Chicago-Style Pizza at Home
While Chicago-style pizza may have been invented in the Windy City, it can be made anywhere! In fact, you don’t even need to find your way to Chicago to enjoy it at home. By following these directions on how to cook Chicago-style pizza at home, you can make authentic Chicago-style pizza in your own kitchen any time you want! Let’s start with our deep dish dough recipe, which only takes about 30 minutes to prepare and 11⁄2 hours to rise and cook...
Chicago is known for its local culinary creations, including a very special pizza. While there are many variations of Chicago-style pizza around town, they're all big pies with loads of cheese and toppings piled high on thick crusts. There are three distinct styles of Chicago deep dish pizzas: Chicago thin crust, stuffed and pan. Pan pizza isn't as deep as other varieties and is often confused with New York–style pizza by tourists looking for authentic Chicago food. So when you go out to find a piece of Chicago in your own home, make sure you order deep dish or stuffed—if you want true Chicago style! To truly replicate that experience in your kitchen, follow these easy steps
Dough
Chicago-style pizza dough is different from other styles of pizza in that it has little to no yeast. This makes for a crumbly, airy dough that absorbs lots of sauce and oil, making for a soggy crust.
Sauce
The first step to making Chicago-style pizza is choosing a sauce. You can go traditional and stick with plain tomato sauce, or you can branch out and try something new. It might take some experimenting—make a few pizzas with different sauces until you find one that’s just right for your taste buds. If you like marinara sauce on your pasta, but prefer pizza sauce on your pie, then perhaps trying another sauce could be worth it for your next order of Chicago deep dish.
Toppings
The Chicago style pizza is a pie with a thick layer of cornmeal on top, covered in cheese, then meat and vegetables. The most popular combination is Italian sausage, onions and bell peppers but any kind of toppings can be used as long as they are slightly sweet or bitter. If you’re adding meat to your pizza, it should be sautéed first because oven temperatures are too high for raw meat. Cook up some bacon or ground beef with spices like oregano, garlic powder and basil then drain off excess fat before adding to your pizza.
Bake
Chicago-style pizza is baked in a steel pan, which yields a thicker crust than you’d see on New York–style pizza. So if you want your home pie to have that authentic crunch, you'll need to bake it in a steel pan. As an added bonus, steel pans allow pizzas to cook more evenly—which means they're not likely to burn or dry out on one side while remaining doughy on another. If you don't have one of these pans (or any other baking sheet) around your house already, pick up a 10 by 14 heavy-duty pan and make sure it's preheated before using. A 12 deep dish pie will only require about 20 minutes of baking time for perfection.
Chicago-Style Pizza Recipe
Chicagoland natives take their pizza very seriously, so much so that the Chicago-style deep dish style of pizza has become iconic throughout the region and the country at large. A Chicago-style pizza is cooked in a pan and has a crumbly crust, which serves as the base for layers of tomato sauce, cheese, and toppings that give it its distinctive shape. Find out how to make Chicago-Style Pizza at home with this simple recipe!
Chicago-Style Deep Dish Crust
If you’re looking to make Chicago-style deep dish pizza at home, then you’ll need a special deep dish pizza pan. These pans are usually cast iron and are more expensive than standard pans; however, they can be found at any kitchen supply store or online retailer. The dough recipe is simple but time consuming because it has to rise for three days before you bake it—don’t worry though, as long as you remember to put it in your fridge each night.
Italian Sausage Base
This is a mixture of Italian sausage, ground beef, and Italian spices. Chicago-style pizza is similar to New York style pizza in that it’s thin crust, but instead of being made with a sauce and cheese you add uncooked toppings (see list below) directly onto a tray or pan. Preheat your oven to 500°F. Spread 4 tbsp of marinara on your pizza pan followed by 2 tbsp of Italian Sausage Base , then top with 2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (followed by your choice of vegetables), then bake at 500°F for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Mozzarella Cheese Layer
To make a good Chicago-style pizza, you should use 3 to 4 ounces of shredded mozzarella cheese. It should be freshly grated if possible. If not, that's fine; it will still turn out delicious. Just try to get it as fresh as possible and don't leave it sitting in your refrigerator too long after you grate it or it may harden and become difficult to spread over your pizza dough later on.
The Toppings
Toppings aren’t typical of Chicago-style pizza. However, it isn’t uncommon to see pepperoni, sausage, and peppers. Think Crust first, toppings second as you choose what goes on your pie (and keep in mind that there are no hard and fast rules about anything in Chicago pizza). Toppings should be thin—no more than a 1/4 inch thick. Many home cooks choose to use Roma tomatoes instead of a canned tomato product or sauce from a jar because they think it tastes better and makes for a better end result (it does). But if you want to skip straight to sauce from a jar or can, that’s okay too.
Before getting into all of that, it's important to understand what makes Chicago-style pizza unique. It all starts with an Italian dough that's baked in a pan and loaded with toppings like Italian sausage, mushrooms, peppers and onions. With so many elements to consider—the soft crust, meaty toppings and sweet tomato sauce—there are several steps to making Chicago-style pizza at home. Here are three of our favorites
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