The first time I made pizza dough at home I treated it like a science project: a 12-inch stone, a 48-hour cold ferment, a dedicated pizza peel. It was delicious, and I have made maybe three of them since. Then a xiachufang cook posted the version that actually fits a home kitchen — four-inch pizzas, eight at a time, made from a simple yeasted dough, par-baked, and frozen so that a real pizza is fifteen minutes away on a weeknight.
The brilliance is the scale. Small pizzas bake fast, freeze perfectly, and let everyone top their own — one with extra cheese, one heavy on the shrimp, one that is basically a delivery of vegetables to a picky eater. The dough is a straightforward mix of bread flour and cake flour, the sauce is a chunky pork-tomato ragù, and the whole batch comes together in about two hours, most of it rising while you do nothing.
What Are Four-Inch Homemade Mini Pizzas (四寸自制小披萨)?
Four-inch homemade mini pizzas are small individual pizzas with a soft, slightly chewy yeasted crust, built on the same dough-and-sauce logic as a full-size pizza but scaled for speed and freezing. Each crust is rolled to about 10 cm (4 in), blind-baked briefly, topped with a pork-tomato sauce, mozzarella, and whatever you like, then finished in the oven or air fryer.
This version from xiachufang is designed for the freezer. The recipe makes eight crusts, so you par-bake, top, and freeze them in individual portions; later they bake straight from frozen at 200°C (400°F) for about 15 minutes. It is the kind of make-ahead cooking that turns “what’s for dinner” into a solved problem.
For a Chinese-style seafood version of the same idea, my homemade seafood pizza tops a home crust with shrimp and scallions.
1Homemade Seafood Pizza (Haixian Bisa)A hearty, bakery-style seafood pizza loaded with shrimp, crab, and veggies on a custom crispy-chewy crust. Includes a chef’s secret step to prevent soggy toppings!Check out this recipe
Why This Recipe Works
- Small pizzas bake and freeze better than big ones. Four-inch crusts cook through in minutes and reheat from frozen without a soggy middle.
- A milk-bread-style dough stays soft. The blend of bread flour and cake flour, plus a little sugar and oil, gives a crust that is crisp outside and tender inside.
- A real meat sauce beats plain tomato. Onion, garlic, and pork mince simmered with tomato makes a chunky ragù that does not water down the crust.
- Par-baking keeps the freezer pizza honest. Baking the naked crusts for 8 minutes before freezing means the final cook only needs to melt the cheese and crisp the edge.
- Everyone gets their own. Individual pizzas mean individual toppings, no negotiating over a single pie.
Equipment Needed
- Stand mixer or bread machine for the dough (or a bowl and strong arms)
- Four-inch round pizza tins or a baking sheet
- Fork for docking the dough
- Food processor or blender for the sauce base
- Oven or air fryer
Ingredients
- 140 g (1 cup plus 2 tbsp) bread flour (高筋面粉)
- 60 g (1/2 cup) cake flour (低筋面粉)
- 110 g (1/2 cup minus 1 tsp) water
- 14 g (1 tbsp) corn or neutral oil
- 10 g (2 tsp) sugar
- 2 g (3/4 tsp) instant yeast (耐高糖酵母)
- 1 g (1/4 tsp) salt
- 1 small onion, minced
- 1 whole head garlic, minced
- 2 tomatoes, blended to a purée
- 300 g (10.5 oz) ground pork (about 20% fat)
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2.5 tsp salt, divided
- Mozzarella cheese, shredded
- Toppings of your choice: cooked shrimp, sliced green pepper, corn, peas, carrot dice
Ingredient Notes
Bread flour plus cake flour. This pairing gives a crust that is sturdy enough to hold toppings but still tender — the cake flour softens the bread flour’s chew. All-purpose flour alone works in a pinch.
Ground pork for the sauce. The original uses about 300 g of pork mince at roughly 20% fat. The fat carries flavor into the sauce and keeps it from tasting thin; lean beef mince is a fine swap.
Mozzarella. Low-moisture mozzarella melts without pooling water. Grate it yourself — pre-shredded bagged cheese is often coated to stop clumping and melts less smoothly.
