Recipe This | Air Fryer Pizza Dough Balls (2024)

Air Fryer Pizza Dough Balls. If you love deep fried Pizza Express Dough Balls then you will love my air fryer version. Learn exactly how to make pizza dough balls in the air fryer.

Pizza dough balls is anupdate of my feta cheese dough balls recipe that I originally published on theblog back in 2016. It is one of those recipes that my readers have asked me timeand time again to convert to a pizza express copycat and here it is!

The original recipe was true to a blogging working mum, thatwhen we are pregnant and having a baby, we test lots of recipes in advance andthen load them onto the blog. That way we are not having gaps on the blog whenour baby is born.

The original version of my pizza dough balls is an example of this as it went out exactly tothe day that my wonderful baby boy Jorge was born. It just feels really cheesythat a post that originally went out on his birth date is now going to berevamped with a now 2.5-year-old by my side!

Homemade PizzaDough Balls

A bit of honesty for you, longbefore we started making our own homemade pizza dough balls…..

I remember in the old daysDominic and I used to have a few takeaways per week. That is probably notentirely truthful; fifteen years ago, we would have about 4 a week. Once we getover how fat it made us and what awful slobs we had turned into, we alwaysthink of the money that we wasted.

You see we must have beenspending about £60 per week on takeaways plus we were also spending about £120a week on general groceries when we did the weekly shopping. Yet most of thisfood would be wasted and would end up in the bin. Yet here we are 15 yearslater and even with inflation we now average about £65 ($90) a week and don’thave any takeaways at all.

That is nearly 2/3s cheaper andthe food is so much better, oh and compared to a decade ago we are a lotthinner too!

And have you ever noticed themark up on a pizza takeaway? When you think that you can make yourself the sameas what you get from the takeaway company for about £3 when they charge you£15.

Or as my Uncle Bob would havementioned to me, how he lives in the US and you haven’t considered delivery drivertips.

But the biggest kick we get outof our cooking is when we use up all the leftovers so that we never have anyfood waste.

Though now in our kitchen we have a bread maker and its like lightening speed how quick it is to produce delicious bread maker pizza dough.

Then make our then with the leftovers make Pizza Express Pizza Dough Balls. Cook them in the air fryer and you have a delicious side for lunch or dinner.

Pizza Express PizzaDough Balls

I am a HUGE fan of pizza chain restaurants.The bright menus, the friendly staff and the delicious pizzas. Their pizzabases are always amazing, and I always leave thinking that the diet starts tomorrow.

Here in Portugalwe don’t have much variety so tend to stick with either our local Pizza Hut orour on the seafront Italian Pizza Buffet. I am always more into the pizzabuffet than Pizza Hut as it is a LOTcheaper.

Often as afamily of 5 it will cost us more than 50€ to eat out at a pizza chain and thatis why I love to cook it myself at home.

For onewith the bread maker, on the dough setting it takes less than 30 minutes of hands-freekneading. That means that you dump the pizza dough ingredients into the breadmaker and 30 minutes later come back and it is done.

Then youcan use your bread maker pizza dough into pizza dough balls or as a classicpizza, the choice is yours.

Air Fryer Pizza Dough Balls

Pizza Dough Ballsare delicious cooked in the air fryer. We make them normally when we haveleftover pizza dough, but it depends what food we want to eat and are in themood for.

Irecommend that you make them from a fridge raid of leftovers. Go to your fridgeand see what would work well with your pizza dough balls.

• Cheese – I love mine with most types of cheese. My favourite is with mozzarella, parmesan or feta. But its up to you.
• Pizza Dough – leftover pizza dough that you have from when you made pizza the day before or use my delicious bread maker pizza dough.
• Oil – Its always best to brush your pizza dough balls with some oil in order to give it that delicious crispy coating. As we’re talking Italian food here, I recommend that you use extra virgin olive oil.

Those are the 3 main ingredients that make up my pizza dough balls and of course, having an air fryer helps! Though if you don’t already have one, we have the Philips XL as our main air fryer.

How To Cook PizzaDough Balls In The Air Fryer?

The most important thing to remember here is that you’re dealingwith pizza dough balls in the air fryer and whatever you do,you don’t want to cook them directly in the air fryer basket.

That is because the dough balls will stick to it and youwill end up having to clean it out for ages and it will just ruin the yummydough balls experience.

Instead you have 2main choices:

1. Air Baking Sheet – an air fryer addiction of mine. Simply, cut a baking mat to size and place it into your air fryer basket. Cook your air fryer pizza dough balls and then when done wipe clean the baking mat.
2. Air Fryer Grill Pan – I use this all the time and its like having a grill pan for your air fryer. It replaces the air fryer basket and is perfect for cleaning.

MORE Air Fryer Pizza Recipes

I am a big pizza addict and have cooked pizza a LOT recently in the air fryer. Notalways with a pizza base as sometimes I have used vegetables as the base orother leftovers.

Here are a few AirFryer Pizza Recipes:

• Air Fryer Zucchini Pizza
• Air Fryer Pizza Bagels
• Air Fryer Pitta Pizza
• Air Fryer Frozen Mini Pizzas
• Air Fryer Pizza Ring
• Air Fryer Pizza Loaded Fries

Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!

Join TheRecipeThis.com Community:

Facebook Group|Pinterest|Twitter

Plus, don’t forget to subscribe below to join our email newsletterwith updates of our latest recipes, latest freebies, our cooking stories, plusmuch more: