If you love Pizza Hut pan pizza - make this at home! In this video, Nicole makes her easy recipe for a perfect pan pizza using a no knead crust. Baked in the oven with extra cheese and a deliciously herby pizza sauce, this crispy pizza will quickly become a go-to dinner recipe.
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00:00We're making pan pizza today, you know the one with the crispy, slightly greasy crust,
00:06that's really airy, crunchy, gooey on top? You know the one that came from the place with the
00:12red and white checkered tablecloths? This whole thing is made with the simplest of ingredients
00:17and with a no-knead crust and a no-cook sauce. We can do this. I did not unload that dishwasher.
00:24All right, so for the crust, we're just gonna start out with all-purpose flour. A lot of pizza
00:28crust recipes you'll see have bread flour. I don't think it's necessary. I think we can do this. So
00:34when you measure your flour, you know you don't want to go in like this or you're gonna end up
00:38with too much flour. You want to give it a little stir and then spoon it into your measuring cup.
00:44I like to spoon more than I need and then scrape off the top.
00:50Okay, while this is a no-knead dough, it is an overnight dough. The longer it has
00:55to develop, the better. The only thing you have to do when you make this pizza is plan ahead.
01:00A day ahead is best. I'm gonna go in with one and a quarter teaspoons of the yeast, which is about
01:07half a packet. I just stir it right in. I don't even bloom it. And then a teaspoon of salt and
01:12then some warm water. Don't look at this mess. This is a mess. Before I add the water in, I'm gonna stir
01:17in about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. This is just giving it some flavor. I'm gonna whisk
01:22the dry ingredients first just to get all that yeast evenly distributed. And then in goes our wet.
01:28And then we're just gonna stir it until it all comes together. Then once you get it together,
01:32you can kind of use your hands. This is not kneading. This is just incorporating. That's it.
01:38Nothing fancy. You gotta admit, that's probably the easiest dough you've ever made. You want to
01:44do this in a bowl that is bigger than what you see here because it is going to rise and expand.
01:50We want it to double, triple, quadruple. The bigger the better. Just don't be alarmed that
01:55this dough is a little bit wet and sticky. That is what you want. I'm just gonna cover it with some
02:03plastic wrap. So we want this to rest at minimum for eight hours, but preferred at least 24 hours.
02:10If you're going to do anything less than 24 hours, I just recommend leaving it out on the countertop.
02:15If you've got that full 24 hours, then just stick it in the fridge until you're ready.
02:19Obviously, I'm not gonna make you wait overnight. Let's go get the one I did yesterday.
02:28Voila. The hard part is done. You have to get started still a couple hours before you're ready
02:34to actually cook the pizza. So you want to bring this out, dust it with a little more flour to make
02:39it workable, and get it out of the bowl. You'll see it's still a little bit wet and sticky. That's
02:44what we want. And we're just gonna kind of fold it under and then just kind of seal it up. It's
02:50somewhat of a ball shape. See how it's got those bubbles in there? That's good. That means that
02:55yeast is doing its job. This is really soft. You can definitely still feel the moisture that's in
03:00your dough. That's what we want. Take your skillet. We're gonna grease it up. You want to go
03:05pretty liberal here and then get your hand all in and around and up the sides. This, of course,
03:11is going to keep it from sticking to the pan, but it's also going to be what the dough fries in,
03:17you know, kind of cooks in. That's what we want. Spread it out. This dough is still really cold
03:22from the fridge, so as it warms up to room temperature, it's also going to really relax
03:27and start to spread out. And then this rest, at least an hour but two is preferred. I'm just
03:32going to keep it covered and then just keep it kind of in a warm spot in your kitchen.
03:36For the sauce. Had to make a quick trip to the garden to get some fresh basil.
03:43Look, nobody had to see the garden. This is a no-cook sauce because these pizzas cook at
03:50at minimum 400 degrees. The sauce is going to get cooked. So I'm going to start with crushed
03:56tomatoes. You don't want a sauce that's too watery. That's the main thing we're trying to avoid.
04:02So I'm just going to dump that into a bowl. I think these are thicker than if you start
04:06with whole tomatoes and crush them yourself. Those can, you know, they have a lot of water
04:10in the can. And just as a little added insurance, I'm just going to kind of pat the top just to make
04:17sure there's no like big time water on it. You can see it kind of like soaking in right there.
04:23What we don't want to do is make that beautiful crust that we've worked so hard on soggy. No.
04:29We want saucy, crusty, cheesy, gooey. So to even thicken this up a little more, I'm going in with
04:35some tomato paste at a quarter cup and then just kind of mix that around until that tomato paste
04:41is all incorporated. To that, I'm going in with some olive oil and then I'm adding fresh garlic.
