Here's My Pizza Recipe, That'll Beat Any Takeaway Pizza And Costs Massively Less!!

There's a really good reason why pretty much every town and village you go to will have at least one pizza restaurant - it's very profitable!

Ever wondered why pizza restaurants offer so many deals? It's very simple, it's pretty cheap to make a pizza, and the margins a restaurant can make on this popular fast food can be huge!!

I've worked in a pizza restaurant, and I've seen what a pizza actually costs to make and what they sell for, and the difference is huge! It doesn't mean you're being ripped off, of course; every business is there to make a profit, and these days with the escalating costs of raw ingredients, power, gas and staffing costs, never mind the costs of renting a property and paying taxes, that profit gets eaten up pretty quickly, but on the whole, in the restaurant world, the humble pizza is a profitable item to put on the menu.

As a pizza fan, pizza is certainly something I often choose when hungry and want a quick meal, more often than not, ordered from a restaurant; I'm getting hungry just thinking about pizza, but even with the multiple deals being offered by restaurants, I'm always annoyed at myself when the pizza arrives, as I don't think I've spent under £20 on a pizza deal for years, and actually, that's a nuts amount of money to spend on something that I can buy from a supermarket far cheaper, or better still make myself for massively less!

Having worked in the pizza restaurant industry for many years, I've made the odd few thousand pizzas in my restaurant career and can knock up a pizza dough from scratch in no time, plus of course, a tasty tomato sauce as well after all that's a big part of the flavour of a pizza isn't it, and it's so easy to make, not to mention cheap!

In fact, I love pizza and making pizza so much that I actually had a wood-burning pizza oven built into my garden back in 2013, before the pizza ovens you can buy in all the shops were so readily available! It cost me a small fortune and was back when I actually had money and could afford that sort of luxury garden fixture! It was massive but pretty awesome; I was fun pizza-making in the garden!

Sadly when I got divorced, I left that home, and the house was sold, but it did increase the value of the house, so not a total waste of money, but I do miss that oven!

Now I don't suggest going out and buying a wood-burning pizza oven for your garden; if you have an oven in your home, you're all set to make homemade pizza, which tastes better than supermarket or takeaway pizza and can cost you far less. It's also fun for the kids to get involved in as well, they love making their own pizzas, and it's a valuable lesson in being more creative in the kitchen for them.

Below is my recipe and method for making pizza and pizza sauce at home. It's easy and delicious and works every time!

Making Your Own Pizza

Pizza dough Ingredients:

• 500g plain or bread flour

• 5g sugar

• 5g salt

• 1 package of active dry yeast

• 350 ml of warm water

• 30 ml olive oil (can be skipped)

Instructions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the warm water and sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it sit for about 5 minutes or until it becomes foamy.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. If you have an electric food mixer, the next bit is easier.

3. Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. If you have a machine add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and slowly add the water until the ingredients are well combined.

4. Transfer the dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 5-7 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. If the dough is too sticky, you can add a little more flour, about 1 tablespoon at a time, while kneading. With an electric mixer, pop it on a medium setting for about 5 minutes.
   

1. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a greased bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place for about 1-2 hours or until it doubles in size.

2. After the dough has risen, punch down the dough to release any air bubbles. Transfer it back to the floured surface and knead for another minute, and then pop it back in the bowl, cover and let it rise again for about 30 minutes.

3. Divide the dough into six equal portions/balls and pop on a tray and or plate and cover again and leave for 30 minutes. You can skip this bit if you are short of time, but it does produce a better pizza in my opinion.

4. Roll out each portion of dough into your desired pizza shape and thickness. You can use a rolling pin or simply stretch the dough with your hands. This recipe is designed to make a thinner style pizza; for thicker pizzas, this recipe will make 4, not 6, pizzas.

5. Transfer the rolled-out dough onto a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet or pizza stone.

6. Brush the surface of the dough with olive oil to prevent it from becoming soggy.

7. Add your favourite pizza toppings, such as tomato sauce, cheese, vegetables, and meats. I like to use up what I have in the fridge for toppings, especially the last bits of cheese and veggies. This saves money and prevents food waste.

8. Bake the pizza in the preheated oven for about 12-15 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown and the cheese is bubbly and melted.

9. Remove the pizza from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes before slicing and serving.

The cost of making this dough, when I made it, was around £1. I used own brand flour from Tesco and a single package of dried yeast, again own brand Tesco. The olive oil I already had, but it's included the cost of what I used in the recipe. The sugar and salt I had and the water was from the kitchen tap.

