The Boozy Ingredient That Will Change Your Pizza Dough Forever

When your kid, partner, or roommate asks, "What's for dinner?" there's a good chance the answer is going to be pizza. A survey by Cici's Pizza found that, as of 2015, the average U.S. consumer eats more than 6,000 slices of pizza during their lifetime, via New York Daily News. In fact, according to the study, 30% of consumers eat pizza at least once every week.

It's convenient, then, that so many different types of pizza are on the market. Sit-down pizza restaurants can be entertainment lifesavers if your parents are in town for a visit. Movie night at home? Time to throw in a frozen pizza. If you want to flex some home-cook muscle, you can whip up pizza dough from scratch — and, with a few tips from Stephanie Rapone, it won't take all day to make. 

Rapone's recipe takes 20 minutes to prepare. The most time-consuming part is that you'll have to let the dough rest for a half hour, but it's an arguably fair trade: You won't have to worry about yeast at all. Plus, Rapone says, "While you do have to let the dough rest, it's not so dependent on the yeast rising properly (which can be 'moody' if the weather or temperature isn't right)." Don't worry about the flavor, either; that classic yeasty taste won't be lost. Here's the boozy ingredient that substitutes finicky yeast and will change your pizza dough forever.

Like a standard pizza dough recipe, Rapone's mise en place includes bread flour, baking powder, salt, and olive oil. But, it also includes another important ingredient, and you might have it in your fridge already: beer. In her Beer-Based Pizza Dough recipe, Rapone explains, "The beer is the special ingredient here, providing rise and a bit of that 'yeasty' flavor without yeast." To make it work for your pizza, just crack open a 12-ounce bottle of room temperature brew and simply knead the beer into your dry ingredients, says Rapone. 

For the best flavor, Rapone recommends using a lighter beer such as a pilsner. Pilsner beers have a characteristically golden color accompanied by a grainy aroma and taste, says Microbrewery, making the brew a natural fit for yeasty, golden pizza dough. This Czech-style pilsner by American brewer Heater Allen features a particularly malty flavor, which might function well in your 'za. Plus, once you're finished in the kitchen, you can sit down and sip a cold one with your slice.