Pick up a ball of premade pizza dough in the deli section or freezer aisle of your grocery store or at your local pizza place. Use it the same day, or throw in the freezer for the future, and you have several fast, easy, and delicious dinner (and dessert) options available. I’m not just talking about pizza, which you can and absolutely should make, but also pizza-parlor classics like stromboli and calzones. (Garlic knots, too, were invented as a way to use up leftover dough.) Chefs like Joanne Chang and David Bouley as well as cookbook authors Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid share inventive recipes that incorporate premade pizza dough, such as crisp scallion pancakes, aromatic pot-roasted chicken, and even a French cake.
We make pizza almost every week in my house and always have a freezer full of store-bought dough as a result. We move it to the refrigerator the night before, and we let it sit in a lightly oiled bowl covered with a dish towel for a few hours before it’s time to cook. Store-bought pizza dough is so forgiving and so nearly foolproof, you just may become a convert too.
