Sheet-Pan Pizza: A Reliable Half-Sheet Recipe
- A party-size pizza with numbers you can trust
- Ingredients for one 13-by-18-inch pan
- Mix, fold, and refrigerate
- Give the dough room in the pan
- Make wet toppings less wet
- Preheat thoroughly and top in order
- Bake by evidence, not optimism
- Cool on a rack before cutting
- A workable same-day version
- Scale by surface area
- Store leftovers without steaming them into surrender
A party-size pizza with numbers you can trust
This half-sheet pizza starts with 1,070 grams of 73% hydration dough and ends with crisp edges, a tender open crumb, and enough square slices for a table. It is designed for a nominal 13-by-18-inch metal half-sheet pan. Cold-ferment the dough for 12–48 hours, proof it in 30 grams olive oil, keep the topping load measured, and bake low in a thoroughly heated 475°F (about 245°C) oven.
The recipe serves six as a main meal or eight to ten as part of a spread. Actual appetites remain gloriously unregulated.
Before starting, measure your pan’s flat interior. “Half sheet” is a common format, not a promise that every manufacturer bends the rim in precisely the same place. A nominal 9-by-13-inch pan has exactly half the nominal area of a 13-by-18-inch pan, although usable interior dimensions can differ. It cannot take this full dough at the intended thickness.
Ingredients for one 13-by-18-inch pan
Dough
| Ingredient | Weight | Baker's percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Bread flour | 600 g | 100% |
| Cool water | 438 g | 73% |
| Fine salt | 12 g | 2% |
| Instant yeast | 2 g | 0.33% |
| Olive oil | 18 g | 3% |
The dough weighs 1,070 grams. At a nominal 234 square inches, that is about 4.57 grams of dough per square inch—substantial, but less towering than the 10-inch cast-iron pizza.
Pan and topping
| Ingredient | Weight | Useful equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Olive oil for pan | 30 g | About 2 1/4 tablespoons |
| Thick pizza sauce, cooled | 300 g | About 1 1/4 cups |
| Low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella, grated | 400 g | About 14 ounces |
| Finely grated Parmesan | 30 g | About 1 ounce |
| Cooked, drained toppings, optional | 250–350 g | Use less when very moist |
Use a sturdy metal pan with a sound surface. Dark pans brown faster than shiny aluminum; thin pans may warp. Glass and ceramic heat differently and are not interchangeable in this high-heat recipe. Check your pan manufacturer’s temperature limit before asking it to spend an evening at 475°F.
Mix, fold, and refrigerate
Pour the water into a large bowl. Add the yeast, flour, salt, and 18 grams olive oil. Mix with a strong spoon or damp hand until no pockets of dry flour remain. The dough should be wet and shaggy.
Cover and rest for 20 minutes. With a wet hand, stretch one side up without tearing it and fold it across the center. Turn the bowl and repeat on the other three sides. Rest for 15 minutes, then perform another four folds. The dough should feel more elastic and sit taller.
Cover tightly and refrigerate for 12–48 hours. Fermentation rate depends on dough temperature, refrigerator temperature, yeast, and flour. Use the dough earlier if it becomes extremely inflated or starts collapsing.
Do not taste raw dough. Flour is a raw food and may carry harmful bacteria. Wash hands, tools, bowls, and counters after contact with uncooked flour or dough.
Give the dough room in the pan
About four hours before baking, spread all 30 grams olive oil over the pan’s base and into its corners. Turn the cold dough into the middle. Flip it once to coat both sides.
Press outward with oiled fingertips, stopping when the dough resists. Cover the pan and wait 20 minutes, then press again. Repeat once more if necessary. Do not tear the center while chasing the corners; a slightly rounded corner beats a secret sauce drain.
Cover and proof at room temperature for 2–4 hours. It is ready when visibly expanded, jiggly, relaxed to the edges, and dotted with bubbles. A warm room can shorten the proof; a cool room can stretch it. If a fingertip pressed gently into an oiled edge leaves an indentation that returns slowly, the dough is close. If it snaps back immediately, give it more time.
Make wet toppings less wet
Pan pizza fails more often from excess topping moisture than from a shortage of enthusiasm. Prepare vegetables before the dough finishes proofing:
- sauté mushrooms until their released liquid evaporates;
- wilt spinach and squeeze it dry after cooling;
- roast peppers, eggplant, zucchini, or broccoli, then cool them;
- drain olives, pickled peppers, pineapple, and canned ingredients thoroughly;
- blot fresh mozzarella and use it sparingly.
Cook raw ground meat or sausage before topping. Ground pork or beef sausage must reach 160°F (71°C); poultry sausage must reach 165°F (74°C). Drain fat and let the pieces cool briefly. The final bake reheats them; it should not be responsible for cooking concealed raw centers beneath a crowded cheese roof.
Keep cooked toppings between 250 and 350 grams total. Use the low end for water-rich ingredients. More is possible in the same sense that one more suitcase is possible on a small car: the question is what happens when you turn.
Preheat thoroughly and top in order
Place a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 475°F (about 245°C) for at least 45 minutes. For convection, if the oven manual allows, start around 450°F (230°C) and check early because moving air accelerates browning.
Uncover the proofed dough. Pop only enormous surface bubbles; preserve the smaller gas cells. Scatter the mozzarella from edge to edge, pushing some against the oiled wall for a crisp cheese border. Add Parmesan.
Spoon the 300 grams sauce in stripes or small pools over the cheese. Distribute the cooked, drained toppings with visible gaps between them. This order helps shield the dough from sauce and gives moisture somewhere to escape. It is a method, not a referendum on how every region must build pizza.
Bake by evidence, not optimism
Set the pan on the lower rack and bake for 18–24 minutes. Begin checking at 18 minutes. Rotate once after about 12 minutes only if your oven has an obvious hot side.
The pizza is ready when the cheese edge is deeply browned, the center no longer looks wet or compressed, and a spatula lifted under one corner reveals a crisp golden-brown base. Check near the center as well as the easy, show-off corners.
If the top browns while the base remains pale, move the pan lower for the final minutes or set the pan on a preheated baking steel or stone, provided the pan and oven setup allow it safely. If the base races ahead, move the tray higher and lower the heat to 450°F (230°C) until the center sets.
Do not place a cold glass vessel on a hot stone, and do not improvise with a pan whose temperature rating you do not know. Sudden temperature changes can shatter unsuitable glass or ceramic.
The full troubleshooting map is in eight fixes for soggy pan pizza. It separates heat problems from moisture problems, which is more useful than simply baking everything longer.
Cool on a rack before cutting
Let the pizza stand in the pan for two minutes. Loosen the border with a thin, pan-safe spatula, then slide the whole pizza onto a wire rack. Rest for five minutes before cutting.
The rack lets steam escape from beneath the crust. A cutting board traps it; the hot pan traps even more. If you cannot transfer the whole pizza safely, lift sections onto the rack as soon as their crust has set.
Cut into 12 generous rectangles or 20 smaller party squares. Kitchen shears are useful once the pizza is out of the pan. Avoid cutting directly against a coated surface.
A workable same-day version
Mix and fold the same formula in the morning. Leave it covered at room temperature until clearly expanded and bubbly, commonly 3–5 hours depending on conditions. Oil the pan, stretch the dough in stages, and proof another 1–2 hours until airy.
The cold version develops deeper flavor and gives the flour more time to hydrate. The same-day version is still balanced and uses the same topping quantities. Do not “speed it up” with a random spoonful of yeast; changing yeast by a factor of several changes both timing and flavor, and kitchens are already dramatic enough.
If this dough feels difficult, the hydration guide explains why 438 divided by 600 equals 73%, how to compare wet doughs, and how to adapt the recipe without dismantling its ratios.
Scale by surface area
For a different rectangular pan, use a nominal-for-nominal comparison: multiply its stated length by its stated width, then divide by 234, the nominal square-inch area of the 13-by-18-inch baseline. Multiply every dough and topping weight by that factor. If you instead measure the usable flat interior, measure both pans and compare those usable areas consistently.
For example, a true 12-by-16-inch surface has 192 square inches. Its factor is 192 ÷ 234 = 0.8205. Multiply the 1,070-gram dough by that factor for about 878 grams. Scale each ingredient—not just the flour—by the same factor. Rounding salt and yeast requires a scale capable of tenths of a gram.
Alternatively, preserve the nominal dough density directly: nominal area × 4.57 grams per square inch. That maintains the intended crust thickness on the same basis as the 234-square-inch baseline. Your pan may still brown differently due to color, material, and side height, so begin checking early on the first attempt.
Store leftovers without steaming them into surrender
Refrigerate leftovers within two hours of serving, or within one hour when the surrounding temperature exceeds 90°F (32°C). Cut and transfer the pizza to shallow covered containers rather than placing the hot pan in the refrigerator. Use within 3–4 days.
Reheat to 165°F (74°C). A 375°F (190°C) oven and a preheated sheet pan restore the base efficiently; a covered skillet works for a slice or two. Exact time varies with thickness and starting temperature, so check the center.
The result should be generous but disciplined: tall enough to feel like pan pizza, crisp enough to hold itself, and loaded enough to delight without collapsing under the toppings.