Quit buying frozen pizzas that don’t live up to the hype. Instead, make your own frozen pizzas from scratch! I’ve included recipes for my homemade pizza crust and homemade pizza sauce plus instructions for assembling frozen pizzas the whole family will love!
Frozen pizzas are sooo convenient, right? Pull it out of the box, pop it in the oven, and within 10-20 minutes you’ve got dinner!
But what about when those pizzas are lacking some flavor. Or don’t have your favorite toppings. Or contain ingredients that you aren’t super comfortable with for your family? What are you to do?
Make your own!
Homemade frozen pizza is incredibly simple. It’s no harder than making your own regular pizza. In fact, I managed to whip up all six pizzas I made for this post in less than two hours, and that includes the time for the dough to rise and to take all my pictures. If you aren’t documenting every step of the process you should be able to get them done significantly faster – especially if you have some hands helping you.
To make homemade frozen pizzas you are going to need all your pizza supplies – dough, sauce, cheese, and additional toppings – but also cake circles and plastic wrap. I used normal plastic wrap for my pizzas because I know they won’t be in the freezer for very long (hello five kids!) but if your pizzas will be in the freezer for any longer than a month I highly suggest you get something more suitable for the freezer such as this Press ‘n’ Seal Freezer Wrap.
I like the 12″ cake circles for my frozen pizzas because they are about the same size as a regular frozen pizza. They also fit well on the plastic wrap as you’ll see in the photos below. I’ve also used the 10″ circles to make slightly smaller pizzas. You could even use the small 6″ circles if you wanted to make a bunch of mini personal pizzas – the options are endless and totally up to you!
Before we get started, I highly encourage you to make your own pizza dough and pizza sauce for this recipe. The whole point of making your own pizzas is to control what goes on them! It’s also to save cash, which is more our family’s priority, but you do you.
If you don’t want to make a batch of pizza sauce (which by the way, is incredibly easy) then at least make your own crust. You could buy some frozen bread dough and roll it out but homemade pizza dough is AMAZING and will make these homemade pizzas that much better.
I’ll include my homemade pizza dough and homemade pizza sauce recipes down below so they are easy to find but like I said, they are worth the effort – which isn’t all that much!
Make your own frozen pizzas
1. Roll out your pizza dough to desired size and thickness
Each batch of my dough can make multiple pizzas, it simply depends on the size and crust thickness that you desire. I chose to make three 10″ crusts from each pizza at a normal thickness. Think hand tossed thickness. Four medium pizzas would result in thin crust but two would be very thick crust. This round I made a double batch of dough to get six pizzas total.
Your crust size will depend on the size of your cake boards, so make sure you know what size they are! I like rolling my crust out on my pastry mat so I can keep all the crust roughly the same size.
2. Par bake the crusts
In order for the crusts to support the toppings and stay the correct shape, they need to be par baked. This simply means that you bake the crust for a few minutes to set it in place. Transfer the crust from the pastry mat to a pizza pan and poke it with a fork. This will help eliminate any bubbles that could form during baking. You are going for crust, not a pita!
I bake the crusts for 5 minutes at 425*F and it is just enough to stop the crusts from rising but not enough that they would start browning or even crisping up. Transfer the pizzas to the cake circles once they come out and let them cool for a few minutes before adding toppings.
3. Add sauce and toppings
This is when things get fun! Want standard pepperoni pizzas, go for it. Want to get a little crazy with garbage pizza? Your choice! How about BBQ chicken pizza? Maybe taco pizza? Have fun! Load up your crust with whatever your heart desires.
4. Wrap it up!
Like I said above, I used standard plastic wrap because I know these pizzas will be gone in a few weeks. If you plan on keeping them in your freezer longer you should use something better suited for freezer storage.
I laid out my plastic wrap in a criss-cross formation. Expert advice: don’t do this with the window open and a breeze coming in. You might get incredibly frustrated by the amount of times you have to fix the plastic and almost get super frustrated and throw out a whole bunch when it won’t stay unfolded. Not that I’d know what that’s like or anything…
Place the pizza in the center and fold one side, then the opposite. The reason I don’t go bigger than a 12″ cake circle is because of the plastic wrap. Any bigger circle would not get fully covered by the plastic wrap I’m using. Once the four sizes are folded in I fold the corners under and secure them – all done!
5. Place in the freezer for later
These pizzas should get baked in a 425*F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until the crust is browned and the cheese is bubbly. Enjoy!
Homemade Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1 TBSP dry active yeast
- 8 oz warm water
- 1 TBSP oil
Directions
- Add flour, salt, sugar, and yeast to a stand mixer.
- Slowly add warm water and oil and turn mixer on low.
- Knead until dough pulls away from bowl and forms a ball. Dough should be slighly sticky but still able to be handled easily.
- Let rise for 45 min – 1 hour in greased bowl.
- Makes 2 large thin crust pizzas. Top as desired
- Bake at 425* until crust is browned and cheese is bubbly.
Homemade Pizza Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 – 28oz cans crushed tomato
- 2 – 28oz cans tomato sauce
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 1 TBSP sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground oregano
- 3 leaves fresh basil, finely chopped (optional)
Directions
- If desired, blend the crushed tomato using an immersion blender, food processor, or blender until smooth.
- Combine the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, and seasonings together in a large stock pot.
- Bring to a boil then turn down to low and simmer.
- Simmer on low up to several hours until reduced slightly.
- Pizza sauce is ready to use!
What are your favorite pizza toppings?
