Give Homemade Pizza Dough A Texture Upgrade In One Step

If you're making pizza at home, there are many ways to change up the dough, from swapping out the yeast for baking powder to make a thin, cracker-like crust to making pizza crust with something more unexpected like a can of tuna or the equally high protein canned chicken as the base. For standard-style, yeasted pizza dough, however, making a better crust doesn't require any added ingredients or unusual exchanges, but instead requires just a single step. According to Nicole Bean, whose family runs the Houston mini-chain Pizaro's Pizza Napoletana, resting the dough greatly improves the pizza.

As Bean tells The Takeout, "Rest provides the dough the opportunity to relax, softening the texture and making it easier to stretch." She says that any time the dough gets a chance to rest, this results in improved gluten structure, but adds as a caveat, "Gluten-free dough typically needs a longer rest period for the structure to form."

Nicole Bean states that resting the dough can take place at any time after the ingredients are mixed, but in her opinion, "Rest prior to stretching is a good rule of thumb." She also notes that an optimum temperature for resting the dough is between 68 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, so take that into account when setting your thermostat.

The length of time the dough needs to rest can vary depending on when you plan to cook the pizza. Bean says the resting period can be as short as 10 to 20 minutes. If you won't be making the pizza right away, you can wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate it for up to three days. Pizza dough can also be frozen for later use. In both cases, however, you will need to let the chilled dough rise once again, which may take over an hour on top of whatever time is necessary for it to thaw it, if frozen.

While toppings often get the glamor in the pizza world (as well as sets of pizza topping rules), any good pie begins with a well-rested crust.