The Perfect Homemade Pizza for Summer

If you could only have pizza, tacos, or hamburgers for the rest of your life which would you choose? For me, it's pizza-hands down. There's just something so versatile about it, a bread base, sauce, and whatever toppings you want.There are a million options! You can make breakfast pizzas with eggs, vegetarian sausage, and peppers. You could create hamburger or taco pizzas. The sauce could be marinara, Alfredo, pesto, or just olive oil and tomatoes.The crust can be gluten free or regular, thick or thin, cauliflower or wheat, pita bread or tortillas if you're in a pinch, or even something else entirely. How about dessert pizzas with a sugar cookie or chocolate chip cookie base? Or a s'mores pizza with graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate? A healthier, summer favorite is watermelon pizza with frozen yogurt 'sauce' and berries for toppings. The possibilities are endless!

The nice thing is you can just take whatever you have in your fridge or pantry to top your pizza, whether it's just cheese or a complex masterpiece that would rival Papa Murphy's many creations.

Now toppings are great, and the certainly can make or break the cake, or really, the pie...but in my opinion, the most important part of the pizza is the crust.

My favorite pizza crust of all time (besides legitimate Italian pizza from Italy) is my mom's homemade pizza.It's simple but delicious with a secret ingredient most other crusts lack, a tad of honey gives the dough a slight sweetness.

The recipe is pretty basic: 2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoon yeast

3/4 cup lukewarm water

1/4 cup olive oil

Combine the honey, yeast, oil, and lukewarm water in a liquid measuring cup. Stir the mixture and then let it rest until the yeast foams, about seven minutes.

Combine the flour and salt with the liquid mixture and knead into a dough. The dough should be slightly tacky but shouldn't stick when you roll it out on the countertop.

Let rest for fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, heat up the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

(You can also grill the pizza dough, cook on med-high for about 3-4 minutes one side, add your toppings, and cook for another five minutes or so. This is great for parties where everyone can make their own personal pizzas.)

Another tip is heating up your pan or pizza stone in the oven to prevent the dough from sticking later on. (No oil necessary)

When the dough has rested long enough, roll out into a circle, square, or whatever shape you fancy. This recipe can make one regular crust pizza or two thin crust pizzas.

Cook for nine minutes WITHOUT any toppings, this makes sure the dough cooks all the way through.

Take the pizza out of the oven, flip, and add whatever toppings you desire. My personal favorite is pesto with feta cheese, artichokes, zucchini, peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach. Since there's a ton of fresh veggies on this pizza, it helps to either roast some of the vegetables before hand to get rid of some of the moisture, or cook for an extra 5-10 minutes.

If you're doing a regular cheese pizza, turn down the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and cook for an additional 12 or so minutes.

When the pizza's done, slice and enjoy!

After a 60+ mile bike ride I literally ate a whole pizza by myself (regular crust). If you aren't as hungry as I was or don't have a lot of guests over for dinner, the pizza keeps well in the fridge and is still yummy the next couple of days, though my family rarely even gets to the fridge stage.

I hope you all try and enjoy this recipe, be sure to subscribe to stay updated for more posts this summer!