Chewy pretzel-crust pizza is all the rage! This recipe is very easy to make and makes better-than-delivery pizza you’ll make again and again. Warning: you may never go back to traditional pizza crust after trying this!
I’d go on record as saying that there are three best-ever pizzas I’ve ever tried in my lifetime. And I’ve eaten a lot of pizza so that’s really saying something. When I was going to school at BYU I ate just a few too many donuts, pizookies, and wood-fired pizzas. My roomie Kelsi and I used to eat at The Brick Oven right off of campus all. the. time. Seriously though, all the time. They had a truck load of amazing pizzas on the menu but my favorite was the specialty pizza I special-ordered almost every single time we ate there: deep dish artichoke and Italian sausage. That’s the first pizza on my list of Top 3.
The second contender is the the thin-crust spinach bacon alfredo I ordered when I was visiting my brother in Hollywood a few years ago. He was working for a big-shot animation studio in Culver City and I met up with him for lunch at a place called…. Hugo’s? H…. something. Dang it I can’t remember the name. But this place had terrific pizza and after shedding a few tears of joy and sharing one little bite (it’s all I could bear to part with), my brother said it was the closest thing he’d ever tasted to the pizza he’d tried in Italy the year before. Ahhhhh. That pizza was heaven.
I’m sure you guessed it by now but the third member of my BEST-ever pizza clan is the one you’re drooling over right this second. Pretzel crust pizza. PRETZEL CRUST PIZZA. Sorry, had to say it twice because I’m 100% obsessed. A week or two ago I was taking the pictures at my niece’s 1-year birthday smash party and my in-laws picked up a couple of pizzas from Little Caesars. One was traditional pepperoni, the other was pizza crust. I’d never heard of pretzel crust pizza, much less tried it, but once I did there was no going back. It was love at first bite.
The chewiness of the soft pretzel crust speckled with coarse sea salt takes a regular cheesy pizza to a whole new level of AMAZING. I’ve made this pizza twice in the past week and I can’t get enough of it. If you’ve never tried pretzel crust pizza you simply must. And do NOT be scared of this recipe, I promise you it is so simple and easy to follow. The dough is a quick-rising, no-fuss dough I use all the time and swear by it’s perfection. Just a heads up though, the likelihood of you falling madly in love and never going back to traditional pizza crust is extremely high. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
What people are saying about this Pretzel Crust Pizza
“I just made this and it was delicious. The crust had much more flavor than a typical pizza crust. I was concerned about the comment of the dough not being cooked all the way through. After I boiled the crusts, I put the paper towels and pizza shells on a cooling rack to make sure all the excess moisture was out. When the ten minutes was up for cooking the crusts, before adding the toppings, one slightly thicker crust was not looking cooked as well as the others so I left that in the oven for a couple of extra minutes. I will definitely make this again! Thank you!” – Sue
“I’ve made this recipe twice now for my husband and 4 kiddos and we’re borderline addicted! Thank you so much for sharing it with us. We may never go back to traditional crust at this point…which is a big deal coming from New Yorkers. Last night I made it with white garlic sauce instead of tomato pizza sauce, and shredded cheddar instead of mozz….so, so, so yummy!” – Ashley
“I tried this tonight and it tasted great! Mine weren’t the dark brown color that yours were in the pics though, how should the crust look coming out of the oven before adding toppings? Mine was a golden brown then got darker after toppings, but not the pretzel brown. Still tasted awesome though!” – Carrie
“Tried this recipe today and it turned out delicious! I loved the flavor and having 2 of my favorite baked goods rolled into one? Yes, please! I doubled the recipe (family of 5 here) and I ate way too much of it 
” – Carrie
Pretzel Crust Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cups warm water
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 3 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt - (regular fine table salt)
- ⅓ cup baking soda
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- coarse sea salt
- 1 cup pizza sauce
- 1 cup shredded cheese
- pepperoni slices or other desired toppings
Instructions
- Combine warm water, yeast, and honey and stir to mix. Allow to rest for 5 minutes. (If possible, prepare this recipe using a stand mixer)
- Add flour and 1 teaspoon salt to yeast mixture. Mix until a dough forms. Knead for 5 minutes until dough is smooth and tacky but not too sticky. (If using a stand mixer, use the dough hook to mix and knead dough). Remove dough from bowl and allow to rest on a well-floured surface for 10 minutes.
- Fill a stock pot (the largest pot you have, at least 10 inches wide) with about 2-3 inches of water. Bring to a boil. Add baking soda – careful, it will bubble and rise. Reduce water to a simmer.
- Divide dough into three equal portions and roll them out into three 8-inch discs.
- Gently drop one dough disc into the simmering water. Allow to boil for 30-40 seconds. Use slotted spoons or slotted spatulas to carefully lift dough from the pot and transfer to a paper-towel lined cooling rack (a plate will also work). Repeat with remaining two dough discs.
- Transfer dough discs to a greased baking sheet (you may need to use more than one baking sheet to fit them all). Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 420. After 10 minutes, top crusts with pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni or any other toppings you want. Bake for 10-15 minutes more until cheese is melty and crust is lightly browned. Serve immediately.
Oh my GOD this pretzel pizza looks incredible. I am seriously just drooling over the images here – pinned!
This looks great exactly what I was looking for! If I don’t want all 3 pizza crusts at once, do they freeze well? Would I freeze it and just not boil it and then thaw and boil when ready to use?
Thank you!
I may have done something wrong along the way, but I have to question transferring the dough on to paper towels after it comes out of the water. I just wound up with paper towel and dough fused forever together.
Hmmmm, I haven’t had this issue. Did you perhaps wait too long to remove them from the paper towels? They should only be there for a couple of minutes.
Yeah, that’s probably it. What’s the function of the paper towels? Not trying to be a jerk, honestly (the recipe still came out quite tastily), just curious.
The paper towels absorb some of the extra water after boiling – otherwise if you transfer them straight to the baking pan, they’ll end up sitting in a puddle of water. <---yuck!
Hi,
I tried this last night.
I was not able to make the disc and put in the baking soda water ( the dough was very wet and sticky). I end up just bake the dough like a regular pizza – the dough tasted really good.
I did add more flour and spray the pan with oil to make the regular pizza.
I am still interested in making the pretzel pizza. What should I do differently? Should I add more flour to the dough before boiling?
Thanks
Hi Ruby, after you knead the dough, it helps to roll the dough once or twice on the floured surface where you’re going to let it rice. Doing this coats the outside with flour and helps it to be dry enough on the outsides to work with. 🙂
my son has been asking for pretzel crust pizza (saw on commercials) & I’m excited to try this!
I’m hesitant to use paper towels to dry dough. It just seems like it would stick…. It doesn’t stick?
I haven’t had any issues with the dough sticking to the paper towels unless you leave them there too long. If you just set them on the paper towels for a couple of minutes it works great. They will still be very moist when you put them on the baking sheet, they shouldn’t be “dry”. 🙂