Traditional Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

Make the best Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza at home! If the thick, buttery crust doesn’t win you over the layers of gooey cheese, sausage and a sweet and spicy red sauce will surely have you craving seconds!

Sally is the author of four cookbooks and is a regular correspondent for the Boston Globe Wednesday Food Section. She also is a food photographer.

Chicago-style deep dish pizza is not your everyday pizza fare. This thick pie with buttery, crisp crust is filled to the max with oozy cheese and crumbled sausage and then topped with a slightly sweet and spicy tomato sauce and even more cheese. By most accounts invented in Chicago (thus the name) this deep-dish version fulfills hungry pizza cravings in a most satisfying way!

How To Make The Perfect Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

The dough is layered with butter, rolled and fitted into a cake pan. The high-sided crust makes room for a substantial amount of filling. To create its buttery flavor and light crust you laminate the dough and give it an extra rise.

Laminate means to create alternate thin layers of butter and dough (think croissants or puff pastry.) While those pastries require folding, rolling, and folding again a few times over, in this simplified version, all you do is spread a layer of softened, room temperature butter over the dough and roll it into a cylinder, creating layers. Easy enough, right? The dough gets another rest in the refrigerator to maintain the layers, to rise slightly, and to allow the butter to become firm. Then it is rolled out into a circle and pressed into the pan.

The assembly of a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza is a bit different, too. You start with a layer of mozzarella cheese slices on the bottom not the top! This keeps the crust crisp and allows the cheese to melt and ooze to the max. Top it with crumbled, cooked sausage (or other fillings of your choice) and spread the sauce on top not the bottom! Sauce on top keeps the crust from becoming soggy. Sprinkle with Parmesan and your pie is ready to go into the oven. That thick sauce holds the pie together when you slice it, and the cheese on the bottom oozes just a little on the plate.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza (gino's Copycat)

A slightly chunky, slightly sweet sauce is the hallmark of deep-dish pizza. I used crushed tomatoes, but you could also use diced or whole canned tomatoes crushed in a bowl. Just be sure to let the sauce simmer long enough for it to thicken; it should be thicker and chunkier than tomato puree but not as thick as tomato paste. Garlic, onions, and Italian seasonings like oregano, rosemary or basil are the usual suspects, and they add an essential panache to the sauce.

There are specific deep-dish pizza pans, but you won’t need one. This recipe is geared to work in a 9-inch cake pan with 2-inch sides. You could also use a 9-inch spring form pan, or a 9- or 10-inch cast-iron pan. You can serve the pizza right from the pan or lift the whole pie out for a dramatic presentation. Let it cool for about 10 minutes so the sauce settles and then run a knife around the circumference of the pan. Carefully slide a wide, thin spatula under the dough to lift it out of the pan in one piece.

 To refrigerate the dough: After laminating (step 3), the dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. Let it come to room temperature (about 1 hour) before rolling.

Deep Dish Pizza

To freeze the dough: Before rolling wrap the dough in a double layer of plastic for up to 2 months or you could roll it and freeze it flat on a sheet pan, and when completely frozen, wrap it well in double layers of plastic. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator and then let rise at room temperature for about 1 hour before rolling.

To refrigerate or freeze the sauce: Store the sauce in the fridge for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months.

*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2, 000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Giordano's Famous Stuffed Deep Dish Pizza

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.

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Warning: this post has about 1, 000, 000 step-by-step photos and lots of little explanations to go along with them. Might want to grab some coffee.

My Favorite Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

I recently looked at my website’s stats and came to find out that Chicago is my most popular city in the US. I have more Chicago readers than any other place in this country. That’s crazy awesomebecause I love Chicago. As a little tribute to my #1 city, I’m finishing one blow-out year with a Chicago inspired recipe.

I’ve only had the pleasure of having real, authentic Chicago-style pizza a few times. And those few times have been enough to convince me that Chicago-style pizza is incomparably good. Better than good.

So, whatmakes Chicago-style pizza so damn amazing? The answer is everything. Every little detail about this pizza is special. First, this pizza clearly doesn’t look like a pizza you are used to. It’s baked in a deep dish cake pan. The cheese goes directly on top of the crust and the sauceis piled on top. An upside-down pizza pie of sorts. Now, I may be completely wrong, but I’ve learned that the proper way to eat Chicago-style pizza is with a fork. Is this right, Chicago readers? I hope so because it’s the only way I can eat it without making an atrocious and very embarrassing mess.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza With Mushrooms & Bacon Recipe

The deep dish pizza crust.A crunchy-edged, flaky crust is key in Chicago-style pizza. It’s absolutely not a regular pizza crust. No, this crust is unique. And that’s why I steered completely away from my regular pizza crust recipe and dove headfirst into something completely nuts. Adding a little cornmeal. Cornmealis what makes the crust so crunchy and flavorful. Not to mention, tasting like you’re eating the real deal.

What else is special about this pizza crust? It’s so buttery. The butteriest pizza crust on the planet, or at least the butteriest pizza crust I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting. To get that ultra buttery flavor, as well as the iconic flaky texture of Chicago-style pizza crust, we’re going to laminate the pizza dough. Umm, what?? Yes. It sounds weird, I know. But laminating dough is exactly what gives croissants its flaky layers. Laminating, or layering, butter into dough is the answer an authentic tasting Chicago pizza crust.

This allsounds hard, doesn’t it? Good news, it’s not!Laminating is literally just spreading butter on your pizza dough and foldingit up. Then, rolling the pizza dough out again locking that butter inside. Easy.

Gluten Free Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza: Authentic Recipe!

I’m not sure how and I’m not sure why… but despite being a little crunchy and veryflaky, this pizza crust will absolutely melt in your mouth. It’s crunchy, buttery, and tender all at the same time? A miracle crust.

Reference this Baking with Yeast Guide whenever you work with baker’s yeast. I include practical answers to all of your common yeast questions!

Let’s talk about the pizza sauce. Slightly sweet, incredibly thick, and wonderfully flavorful. The sauce is always my favorite part about Chicago-style pizza. In fact, I usually order extra sauce on the side.All about the condiments in my world.

The Real Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Dough Recipe

This garlic infused pizza sauce is made on the stovetop and, while waiting for the pizza dough to rise, simmers quietly allowing the flavors to develop and the texture to thicken. I like to add some red pepper flakes for a little heat; it really gives this sauce something extra. If you don’t like heat, you can leave it out. This sauce is unlike ANY other tomato sauce I’ve ever had. To me, it tastes like the kinds I’ve had in Chicago. You’re going to love it. Unless of course you don’t like tomato sauce.

Along with the miracle crust and this luscious pizza sauce, a whole lotta cheese goes into this deep dish pie. You may use sliced mozzarella or shredded. Whatever it is, slice or shred it yourself from a block of real mozzarella cheese. Pre-shredded mozzarella

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