There is hardly any doubt that pizza is one of the most popular and perhaps even one of the most sought-after food items worldwide. There are many ways of making pizza, and in this article, we talk about how to make pizza in a microwave oven.
Thus, we will make pizza in a microwave oven! Though pizza in a microwave with convection is possible and heard about, in this article, our focus will be on ways to make pizza using a simple microwave oven without convection. Therefore, the methods described below are accessible to anyone with a microwave at home.
Our focus will be making pizza from the already prepared pizza dough and the readily available required toppings, and other additional things. While generally pizza is better made in a microwave oven using the convection technique, the convection oven is not available to everyone. Let us answer the common question of how to make pizza in a microwave oven without convection.
Please pay attention to summary tips that you will need to know when making pizza with the help of a microwave oven. They are at the end of this article.
Can you make a pizza in the microwave?
That is, can you make a pizza in a regular microwave oven? Yes, you can make pizza in a standard microwave at home. Though typically not many people may have tried making a pizza in the microwave, nothing suggests it is impossible. Though pizza made in a microwave maybe be slightly different from pizza made in an oven, but still pizza.
While you could come across many articles that talk about the possibility of heating an already prepared oven, this may always not be tasty, crispy, and to the desired extent as far other attributes are concerned how to make pizza in a microwave oven.
In a way, it will be easier to make pizza in a microwave, as long as you have your pizza dough ready and kneaded and topics waiting for you to put them on the pizza.
How to make pizza in microwave without convection
Perhaps, the simplest way would be to go in for a ready-made microwaveable pizza that may be available in some stores. This process could be easy and less time-consuming, especially when you are on a busy schedule.
However, you must bear in mind that the result may not be to your liking. That is why you seek the correct answer to the question of how to make pizza in a microwave oven without the help of a convection tool without purchasing a pre-made frozen pizza.
When you make a pizza from scratch with a microwave oven, you also will have many advantages and benefits. For example, you are in total control of what the final pizza will look like and taste. You will have the advantage of choosing your good-quality sauce, cheese, and toppings.
While all this is indeed good news, there is no denying the fact that finishing a pizza and making it brownie crisp, tasty, and hot with the help of a microwave oven will be a slightly demanding task. There are some common challenges and problems as far as the various procedures and processes are concerned.
You may not have too many problems as far as the proper heating of the toppings and the cheese may also melt properly. However, you may have some tough times to get the desired crust and crispness when you use a regular microwave oven.
This outcome occurs because of an inherent problem regarding getting the pizza’s proper browning is concerned. Microwave does not heat dough as hot as stove oven or convection oven. I am not even mentioning the traditional stone and brick pizza oven – only a few places have it nowadays.
The above is undoubtedly a headache, but it would not be right to state that this will be an insurmountable and significant problem. You can easily handle this problem with some ingenuity and additional steps for browning the pizza.
When making pizza in a microwave oven, the simplest solution is to use a browning plate. Alternately, you also could use a pre-cooked pizza crust or a prepared pizza crust as a compromise.
Buying pre-made pizza dough or pizza crust for microwaving
Making pizza in a microwave suggests that you prefer efficiency vs. enjoyment of the whole pizza-making process from making the dough and until the end. You do not want to deal with yeast, salt, and stuff, do you? If you do, go ahead, read our other articles. If not, let us move on.
To save yourself time and some trouble, you can purchase pre-made pizza dough from the store. It can be Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, your local grocery store. In some cases, local mom-and-pop pizza shops may sell you freshly made pizza dough.
Often you will find pre-made pizza dough in a bakery or refrigeration section of your local grocery store. You can search for fresh or frozen ones. Fresh is preferred, but it is harder to get. As a last resort, you can purchase regular bread dough and use it to make pizza in a microwave at home. Pizza dough and bread dough are slightly different, although interchangeable. Check online too.
Most often, you will buy a frozen one. You would need to unfreeze it according to instructions and then maybe roll and stretch it in a thinner dough circle of 10-12 inches unless it was already pre-rolled. The pizza dough circle should be about 1 inch thick, no more than that. The thinner is generally better to make pizza in a microwave as the microwave will not penetrate and heat a very thick dough layer.
If you ask for pre-made pizza dough, you are most likely to get a round dough ball which you will need to work on at home to make into a pizza circle. Sometimes it will be a pre-made frozen circle, and this is what you want.
Asking for pizza crust means that, most likely, you will get a wholly pre-made and sometimes already baked pizza circle, which you can flavor with sauce and toppings without needing to cook it. It is easy but takes the fun out because you do not have to cook it at all, even in a microwave. This is not the topic of the article.
Although, many stores a great variety of raw uncooked pizza crusts. Uncooked ready pizza crust or dough is what we need. For example, Trader Joe stores may have gluten-free pizza crusts for those with gluten intolerance. They use cornflower for those pizza crusts. Try asking around in the store and see what they have.
How to get the correct pizza crust with the right ingredients for the microwave
You can use your imagination and come out with your favorite recipe. Here are the proper steps that you could follow:
- Get a microwavable browning plate, also called browning dish or browning pan. It helps the dough to brown and crust a little bit better.
- To start with, make sure that you properly stretch, roll, and toss the crust until you are sure that it has reached the correct sizes matching the size of the browning plate.
- The size of the browning plate is essential, though it could vary. As a rule, the browning plate of around 10 to 12 inches is fine for making pizza in a microwave.
