Personal Deep Dish Pizza

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The classic Pizza from Chicago – the legendary Deep Dish Pizza! It’s one of our favorite types of Pizzas, right up there with traditional Napoli or the famed NY Slice. A Deep Dish Pizza is a huge Pizza, layered with Mozzarella Cheese, a Meat filling (Pepperoni or Sausage usually), a rich Tomato Sauce, and finished with grated Parmesan Cheese. You can follow our recipe below to make a traditional Deep Dish Pizza. Alternatively, we’re having some fun with it and creating individual Personal Deep Dish Pizza, perfect for appetizers or individual meals!

When it comes to Deep Dish Pizza, it’s all about Chicago. The town that invented this famous Pizza that started it all. When it comes to Chicago there are thousands of great Pizza places serving up this delicious dish. On our opinion, the best of them all is the legendary Lou Malnati’s. They do an amazing Butter Crust, and their Pizzas are amazing

What’s more, if you live in the US they will ship you out some frozen Deep Dish Pizza. We got it shipped to NY and it tasted amazing. Highly recommended! Anyway, back to the recipe!

What is so fu

Deep Dish Pizzas are truly unique. They are assembled in a way that the toppings are reversed compared to a typical Pizza. The bottom layer of the pizza has Cheese, and the top layer has the tomato sauce!

They’re quite a unique sight to behold if you’ve never eaten one before. You don’t know what to expect when cutting into your first slice. The melty Mozzarella Cheese will create those beautiful Cheese Pulls that you expect, however it’ll be at the bottom of the Pizza and not the top!

Layering the toppings in reverse makes the Pizza super easy to build. All you need to ensure is that each layer has an ample amount of toppings on it before you move onto the next. Abundance is the name of the game when layering our Personal Deep Dish Pizza, so try and fit as many toppings as possible as you can into each layer. You want about a third of the Pizza to be filled by each layer. So, one third cheese, one third meat, and one third Tomato

To create that amazing Deep Dish Pizza Butter Crust requires a lamination technique

The Butter crust on Deep Dish Pizza is legendary. A rich, buttery flavored crust that holds together in support of the Pizza yet is crumbly enough to melt in your mouth once you bite into it. It’s the perfect level of density and lightness to pair with the heaviness of these Pizzas. Making this delicious Butter Crust requires some specific techniques that we’ll share with you:

Butter and Corn Meal are mixed into the dough

Perhaps slightly less common ingredients when making a typical Pizza dough are the inclusion of Butter and Corn Meal. The Butter is an obvious addition, given this is a Butter Curst we’re making after all! The Butter adds a creaminess to the dough and it’s overall texture is slightly wetter than a typical Pizza dough. This makes rolling out the dough very easy once it’s been formed and rested

The second addition is Corn Meal, a classic ingredient in Midwest cooking. The Corn meal adds a lovely texture and lightness to the dough. It gives the dough a beautiful flavor as well as that creamy color we all know and love with deep dish pizza crust

The dough only requires a 2 hour prove, much less than a typical Pizza Dough

Only two hours is needed to get this dough ready for rolling. You’ll be surprised at just how aerated and light the dough becomes in those two hours as well. No need to place it in the refrigerator, simply cover it and place it in a warm part of the house for 2 hours and you’ll be ready to start rolling out the Butter Crust dough for this wonderful Personal Deep Dish Pizza!

Now the fun part, we add Butter. Lots of Butter!

To create that beautiful, layered Butter Crust, the trick is to add room temperature Butter to the rolled-out dough. Once the dough has proved, roll it out on a flat surface, then add about ¼ a cup of Butter into small pieces and place them all over the rolled-out Dough

Then, like how Puff Pastry is made, we roll the dough up to incorporate all that butter. Then, we create a roll with the dough which creates all those beautiful layers that you expect with a Butter Crust. The dough is refrigerated for 1 hour and then its ready to be baked

This technique is what achieves the beautiful lamination that you want with a good Butter Crust. The Crust will be beautiful and flaky yet will easily support the weight of the Deep Dish Pizza. It’s loaded with Butter too, so it tastes simply amazing