I like to make my own pizza sauce. For convenience, you can, of course, buy this in a supermarket; Tesco offer its own brand 200g jar of pizza sauce for £1.65, which is fine. Below is my recipe for the homemade pizza sauce I like to make:

2x 500g cartons of tomato Passata - Tesco offer a carton for 69p each

2x teaspoons dried garlic or about 5 cloves of fresh

2x teaspoons dried oregano

1x teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

Splash of vinegar - apple cider is best, but you can use any vinegar you have. Lemon also works if you don't have vinegar.

This sauce cost me about £2 to make. Not only did it make 4 pizzas, it was also enough to use for a Bolognese sauce the next day, when mixed with another carton of Passata, so you could half the recipe if you don't need as much.

Method:

1. Chop or crush the garlic if you're using fresh, and then simply add all the ingredients to a saucepan and stir well. Pop the sauce over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring to make sure the sauce is well mixed up. Avoid adding a lid to the saucepan, as you want some of the water to evaporate so it thickens up the sauce.

2. Taste the sauce; if it's a little bland, add some extra salt or spices if you think it needs more flavour. The cooking normally enhances the flavour perfectly, but taste is a very individual thing.

3. Allow the sauce to cool. It doesn't need to be cold, just not boiling hot!
   

There's your sauce done, so now for the toppings.

I made 4 pizzas from my dough. I made 5 dough balls from my dough and froze 2 of them for another day, so I didn't need loads of cheese. I bought grated mozzarella from Tesco, own brand, and that was perfect for 4 pizzas. I could have used less, but I like cheese! That grated mozzarella was £2.75 for a 250g bag. Now I could have bought this cheaper. The grated cheese is always more expensive as you're paying for the convenience of being able to quickly spread the cheese on the pizza. That grated cheese works out at £11.00 per kilo. If I had bought one of the 240g mozzarella balls (the ones that come in water), then I could have paid £1.10 for the cheese, which works out at £8.80 per kilo, so a decent difference in price.

I would have to either chop or pull the cheese into smaller pieces to put on the pizza, which is actually a more traditional method of cheese on a pizza and next time, that's what I'll buy, as I paid nearly twice the price for buying grated cheese!

Pepperoni, how could I not have put pepperoni on the pizza right!? That worked out at £1.05 for a Tesco own brand, 110g pack, which was plenty for all 4 pizzas.

I could have then added extras onto the pizza if I wanted, onion perhaps, and veggies from the fridge, but I stuck with just the pepperoni, but pizzas are a great way to use up leftovers!

So in total, I spent around £6.80 on ingredients. That made me 4 pizzas, so £1.70 each. It also left me with 2 extra dough balls in the freezer for another day, and half the sauce went towards the next day's dinner, so in reality, the cost was lower than £1.70 per pizza.

The pizzas were 12 inches, and as a thin pizza, they served 1 pizza per person; however, my partner only ate half, so that was her lunch for the next day.

How does that compare with supermarket pizza prices? Tesco offer a frozen pepperoni pizza, 330g, for £1.65, so a tad cheaper, but absolutely not as nice as homemade pizza! They also offered a fresh version, 277g, for £3.50 each, so twice the price, and again not as nice as homemade!

In comparison, my local Dominoes Pizza are offering two 13.5 inch pizzas for £34.48 plus £2.99 delivery. Now these are thicker pizzas than the versions I've made, mine are the stone bake type, so they are not direct comparisons, so to be fair, I've compared the price I paid to make 4 pizzas with the cost of one 13.5 inch pizza from Dominoes, which is £22.99 plus £2.99 delivery.

I suspect they've used less dough than I did and fewer ingredients for the sauce and toppings, so they will have spent less than I did, yet are charging over £16 more than I paid for my 4 pizzas, plus that didn't include the delivery charges either!

I don't, therefore, think it's unreasonable to suggest that making your own pizzas at home is a way to eat yummy food on a budget! There will always be variables to consider, such as the time and effort to make a pizza from scratch and having to buy the ingredients, so the need for planning in advance rather than ordering a pizza as a last-minute thought to feed a hungry family, but with a little planning you can save a fortune cooking from scratch!

One of my tips is to double the recipe and ingredients and make as many pizzas as you can from what you have (batch cooking). Cook them to a point where they're just cooked, but not completely cooked (cheese is melted but not gone completely brown yet), and then freeze them, and you'll then have homemade pizza in the freezer, ready for a short-notice meal! They only take about 10 minutes to defrost and heat through and are delicious!