- Take good care of the ingredients and ensure that they are mixed and prepared correctly. We have other articles explaining how to prepare the dough, knead it and prepare a pizza circle for toppings.
- The sizing and the chopping of the toppings should also be appropriate.
- You are free to use your toppings, and it could be mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, or even oranges that can easily be well cooked.
- We are not going into details of proper draining and sautéing of toppings because you should do it well in advance. You must be aware of the same.
Why the need for a browning plate?
To ensure proper cooking of the pizza with a microwave help, prepare the browning plate properly. Here are some step-by-step instructions for ensuring that the browning plate, dish, or pan is handled correctly.
- The browning pan should be sprayed with oil (just a tiny bit). The pan with oil should be preheated carefully on medium-high in your microwave oven to become warm.
- Once the pan has been preheated, you can now place the pizza dough onto the pan.
- A thin and pale preliminary crust should take around 2 minutes in a microwave oven on high or medium-high, depending on your microwave. Note, we are not going for regular brown or thick golden crust just yet—only a preliminary thin one.
- But in case you are going in for a thicker crust, it would be better to leave it in the oven for a total period of 3 to 4 minutes. Just note that we will microwave this again in the next stage, and it will be forming crust further. You do not want to overdo it in this stage as you do not want the crust to be too dark. It takes practice.
- The next step is to remove the browning pan from the microwave, and you should make use of mitts.
- Ensure that it is set carefully either on any good heat-proof surface or on a trivet.
- The dough must be carefully slipped, and make sure you do it with the help of a spatula or tongs.
- Now spread the sauce on the side that is cooked.
- Layer the toppings, and cheese should also be added to the sauced crust.
- Once done, the whole pizza with toppings and cheese should be put back in the microwave for around 5 to 8 minutes. Set the heat to high. You will know that the crust is forming correctly as the color changes to golden. You will find the cheese and toppings are also bubbly and hot.
- In case you find that the cheese is darkening too fast for comfort, it would be better to stop the microwave and reduce the power consumption by about 80% for the remaining time.
- The above few steps should be enough to make crispy, tasty crust.
Can pizza be made in the microwave without convection?
Apart from the common question of how to make a pizza in a microwave oven, people ask if pizza can be made in a microwave without the need for convection. Yes, it is very much possible to do it. However, if you look around and search online for some tips on the subject matter, you can be sure that you will be dissuaded from trying to make pizza in a microwave oven without convection.
While convection is a technology that helps in accurate heating and uniform spread of heating, this is not strictly needed for making pizza in a microwave without convection. The simplest way forward would be to make use of the browning plates mentioned earlier. You can easily create a semi-decent pizza with the help of a browning plate.
Some newer modern microwave models specifically come with settings or programs for making a pizza. You can find them online.
However, make sure to use only a few drops of oil on a microwaveable browning plate (browning dish, browning pan) to avoid the pizza’s crust becoming too oily, and do not initially heat it beyond about a minute.
Once done, you can place the crust pre-prepared with the main dough, toppings, and cheese. Place it in the microwave oven and let it sit in the microwave for a maximum of 2 minutes, and if the crust is thick, then 3 minutes should be the max time.
In which mode pizza should be made in the microwave?
Pizza making in a microwave could be a new experience for many. But since we are learning how to make pizza in a microwave oven without convection, it would be better to keep it in high mode. While setting it on high is a requirement, keep a careful watch on the heating so that you do not overdo it.
Mode depends on your microwave – how many watts it can use. Newer, fancier microwaves may heat pizza better than old ones.
I think 350 watts is the absolute minimum you should use to make pizza in a microwave oven. You can use that setting to only preheat the browning plate with oil on it.
However, we recommend coking pizza in a microwave oven on a high 900W-1100W or higher setting if your appliance allows it. A higher microwave setting may make better crusting on a pizza.
In a microwave without convection, setting it on the highest level when making a pizza is the way to go.
How long should pizza be in the microwave?
Here are some tips as far as the timing of the pizza in the microwave is concerned. It should depend on the size and weight of the pizza and microwave settings.
As a rule, the average time for making pizza in a microwave as follows:
2-4 minutes for preliminary cooking for bare dough or pizza crust to develop a golden crust; then another 5-8 minutes after putting toppings on it. Times may vary, however, depending on the quality of your microwave.
It may take 7-10 minutes to cook for a pizza with a thicker crust in a microwave.
Note that most likely microwave is not powerful enough to entirely brown pizza crust even if using a browning plate. But you may be able to achieve that golden crust to make you satisfied.
Summary tips and tricks for making pizza in a microwave
- The answer to the question of how to make pizza in a microwave is explained above.
- You can make pizza in a microwave without convection.
- It would help if you indeed had a browning plate to make pizza in a microwave.
- Be aware of the time for heating the crust and the toppings. Time is approximate, and you should learn how your microwave works for making a pizza.
- Do not undercook pizza because pizza needs a high temperature to cook. It is for the crust, the toppings, including cheese and vegetables. Raw dough is not suitable for your health.
Conclusion
We are sure that the above is a proven and simple way by which it is possible to make pizza in a microwave oven without the need for convection. It would not be right to go by hearsays and instead try and do it for yourself.
Naturally, pizza made in the microwave is not going to be as good as one made in the stove oven or even in a microwave with convection. But it is still going to be a pizza which you can enjoy.