Prep & Mise en Place
Weigh the flours, water, oil, sugar, yeast, and salt into the mixer bowl. Mince the onion and peel the whole garlic head before blending the tomatoes, so the sauce steps move fast once the dough is rising. Measure the salt for the sauce separately from the dough salt — the recipe uses them at different times.
Cooking Process
Step 1 — Mix and Ferment the Dough
Combine the bread flour, cake flour, water, oil, sugar, yeast, and salt in the mixer and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth. Ferment at about 28°C (82°F) until doubled — roughly an hour — or speed it up at 40°C (104°F) if you are in a hurry, as the cook did.
Step 2 — Make the Sauce Base While the Dough Rises
Mince the onion and the whole garlic head until fine but not pasty, then blend the tomatoes into a purée. Have the ground pork and tomato paste ready beside the stove.
Step 3 — Fry the Onion and Garlic
Heat oil in the pan and cook the onion and garlic until soft and fragrant, about 3 to 4 minutes, without browning them too dark.
Step 4 — Brown the Ground Pork
Add the ground pork and cook, breaking it up, until it turns white and no longer pink — about 5 minutes.
Step 5 — Add the Tomato and Season
Stir in the tomato purée and about 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, then season with roughly 2.5 teaspoons of salt (the cook uses two and a half small teaspoons). Simmer until the sauce thickens slightly.
Step 6 — Prep Your Toppings
While the sauce simmers, prepare whatever toppings you like — cooked shrimp, sliced green pepper, corn, peas, and diced carrot all work. The original recipe keeps it flexible.
Step 7 — Roll, Dock, and Par-Bake the Crusts
Divide the risen dough into eight pieces and roll each into a four-inch round. Fit them into the tins, prick the bases with a fork, and bake at 180°C (355°F) for 8 minutes. This par-bake is what lets the pizzas freeze and finish properly later.
Docking — pricking the dough with a fork — is not optional for a small pizza. It lets trapped steam escape so the crust stays flat instead of ballooning into a pita, and the brief par-bake sets the structure so a frozen pizza finishes evenly instead of turning doughy in the middle.
Step 8 — Assemble: Sauce, Cheese, Toppings, Cheese
Spread a layer of the meat sauce on each par-baked crust, then a layer of mozzarella, then your toppings, and finish with another layer of mozzarella so everything melts together.
Step 9 — The Finished Pizzas
At this point the pizzas are complete and ready for their final bake — golden cheese, crisp edges, and a soft center.
Step 10 — Freeze for Later, Then Finish in the Air Fryer or Oven
Wrap any pizzas you are not eating now and freeze them. When you want one, cook straight from frozen in the air fryer at 200°C (400°F) for 15 minutes, or in the oven at 200°C (400°F) for 15 minutes.
Step 11 — Enjoy
Let the pizzas rest for a minute, then serve — crisp, cheesy, and dangerously easy to eat two of.
Common Mistakes When Making Mini Pizzas
1. The dough does not rise. Cause: old yeast or water that is too hot. Fix: use fresh instant yeast and keep the water lukewarm, around 30°C (85°F); ferment in a warm spot until visibly doubled.
2. The crust is tough. Cause: over-kneading or too much flour. Fix: knead just until smooth and keep the dough soft; resist adding flour beyond the recipe.
3. The sauce makes the pizza soggy. Cause: watery tomatoes and no simmer. Fix: simmer the sauce until it thickens before assembling, and do not overload the crust.
4. The cheese burns before the middle cooks. Cause: topping an unbaked crust. Fix: par-bake the naked crusts first, then top and finish — the cook’s 8-minute par-bake is the key.
5. Frozen pizzas come out doughy inside. Cause: skipping the par-bake or freezing raw dough. Fix: always par-bake before freezing, then cook from frozen at 200°C (400°F) for the full 15 minutes.
Variations
Seafood. Swap the pork sauce for a lighter tomato base and top with shrimp, following my seafood pizza for inspiration.
Cheese-lover. Add grated parmesan to the top layer of mozzarella for a deeper, saltier crust flavor, or fill the crust with the same yeasted richness as my coconut bread strips.
Dough swaps. If you want a faster, no-knead base, my no-knead ciabatta dough makes an excellent rustic pizza crust.
Fried-dough crust. For an indulgent twist, press the dough into the same lacy shape as crispy youtiao dough — it fries up shatteringly crisp for a snack-size base.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make these without a stand mixer? Yes — knead by hand for 10 to 12 minutes until smooth; the dough is soft and forgiving.