04:48You could also just do garlic powder, but if you have a press, you just want it really small.
04:53And then everything else just comes from your spice cabinet. Okay. So I'm gonna do about a
04:56half a teaspoon of basil. And I'm going to do that. My original thought was if you don't have
05:03fresh basil, put this dry basil in. But y'all remember, just got the fresh basil.
05:09You can use fresh or dry basil or both like I'm doing. And then a whole teaspoon of the oregano.
05:17Some salt. I love a good bit of black pepper in my tomato sauce. Finally, just sugar. While it
05:24is required to plan ahead to make pan pizza, what's really great is that it's all make ahead.
05:29I mean, you could do this three, four, five days before. You can do the crust one to two days
05:34before. Then when it comes time Friday night and you want to have some good pizza without going
05:40to the hut, you've got it and it's going to be better.
05:46Didn't even think I was going to nail it that much. Remember when they used to say like,
05:49I could have your pizza in 30 minutes or less? Well, once we come back, it'll be 30 minutes or less.
05:58Time to build and talk cheese. You want something with low moisture. So I'm using
06:03low moisture part skim mozzarella. And just like I've told you before, we want to shred our own
06:10cheese. We don't want the pre shredded stuff. It's not going to melt as easily. It's not going to be
06:17quite as creamy. Plus you get more bank for your buck when you just shred it yourself. Let's check
06:22our crust. This has been resting for a couple hours. You can see how it has spread nicely.
06:28And now we're just going to finish that spread all the way to the edges. I know it may look like
06:33it's swimming in oil, but it's okay. Oh yeah. Look how soft. If there are big bubbles, I'm going to
06:38go ahead and pop those, but just small bubbles. That's fine. Oh my God. This is gonna be so good.
06:42All right. Now we top. I like to put a little bit of cheese down first and make it go like
06:48to the edges because you know, when you get that kind of crinkly, cheesy, crispy crust,
06:52perfect bites. This is also going to be a barrier from the sauce to the crust. And then I like to
06:57go in with a little bit of parm and I'm purposely getting it on the outer edges. Okay. And then down
07:04with our sauce, spread it out. So I'm just going cheese and pepperoni. So now let's talk about the
07:14oven before I put it in. If I was doing just a thin crust pizza, I would keep my oven at like
07:18500, but because this does have to bake through, I'm lowering it a little bit. So I'm cooking this
07:23at 400 degrees. You also want to put your rack in the bottom third of your oven because what we're
07:28looking for is a really cooked bottom. So the closer it is to the bottom, the better. We want
07:34bottom heat when it comes to cooking this and the pizza stone is a great way. However, if you don't
07:38have one, do not go and buy one for this. I'll show you the solution to that when it comes out.
07:43And if you do have one, you want to preheat it with your oven and that should just take
07:48about 20 minutes. It's gonna be so good y'all.
07:58Now, now, now, before we take this out, we know this is all about the crust. So we have to peek
08:04at the crust. All this looks perfect, but underneath I need more color. You see that?
08:10Conveniently, you can just place this right on the stove top and this will only take a couple minutes
08:16so you can crank up your stove, but keep your eye on it so you don't burn it.
08:21This will kind of happen pretty fast. So just keep checking.
08:27Oh yeah. You see it? Oh, that is good. No pizza oven, no fancy nothing required. Now we worked
08:38so hard to get that crust crispy. We're not going to just let it sit because it'll start to steam.
08:43So we're going to get it out to a wire rack. You don't just want to put it on a cutting board.
08:48That's where it will really steam. You hear this?
08:55Yes. This right here is the best bite. Look at that. That's cheese toasted on bread.
09:03Saucy bite. We know what happens if you go to cut this pizza right now. Everything's
09:07just going to slide off. We're going to let it settle. It'll still be nice and hot.
09:12My mouth just started watering.
09:20Success. Let me show you why. Let me show you why it's a success. Do you see how airy this is?
09:26Not soggy. It's still dry. Got little pockets of air. Better look at that crust.
09:32One bite. Everyone knows the rules. I'm so excited.
09:41Everything about this is delicious. It's nostalgic. It's better than the original,
09:46if I do say so myself. There's just so much flavor. You don't need to knead. You don't
09:51need to cook the sauce. Keep it everything simple. Oh my god. Can you hear the crunch?
09:57This is one of those pizzas where nobody doesn't eat the crust. The crust literally is the best
10:03part and it's its own little like breadstick. You heard that? I think you should be making it
10:09today. It's a good day. I prefer to keep...
10:19She's good.