Sheet Pan Pizza
Make pizza night even better with this easy sheet pan pizza recipe! This hearty cowboy style pizza is made with a soft, homemade crust, gooey cheese, and loaded with pepperoni and ground beef. It’s a family favorite and no special tools are required!
Homemade Sheet Pan Pizza
We love pizza. I mean, who doesn’t right? But I don’t love paying sixty dollars for pizza to feed my ravenous crew. Pizza is expensive! So, in an effort to save myself some money, I decided to create my own from scratch homemade pizza recipe.
I have spent the last 6 months tweaking this recipe to make it perfect. From the crust to the sauce and finalizing the perfect toppings, I have finally found the winner. With four boys that eat an astronomical amount of food, I really wanted to beef up this recipe. Literally, I added an entire pound of ground beef to this recipe to help fill those bellies. And the best part about it… it didn’t cost me sixty dollars.
The Cowboys’ Rating: 10/10
Every time I make a new recipe, I have my family rate the recipe out of 10. By the time, these recipes make the blog, they’ve been tried and tested by some of my hardest tiny critics!
What Ingredients Are in Sheet Pan Pizza?
homemade crust
- All-Purpose Flour – I like to use the unbleached flour. However, you can use any type of flour that you would like.
- Yeast – The yeast that I use for this recipe is active dry yeast.
- Warm Water – Make sure it’s lukewarm water so that it activates the yeast.
- White Sugar – Sugar helps to feed the yeast so that it makes it active. It also gives the crust a sweet flavor.
- Honey – Did you know that honey actually makes your bread softer? It’s true! Honey is what’s called a humectant, which means that it helps retain moisture in the bread. So, I added honey to this crust recipe to make it softer instead of dry and hard.
- Melted Butter – Butter has a rich flavor so it also makes the crust have a richer flavor.
- Salt – Salt helps to control the rate of yeast fermentation which is very important. Additionally, it strengthens the gluten in the crust.
Pizza sauce
- Tomato Sauce
- Tomato Paste
- Garlic Salt
- Oregano
- Basil
- Pepper
Pizza toppings
- Ground Beef – As always, we use our own homegrown ground beef that is grass-finished and regeneratively raised. It’s delicious, lean and so good. Our ground beef is 90/10 and I never have to drain off a bunch of fat.
- Pepperoni – I chop up the pepperoni into small pieces. This way, you get all the flavors in every bite. It’s heavenly.
- Mozzarella Cheese – If you want cheese that is perfectly melted and gooey, buy the brick cheese and shred your own cheese. Pre-shredded cheese has a waxy coating to prevent caking which doesn’t allow the cheese to melt like the brick cheese.
- Cheddar Cheese
- Italian Seasoning
- Onion Powder
- Garlic Powder
- Kosher Salt
- Pepper
Tools You’ll Need
- You can use a KitchenAid to make the dough, or you can use a Large Mixing Bowl with a Danish Dough Hook
- Measuring Cups & Spoons
- Liquid Measuring Cup
- Spatula
- Bread Scraper
- Baking Sheet Pan
- Flour Sack Dish Towels to cover dough
- Frying Pan
Sheet Pan Pizza Recipe
MAKE THE PIZZA DOUGH
- In a large bowl, combine warm water, yeast and 1 tbsp sugar together. Gently combine then set aside and let sit for 5 minutes until frothy.
- Add in honey, salt, and melted butter, to yeast mixture. Mix until combined.
- Gradually add flour 1 cup at a time until a soft dough forms and is slightly sticky. (To make sure I have the right consistency, I touch the dough with my finger. If the dough sticks to my finger, I add in a little more flour. The dough shouldn’t stick to your finger when you touch it.)
- Cover dough with plastic wrap or a clean towel and let rise until double in size. (About 30 minutes).
PREPARE THE PIzza TOPPINGS
- While dough is resting, combine ground beef, onion powder, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, pepper and kosher salt together in a frying pan.