How long does the dough take to rise? About 1 hour at 28°C (82°F), or faster at 40°C (104°F); it is ready when doubled in size.
Do I need special four-inch tins? No — shape the dough into rounds on a lined baking sheet, or use small oven-safe bowls in a pinch.
How long do frozen pizzas keep? Wrapped well, they keep for about 2 months; no thawing needed before the final bake.
Can I use store-bought pizza sauce? Yes, but the homemade pork ragù is what makes these taste like a real pizzeria pizza rather than toast with sauce.
How to Serve
Serve the pizzas hot, straight from the oven or air fryer, with a side of tomato egg drop soup with dough drops for a fun dinner, or pack them into lunchboxes beside some rou jia mo for a handheld lunch spread. For a dough-lover’s table, set them out with soft milk bread rolls and air-fryer meat pies, or swap the crust for the sesame paste flatbread dough when you want a chewier base.
Storage & Reheat
Refrigerate any uneaten pizzas for up to 3 days and reheat in the air fryer at 200°C (400°F) for 5 to 6 minutes, or freeze the fully assembled pizzas for up to 2 months and cook from frozen for 15 minutes. Ground pork must reach an internal temperature of 71°C (160°F); because these are fully cooked before freezing, reheating to piping hot is sufficient.
Allergen Notice
Contains wheat (flour) and dairy (mozzarella). Pork is used in the sauce; swap for turkey or beef mince if needed. Check toppings for shellfish if serving someone with a seafood allergy.
Nutrition Disclaimer
Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first listed is calculated for nutrition. Garnishes and optional ingredients are not included.
About the Author & Recipe Development
I am Lin, and I grew up in my parents’ restaurant kitchen in Chengdu, where the ovens were for roasting chiles, not baking pizza. But a decade cooking professionally taught me that good dough is good dough, whatever you put on it, and this xiachufang recipe is the one that finally made pizza practical in my home kitchen. I tested it twice: the first batch I skipped the par-bake and the frozen pizzas came out doughy in the middle; the second batch, following the 8-minute rule, froze and reheated perfectly. Now I make the full eight whenever I have a free afternoon.
Authoritative References
USDA Safe Temperature Chart for cooking ground meats, and King Arthur Baking on yeast and fermentation for dough troubleshooting.
Four-Inch Homemade Mini Pizzas (四寸自制小披萨): Freezer-Friendly
Equipment
- Stand mixer
- Oven or air fryer
- Baking Sheet
- Food processor
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 1.17 cups bread flour (高筋面粉)
- 0.5 cup cake flour (低筋面粉)
- 0.5 cup water minus 1 tsp
- 1 tbsp corn or neutral oil
- 2 tsp sugar
- 0.75 tsp instant yeast
- 0.25 tsp salt
For the Sauce and Toppings
- 1 small onion, minced
- 1 head garlic, minced
- 2 tomatoes, blended to a purée
- 10.5 oz ground pork about 20% fat
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 2.5 tsp salt, divided for the sauce
- 2 cups mozzarella, shredded
- 1 batch toppings: shrimp, green pepper, corn, peas, carrot as you like
Instructions
- Mix the flours, water, oil, sugar, yeast, and salt and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth. Ferment at 28°C (82°F) until doubled, or speed up at 40°C (104°F).
- While the dough rises, mince the onion and whole garlic head and blend the tomatoes into a purée.
- Fry the onion and garlic in oil until soft and fragrant.
- Add the ground pork and cook, breaking it up, until it turns white.
- Stir in the tomato purée and tomato paste, season with salt, and simmer until thickened.
- Prep your toppings — shrimp, green pepper, corn, peas, and carrot all work.
- Divide the risen dough into eight pieces, roll each into a four-inch round, dock with a fork, and bake at 180°C (355°F) for 8 minutes to par-bake.
- Top each crust with sauce, mozzarella, your toppings, and a final layer of mozzarella.
- The pizzas are now ready for their final bake.
- Freeze any you are not eating now. To serve, cook straight from frozen in the air fryer or oven at 200°C (400°F) for 15 minutes.
- Rest for a minute and enjoy the crisp, cheesy pizzas.
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