Plain, all-purpose white flour is a great place to start when making your own pizza dough. It has plenty of protein, strength and flexibility, making it very easy and forgiving to work with when trying to stretch it out. The downside is that all-purpose, white dough tends to lack any flavor as it’s been processed to remove the bran and germ. So if you want to take your dough to the next level and really add a dynamic shot of flavor, try adding some whole grain, which includes all three parts of the grain – bran, germ, and endosperm.

Added whole grains can make a soft and light pizza dough and take a bland dough to bellissimo with very little effort. Just be careful, you can do a wholesale swap without potentially undermining the structure of the dough as many whole grains have lower protein and gluten strength.

I’d recommend starting with your regular base dough (personally I like this NYC-style dough) and replacing 10 – 20% of the flour with the whole grain flour. If you find that you like the dough and it’s easy to work with, you can continue to increase the percentage to your liking.

Whole Grain Protein % & Gluten Strength

Just remember, in general adding whole grains will make the dough softer and looser and may require more water.

You may find that using a higher-protein flour can help balance out the effects of incorporating whole grain.

Good luck!