Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

The first time I saw true Chicago style pizza, I was confused. Why is the sauce on top of the cheese? What’s going on and where do I find a Chicago deep dish pizza recipe?!? Let’s find out more!

Chicago’s Deep Dish pizza (not to be confused with Chicago’s Tavern Style) of course comes from Chicago, Illinois. It has two signature trademarks: its deep dish crust and the aforementioned sauce over the cheese. I guess the folks living around the Great Lakes were onto something because you’ll also find the sauce-over-cheese-in-a-pan in Detroit’s unique pizza.

However, sources indicate that Chicago style pizza came first – likely originating in 1943 at Pizzeria Uno.

My First Experience with Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

…wasn’t at ALL the real-deal. Being originally from Western Canada, my first experience with Chicago Deep Dish was an adaptation during a visit with friends to Calgary, Alberta. This version was my first ever deep dish pizza and I recall clearly holding the box for the first time and thinking “this pizza is so heavy!!”

While Calgary’s Chicago Deep Dish Pizza was certainly delicious for me as a teenager, in reality it had very little in common with authentic pizza from the windy city.

What is Chicago Style Pizza?

The Chicago Pizza Crust

So what’s special about the real deal? Well, the most striking feature of Chicago-style pizza is certainly its deep-dish crust. Unlike almost any other pizza, the crust of a Chicago-style pizza is almost like a pie crust: deep with a high edge that allows for a generous amount of cheese, toppings, and sauce. The crust itself is also unique; it’s buttery and often compared to a flaky pastry, baked in a round, steel pan that’s similar to a cake or pie pan. It can also be made in a cast-iron skillet at home (which is what we’re going to show you today).

Note that the actual thickness of the crust can vary between the major players in Chicago pizzerias. There’s quite a substantial difference in the amount of dough various recipes call for. Today’s recipe is a bit on the thinner side compared to some, so if you prefer a thicker version, you may choose to use more dough than I have.

The Assembly of this Pizza

As mentioned, the order of assembly of the Chicago pizza is quite unique. The dough is topped first with cheese, then the toppings, with the sauce last.

Why??

By reversing the layering, the pizza crust is insulated from the moisture of the sauce, which keeps the crust from getting soggy.

Chicago Style Pizza Sauce

The sauce used in Chicago deep dish pizza recipes deserves a special mention. It’s typically a thick, chunky tomato sauce, rich in flavor and seasoned with herbs like oregano, basil, and garlic. The sauce’s robust flavor complements the buttery crust and the abundance of cheese and toppings.

Chicago Style Pizza Cheese

Well, this is actually one area where the Chicago-style pizza doesn’t vary much from the “typical” pizza. These deep dish pizzas layer sliced mozzarella (not shredded) to coat the entire bottom of the pizza.

Toppings for Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Recipes

Much like most American style pizzas, Chicago-style pizzas can be adorned with many topping variations. Meaty pizzas will often have sausage, pepperoni, bacon – you name it. Vegetarian options will often have ricotta cheese and spinach. Because of how thick this pizza is, this pizza really lets you load on the toppings.

On the other hand, like many things – if you go for quality toppings, less is often more. Try focusing on perhaps just one meat and maybe one vegetable. I really like this pizza with Italian sausage and/or olives.

What About Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Calories?

You’re probably wondering about Chicago deep dish pizza calories – this is a big pizza! Well, when we make the recipe below, we cut the pie into 8 slices and we find 2 slices each to be filling. If you’re on the same page, that’s an 880 calorie meal. Each extra slice is another 440 calories.

If you’d like to reduce the calories, you can use less sausage (or even none), use less pepperoni, and even use less sauce.

What You Need to Make Chicago Style Pizza

To make this Chicago Deep Dish Pizza recipe, you’re going to need…a pan!!

The best deep dish pizza pan?

Before we get into the toppings, we need to cover the pan. One might argue that the best deep dish pizza pan is a dedicated deep dish pizza pan. These can also often double as round cake pans.

Another popular option is using a cast iron skillet.

While, there’s nothing wrong with either, there really is something to be said for a nicely seasoned cast iron pan. That’s what we’re going to use today. But, if you’ve got a good 12″ round cake pan (or you want to get a special pan for this pizza), then go with that. The role the pan plays here is mostly the shape.