- Cook until ground beef is completely cooked through. Set aside.
- Chop pepperoni into small pieces and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine sauce ingredients and mix until well combined. Set aside.
Assemble the pizza
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Once dough has risen, generously flour a surface on the counter and scape the dough out of the bowl and onto the floured surface.
- Knead dough a few times, then roll out the dough into a large rectangle.
- Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and transfer the dough to the sheet pan, pressing dough to the sides of the pan.
- Spoon the pizza sauce over top of dough and spread evenly.
- Sprinkle mozzarella and cheddar cheese evenly over the top of the sauce.
- Sprinkle ground beef and pepperoni over top of the cheese.
- Bake on the lowest rack in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the pizza is golden brown. (I like to rotate the pizza after 10-15 minutes so that the pizza bakes evenly.)
- When the pizza is golden brown around all edges, remove from oven.
- Serve and enjoy!
Storage and Freezing
Place any remaining pizza in an airtight container and place in the fridge. To reheat pizza, I like to use the air fryer. Place the pizza in the air fryer and cook at 360 degrees F for 3-4 minutes. This eliminates the pizza being soggy. If you don’t have an air fryer, place pizza in a hot frying pan and let the bottom crisp for 1-2 minutes. Then, here’s the trick, add a tablespoon of water and cover with a lid. Magic happens and the steam melts the cheese and reheats the toppings.
Can you freeze this pizza? Yes! Double wrap the pizza in plastic wrap and place it in the freezer. Or, wrap the pizza in plastic wrap and place it in a large Ziploc freezer bag. Place the pizza in the freezer and store for up to 2 months. Bake from frozen at 450°F until cheese is melted again, 10-15 minutes.
Try More of My Easy Recipes
Sheet Pan Pizza
Equipment
- KitchenAid or large bowl
- sheet pan
Ingredients
Pizza Dough
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp butter (melted)
- 1 tbsp honey
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 ½ – 3 cups flour
Pizza Sauce
- 8 oz. tomato sauce
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- ½ tsp garlic salt
- ½ tsp oregano
- ½ tsp basil
- ¼ tsp pepper
Pizza Toppings
- 1 lb. ground beef (lean, 90/10)
- 2 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 1 cup chopped pepperoni
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
Make the Pizza Dough
- In a large bowl, combine warm water, yeast and 1 tbsp sugar together. Gently combine then set aside and let sit for 5 minutes until frothy.
- Add in honey, salt, and melted butter, to yeast mixture. Mix until combined.
- Gradually add flour 1 cup at a time until a soft dough forms and is slightly sticky. (To make sure I have the right consistency, I touch the dough with my finger. If the dough sticks to my finger, I add in a little more flour. The dough shouldn't stick to your finger when you touch it.)
- Cover dough with plastic wrap or a clean towel and let rise until double in size. (About 30 minutes).
Prepare the Pizza Toppings
- While dough is resting, combine ground beef, onion powder, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, pepper and kosher salt together in a frying pan.
- Cook until ground beef is completely cooked through. Set aside.
- Chop pepperoni into small pieces and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine sauce ingredients and mix until well combined. Set aside.
Assemble the Pizza
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Once dough has risen, generously flour a surface on the counter and scape the dough out of the bowl and onto the floured surface.
- Knead dough a few times, then roll out the dough into a large rectangle.
- Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and transfer the dough to the sheet pan, pressing dough to the sides of the pan.
- Spoon the pizza sauce over top of dough and spread evenly.
- Sprinkle mozzarella and cheddar cheese evenly over the top of the sauce.
- Sprinkle ground beef and pepperoni over top of the cheese.
- Bake on the lowest rack in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the pizza is golden brown. (I like to rotate the pizza after 10-15 minutes so that the pizza bakes evenly.)
- When the pizza is golden brown around all edges, remove from oven.
- Serve and enjoy!
