Pizza Dough Bread Bowls for Salad or Soup

I’ve written before about how much I like to make homemade pizza. It’s a meal that both of us enjoy, in fact I can pizza sauce every year so that I’m sure to have what I need any time the craving hits for a tasty eggplant pizza or even just a plain cheese pizza. I have a recipe that I’ve adapted over the years and it makes a delicious crust. The recipe makes enough for two pizzas so I usually make one the night I make the dough and then I freeze the other half. The other night I was hit with inspiration for that half a batch of pizza dough I had in the freezer. I pulled it out to thaw and set about experimenting. I’m happy to report that my idea worked and it’s something I’ll be doing again. Read on to see how I made pizza dough bread bowls. I used them for salad but I think they could easily hold soup too.

Table of Contents

Note: This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy from my link I might make a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay. See the full affiliate disclosure here.

Pizza Dough Bread Bowls

Makes up to 4

1 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 1/2 to 4 cups Italian 00 Flour OR 1 cup cake flour and 2 1/2 to 3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt

olive oil to rub on bowl for baking
1 egg mixed with a splash of water

[cboxarea id="cbox-IVEtmKHDExiTjpDi"]

YOU CAN ALSO USE STORE BOUGHT PIZZA DOUGH

Add the warm water to the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached.
Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let sit for about 5 minutes.
Add 3 1/2 cups of the 00 Italian flour OR 1 cup cake flour and 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour and the salt and mix until the dough just comes together. If the dough is too wet add the additional flour as needed.
Replace the paddle with the dough hook and knead on speed 1 for 10 minutes.
Oil a bowl.
Add the kneaded dough to the oiled bowl and cover.
Let rise for an hour or until doubled in size.
Punch down and cut in half. At this point you can either make four bread bowls or freeze half of the dough for use later.
Take one half of dough and cut in half, shape into balls and let rest.
Preheat oven to 450°
Turn a 1 1/2 quart pyrex, oven safe glass or clay bowl upside down on a baking sheet and oil lightly

Take one of the dough balls and carefully stretch the dough until it covers the bowl.
Brush the eggwash over the dough
Place in the preheated oven and lower the temperature to 400° and bake for 12 – 15 min

Carefully remove the bread bowl from the pyrex bowl and place it right side up on the baking sheet and return to the oven and bake for 8 – 10 minutes until lightly browned.
Repeat with other bread bowls returning oven to 450° at the beginning for each bowl. If you have two pyrex or oven safe glass bowls or clay bowls do two at a time

How Can You Use the Pizza Dough Bread Bowls?

The possibilities are endless! I like these pizza dough bread bowls even better than the cheesy bacon bread bowls I made for soup a while back. I think they are even better suited for holding soup. They were great for holding salad!

I put a simple lettuce, mozzarella, cherry and almond salad with a rice vinegar vinaigrette and it was a perfectly filling dinner. It was easy to break off pieces of the pizza dough bread bowl as I ate the salad. The vinaigrette coated the bread bowl and it was all just yummy. I will be doing this again.

I am going to look for clay bowls or maybe stainless steel to make the bread bowls as I think they will do a better job than the glass did. I could be wrong but if I am able to find them I will let you know.