The Best Chicago Ingredients

Chicago Style Pizza Crust Ingredients

Although this dough recipe is a little different than other pizza dough, it’s not particularly complex. For a 12″ cast iron skillet-sized pizza, you’re going to need:

• 2.5 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup of water warmed to ~100F (not above 110 or else it will kill the yeast!)
• 2/3 cups of ice water
• 1.5 tablespoons of cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon of diastatic malt (not essential, if you can’t find it)
• 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 1.5 teaspoons of fine sea salt

Chicago Pizza Sauce

Chicago style deep dish pizza generally uses a pretty thick sauce, with a lot of emphasis on tomato paste.

• 2/3 cups of tomato paste (one 6 ounce can)
• 1/3 cups of finely crushed tomatoes (3 ounces)
• 1 1/3 cups of hand crushed tomatoes (9 ounces)
• 3/4 teaspoons of dried oregano
• 1 pinch of fine sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of diastatic malt powder (optional – this can be hard to find at the grocery store)

For your tomatoes, I suggest buying a 12 to 14 ounce can of really good whole, steam peeled tomatoes. Separate out approximately 1/4 of the can and blend with all of the other ingredients in an immersion blender.

Hand crush the rest of the can of whole tomatoes into the sauce so that you have some nice, large chunks of tomato to be found in the pizza!

This sauce generally benefits from a couple of days of fusing in the fridge, so you should make this the same day as you prepare the dough.

Chicago Pizza Toppings

As discussed above, sliced mozzarella is considered the standard. The most popular toppings are Italian sausage, pepperoni, and probably spinach – although your options are pretty wide open.

How to Make This Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

To make one of the various Cast Iron Deep Dish Pizza recipes:

So, if you’ve been following my posts, you’ll know I’m a big fan of Tony Gemignani. The Pizza Bible is no joke! But maybe one of my fondest memories was making this pizza in a cast iron skillet before realizing that Tony has his own cast iron recipe for a deep dish pizza!

How did I miss that?!?

Nevertheless, he (and his master pizzaiolo) took a turn in a different direction to be a little more modern, while I tried to be a little more true to the spirit of the Windy City. Pizza is an art and we all use our own colors! Still, we enjoy using his flour in most of our American style pizzas.

But, I need to also recognize that my recipe uses a cast iron skillet, and that’s not truly traditional. But, the shape and material of the pan doesn’t radically change the final product. Many (most?) home cooks have a cast iron skillet they love. Some might even have it as a family heirloom! So, I’m choosing to honor that tradition with this recipe!

Step-By-Step Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

Making Chicago Deep Dish Dough

• Warm the smaller portion of water to about 100°F and add it to your stand mixer bowl.
• Add the yeast and whisk for 30 seconds. The yeast should dissolve and bubble – if it doesn’t, the yeast is dead and you need new yeast.
• Add the flour to stand mixer and start the mixer on its lowest speed.
• Add the diastatic malt powder. Again, if you can’t easily find this ingredient, it’s optional.
• Add the two tablespoons of butter.
• Add the salt.
• Slowly add most of the ice water as the mixer continues to work the dough.
  • When most of the water is added, the dough ball should be sticking mostly to the hook and not the bowl.
  • Let it continue mixing for another minute and then stop the mixer and check the dough with your hand. It should be sticking to itself (not separating) and only just a bit tacky to the touch. If the dough feels dry and is separating, add the rest of the water and continue to mix.
  • If you add all of the water and the dough becomes too sticky, that’s okay – just add additional flour about a tablespoon at a time and allow it to mix in.
• Stop the mixer and use your hands to pull the dough off of the hook and press any loose bits of dough/flour into the dough ball. Hand knead the dough for a minute to make sure the dough feels well mixed and isn’t sticking much to your fingers. If it is, put back in the mixing bowl with another tablespoon of flour mix for 1 minute and check again.
• Cover the dough with a damp tea towel or cloth for 30 minutes in a warm spot in your kitchen.
• The dough can be used at this time, but it will have more flavor if stored in the fridge for 24-48 hours. If using the dough tomorrow, place in an air-tight container and put in the fridge. Make sure the dough has time to come up to room temperature before rolling out.

Preparing the Dough & Pan

One of the key steps here is to make sure that the pan is oiled so that the dough won’t stick. I prefer to use a cold piece of butter and rub it into the grain of the cast iron pan. The butter will melt as you spread it around and once that happens, you can use your fingers to work the (now) liquid butter over the entire surface.

