Homemade pizza is one of life’s little luxuries but it is important to understand how long pizza dough lasts in the freezer to get the best crust. In this article, we will be looking at this in a little more detail as well as discovering some other interesting information on freezing pizza dough at home and how it can be used.
For pizza fans, it is good news that if you freeze pizza dough, it will remain good for around three months – using it is as simple as leaving it in the fridge overnight before taking it out ready to get started on one of your favourite pizza recipes.
There are several factors that will affect your pizza dough, and whether you are looking to make tasty dough balls or a perfect pizza crust, it is essential that you correctly prepare the dough to get the best results. You can use your normal dough recipes and get the same great crusts. A key ingredient that limits the life expectancy of dough is yeast. Yeast is a used in dough recipes to make the dough rise but its a micro organism that given to long will cause the dough to spoil and spoil your crusts. Freezing the dough slows down the chemical process kicked off by the yeast.
In the main, you can expect your pizza dough to remain ready for a delicious recipe for around three months.
What About In The Fridge?
Whilst you can keep dough in the fridge, it will last far less time so it is important to choose a home recipe and get cooking quickly. As a rule of thumb, you can expect the food to be good for around three days in the fridge if you have frozen it first. When you remove it, you should give it around two hours and let it rise before it is ready to be turned into a delicious pizza crust.
If it has not been frozen, it will be OK to eat for around two days before needing to be cooked into a meal.
Can Frozen Pizza Dough Go Bad?
If you are keen to create a wonderful pizza recipe at home, one of the first things you will need to do is to prepare some pizza dough. In many cases, home chefs will make too much or will want to have a back-up in case they find themselves wanting to make pizza off the cuff.
But it can be difficult to know exactly how much dough to make, because if it doesn’t all get put to use before the three months are up, there may not be a chance to try out that new recipe before the dough goes bad. For this reason, a lot of people may be reluctant to freeze pizza dough, however, there is some good news…
After the dough has been kept in the freezer for three months, it will not rot or decay in the way that fresh food does. However, the taste and quality may begin to deteriorate.
You can use the dough at this point and you’ll still get some nice pizza crusts and a relatively nice taste. But most experts recommend that after this time, a fresh batch is made. Fortunately, a pizza dough recipe is cheap and easy to make ( check here for best storage methods ) ( check here for best storage methods ).
How Can You Tell If Frozen Pizza Dough Is Bad?
There are several giveaways that will let you know if your pizza dough has gone bad:
- It will taste or smell sour.
- It will feel dry, as opposed to moist.
- The colour will change – most notably the yeast will deteriorate an cause a greyish hue.
How Do You Freeze Homemade Pizza Dough?
You may be concerned that freezing dough at home is a complicated process, but the opposite is true. If you make sure that you invest a little time in learning how to properly freeze the dough, you can feel confident that you’ll get good results every time.
- Be sure that you have all of the relevant equipment – a freezer, some ready-made dough, olive oil or an oil spray, and some plastic wrap or a freezer bag.
- You should separate the dough into individual dough balls using a dough scraper. The size of each ball should be akin to what you would need for a single pizza.
- Next, be sure to add a light coating of oil over each dough ball before popping into the plastic wrapper or bag. Ensure that no air remains inside.
- You can now freeze the balls of dough.
When you are ready to use the food, it is important that you defrost it correctly. The best way to do this is to place the dough in the refrigerator overnight – it should be allowed to defrost for a minimum of 12 hours. After this time, it is still not a good idea to cook the dough right away. For the best results and crispiest crusts, you should let it reach room temperature for at least 30 minutes, this will let the dough rise properly.
Summary
If you are looking to create a delicious pizza meal at home, making your own dough is the best way. If you’re not ready to use it all right away, it can be frozen for three months before you will notice a significant change in the quality.
You can get a good crust using a frozen dough recipe. These recipes make excellent crusts providing they are used within three months.
