot of steps and it is not the easiest task in the world to achieve. You have to ensure that the dough has risen, is well fermented, and also hasn’t gone bad before you can even consider making some pizza with it.
If you are equally confused about storing your pizza dough the right way, we have some of the best tips lined up for you in this guide.
What is a Pizza Dough?
For beginners with zero knowledge about cooking, let us first discuss the basics of pizza dough. These are nothing but leavened wheat-based fermented dough that is used to make the crust of the pizza.
The pizza dough often contains a started or yeast-based rising agent in it, which is responsible for fluffing up the dough, creating air pockets, and ensuring that it rises and becomes fluffy once it’s baked well.
How Long Can You Store the Pizza Dough?
To be fair, pizza dough is fermented, which means that storing it for a very long period in the fridge might not spoil it but it might not be safe for consumption anymore.
Some of the homemade pizza dough stays fine in the fridge for up to 5 days. But, there are a few other variants and recipes of pizza dough that can sustain themselves in the freezer for up to 3 months. We won’t recommend storing the pizza dough for that long.
The amount of yeast you have added to the pizza dough makes a lot of difference. If your dough has a lot of yeast or starter in it, we’d recommend you make all the pizza instead of storing it for a very long time.
But, if the yeast amount is fairly less, the dough can store in the fridge for a longer period, making it a much better option as opposed to the ones with more yeast in them. You can also store the dough in the freezer but then again, you have to thaw the dough before you can use it, which can be quite a pain.
How Can You Store Pizza Dough?
Once you have successfully made the dough and rested it on the side, the next step in the process is to focus on storing the dough. To be fair, the process isn’t as complicated as you think. But, there are indeed a few different factors that you have to keep in mind.
Unless you are making pizza for a lot of people, it makes sense why you would knead and prepare a lot of pizza dough. But, if you are one of those people that genuinely enjoy meal prepping their pizza ahead of time, making a larger batch, in that case, is ideal too.
Here’s what you need to do for storage:
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Portion out the Pizza Dough
The first step in storing the pizza dough is to portion it out. Once you have kneaded the dough and let it rise well in a dark and warm place, the next thing you have to do is find ways to portion it out. This is especially important if you have made a larger batch.
Once you portion out the dough into individual spheres, what you can do is store them in a box covered in parchment paper to separate one from the other. This will prevent the dough from sticking to the container you are storing it in.
Zip lock bags work fairly well but we’d recommend that you use a deep vessel pot or pan for easy storage.
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Storing on the Counter
Should you store your pizza on the counter? Well, this depends on when you plan to make the pizza. If you have some leftover pizza dough and you plan to use it to make more pizza in an hour or two, leaving it on the counter is safe and should be a good option.
However, if you don’t plan to make any use of the rest of the dough, we won’t recommend leaving it around on the counter.
Since the yeast is still active in the dough, extra warmth being left on the kitchen counter will over ferment the dough, leading to a pungent and rotten smell and taste in the dough. Instead, you need to focus on chilling the pizza dough so that the yeast doesn’t ferment any further.
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Storing in the Fridge
This is probably the most ideal and safe way to store your extra pizza dough. What we’d recommend is sectioning the pizza dough into individual balls and then storing them in an airtight container.
You can then either store them in the normal refrigerator for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months. If you leave it in the freezer, you’d have to take it out the night before and place it in the normal fridge to thaw.
If the dough doesn’t thaw, there’s no way you’d be able to roll it out or make a pizza out of it. So, letting it out in the normal fridge from the freezer is crucial. Also, always ensure that when you are ready to roll out the dough, use extra flour on the counter space. This will prevent the dough from getting stuck to the bottom of the counter.
Also Check : How to Defrost Pizza Dough?
Conclusion
These are some of the easy and effective ways to batch-make your pizza dough and then store it away for later use. Just ensure that you focus on using good-quality ingredients for keeping the freshness of the dough intact. Also, if needed, use less yeast in the flour mixture if you plan to store it for a longer period.