Before You Start:

• Remove the pizza dough from the fridge and let it warm to about room temperature.
• Remove the pizza sauce from the fridge and let it also get to room temperature.
• Pre-heat the oven to 500°F about 30 minutes before you start the steps below.

• Use 1 tablespoon of cold butter and hold it in your fingers to spread across the entire pan. Once the butter melts, use your fingers to make sure the entire pan is covered.
• Dust your work area with the cornmeal.
• Transfer the dough onto the cornmeal. Although you CAN, I recommend not flipping the dough over and keeping the cornmeal on just one side of the dough.
• Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough so that the rolling pin won’t stick.
• Begin rolling the dough out.
  • I recommend using a rolling pin to keep the dough thickness consistent and to get the largest pie circle.
  • Add more flour to the top as needed to keep the rolling pin from sticking. If the bottom is sticking, you can add additional flour and/or cornmeal to the bottom to keep it from sticking to your work area.
• Roll the dough until you get a 16″ circle.

• Carefully lift the dough circle and place in the center of the pan.
  • It will be a bit tricky to get it centered and have the dough extend over the top of the pan. The dough may also try to bunch up.
  • Be gentle and position it the best you can – don’t tear the dough trying to make it perfect!

• Use your fingers to tuck the dough into the bottom edge.
• Now use the rolling pin and roll it across the top of the pan. This will cut the extra dough from around the edge making the top of the pizza level with the top of the pan.

• Gently pinch the top of the dough against the pan to secure it.

Assembling & Cooking the Pizza: Part 1

• Place the slices of cheese over the entire bottom of the pan. The slices will overlap. To keep the dough from puffing up, you might want to tear bits of cheese to get the cheese covering the bottom all the way to the bottom edge.

• Slice the casing of the sausage and pinch small pieces of the uncooked sausage over the entire bottom.
  • YES! The sausage will cook. We’ll make sure!
  • Distribute the sausage evenly (and therefore thinly) over the entire bottom.

• Distribute the pepperoni slices over top of the sausage and sprinkle half of the parmesan cheese.
• Place the pizza in the oven on the bottom rack for 15 minutes.

Assembling & Cooking the Pizza: Part 2

• Remove the pizza from the oven. As you remove it from the oven, rotate the pizza 180° (so you don’t forget later!).
• Use a thermometer to check the temperature of the sausage to ensure it is at least 160°F (per the US FDA).

• Add the sauce on top of the cooked sausage.
• Return the pizza to the oven and cook for another 12 minutes.

Finishing Touches

• Remove the pizza from the oven.
• Use a flexible spatula and very gently run it under the pizza to loosen it from the cast iron pan without penetrating the bottom crust. Check the color of the crust – it should be a golden brown and crisp like a pie. If it’s not quite done, you can return it to the oven for 1 to 2 extra minutes.
• Once finished in the oven, use the spatula to gently transfer the pizza to a large cutting board. This can be a tricky step since you don’t want to open the bottom of the crust. If you can have someone help you “catch” the pizza on the cutting board while you slide it out, it can be handy.

• Let the pizza rest for 5 minutes.
• If you have one, use a pizza rocker to cut the pizza into slices. If you don’t have one, I suggest using the longest knife you have. You can use a regular pizza wheel cutter, but it will be trickier to get a clean cut of the outer crust.
• Sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the pizza and serve.

Tips & Tricks Making Cast Iron Deep Dish Pizza

• Relatively speaking, this isn’t such a difficult pizza to make. But there are a few points where you are transferring the dough where things can be challenging. Be gentle, be patient, and if someone is around to help you, enlist a little help!
• Although you can do this in a tall pizza pan, the cast iron is great and makes a few things easier.
• You don’t need to do this, but I prefer the cornmeal to be only on the bottom of the dough.
• This crust is much more like a pie than a pizza.
• Making sure that some of the toppings go right into the bottom “corner” will help keep the dough from puffing up too much. It’s not a big deal if it does, but it’s worth noting.
• This method of cooking will completely cook the sausage inside the pizza – and with a thermometer, you can test it. But if you’re not comfortable, you can always cook it in advance.
• You are welcome to add additional seasoning to the pizza. Some prefer to add garlic and oregano over the sausage. Some like to add oregano after it’s cooked. Some like to drizzle a little olive oil over the top after. I personally really like black olives on top of the sauce. It’s your pizza – do what makes you happy!

January 12, 2025