Easy Peasy Frozen Pizza

Whenever I go out of town with the boys and my husband stays home to work, I always stock the freezer with these easy frozen pizzas.  You can use the dough recipe for fresh baked pizzas as well, it's very universal.  These pizzas freeze really well and bake up crisp in the oven straight from the freezer.  They're also great for a night when you don't feel like cooking or a gift for someone who just had a baby or is going to have surgery.  Each recipe makes four 12 inch pizzas, but you can easily halve the recipe if you want to make less. I make the dough in my bread machine so that saves me a lot of time and effort.  The best part about these is that you know EXACTLY what goes in them!

Easy Peasy Frozen Pizzas
For the Dough

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 tbsp sugar or honey
• 4 tsp. salt
• 6 cups bread flour (or 00 flour)
• 4 1/2 tsp. yeast

Place ingredients in your bread machine in the order listed and set to dough cycle.  When the dough is done, remove from bread machine and form into 4 tight balls.  Allow to rest on a floured counter covered with a clean dish towel for about 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 550 degrees (or the highest setting on your oven). Once the dough has rested lightly flour a pizza peel and roll out your dough to a 12 inch circle.  Slide the dough from the peel onto a preheated pizza stone (or alternatively you can roll your dough out onto a baking sheet) and par bake about 2 minutes on each side.  Allow crusts to cool at room temperature about 30 minutes.

To Assemble the Pizzas

Once the crusts have cooled, assemble your pizzas.  You can top with whatever toppings you like.  This time around I made 2 barbecue chicken pizza and 2 pepperoni pizzas.  Once your pizzas are assembled, wrap them tightly in foil or in a gallon size ziplock freezer bag and write the instructions on the bag or the foil:

Unwrap from bag (or foil) and bake on a baking sheet at 375 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until cheese is melted and pizza is heated through. (DO NOT place frozen pizza directly on a preheated stone as it can cause the stone to crack).

When ready to bake the pizzas, simply remove from the freezer and follow the directions above!  Voila, homemade frozen pizzas!  Yum!

Until next time, happy and clean cooking!