You can fill your Pizzas with your favorite toppings. We’ve kept it classic with Spicy Italian Sausage

The beauty about homemade Pizzas is you can make them any way you want! Fill these individual Pizzas with your favorite toppings or try mixing and matching to see which toppings taste the best for you. There are a few traditional fillings that go into a Deep Dish Pizza, and we’ve kept our recipe true to the classics

Our filling consists of a combination of Spicy Italian Sausage and Pepperoni. We cook the Sausage separately and break it into small chunks as it cooks. If you’re making one large Pie, you can just place the chunks straight into the Pizza

We layered ours with Mozzarella, then Pepperoni, then Sausage, then Sauce, and finished with Parmesan Cheese. For the smaller Pizza Bites however, it’s recommended that you slice the Sausage into thin strips. This way you can get more on the Pizza without taking up too much space

Try just adding Pepperoni to one of the fillings, or just going a simple classic Tomato and Cheese Pie. If you want to get super creative and avoid the traditions you can add all kinds of fun fillings. Try a vegetarian Deep Dish Pizza with sautéed Mushrooms, or perhaps a BBQ Chicken Deep Dish Pizza is what you’re craving?

 A simple Tomato based sauce tops the delicious Personal Deep Dish Pizza

Keep the Tomato sauce simple for your Deep Dish Pizza. Just prioritize good quality ingredients and the right kind of Tomatoes. The best Tomatoes to use for any Pizza Sauce are San Marzano Tomatoes. They are readily available in most parts of the world and generally come in canned form

The Canned Tomatoes are exactly what you want to use for Pizza Sauce. It doesn’t matter if you get whole, crushed, or pureed, as we’ll be cooking them down into a smooth sauce regardless. The canned Tomatoes have a more concentrated flavor which helps to bring a rich, sweetness to the Pizza Sauce

Other than the Tomatoes, we’re using very classic ingredients of Garlic, Oregano, Onions, and Salt to complete the beautiful Sauce. As with any recipes, we recommend tasting the sauce before you add it to the Pizza. You can always adjust the seasoning to get it to the perfect flavor for your palate

Personal Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

For the Butter Crust

• 3 ¼ cups All Purpose Flour
• ½ cup / 60g Corn Meal
• 1 tbsp. White Granulated Sugar
• 2 ¼ tsp. Yeast
• ½ cup Butter
• 1 ¼ cups Warm Water
• 1 ¼ tsp. Salt
  
  

Pizza Sauce Ingredients

• 28 oz. / 800ml Crushed Tomatoes
• ½ Brown Onion, grated
• 3 Garlic Cloves, finely diced
• 1 tsp. dried Oregano
• 1 tbsp. Olive Oil
• 1 tsp. Sugar
• 1 tsp. Salt
  
  

Pizza Toppings

• ½ lb. Spicy Italian Sausage
• 1 cup Mozzarella Cheese, shredded
• 8 Large Pepperoni Slices
• ½ cup Parmesan Cheese, grated
  
  

Equipment Needed

• Stand Mixer with hook attachment
• Individual cake tins
  
  

Instructions

1. To make the dough combine Flour, Corn Meal, Sugar, Yeast, ¼ Cup of Butter (slightly melted), Water, and Salt in mixing bowl. Mix on medium / low in the Stand Mixer for 4 minutes
2. Remove the dough from the mixer and shape it into a ball. Place the dough into a large bowl that has been filled with 1 tbsp. of Olive Oil. Move dough around to cover it with the Oil then cover with cling film and place in the warmest part of the house for 2 hours to prove
3. After 2 hours, remove the dough from the bowl and place on a flat surface which has been lightly floured. Spread the dough out to form a 15” x 12” rectangle
4. Break ¼ cup of room temperature Butter into small pieces and place them over the dough. Spread them out, then roll the dough up from the short end to form a roll. Cut in half, form both halves into balls then place back into a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour
   
   

While the dough is resting in the refrigerator it’s time to make the Pizza Sauce & filling

5. Add the Olive Oil to a Saucepan over medium heat. Once hot add the Brown Onion and cook for 5 minutes. Add Garlic and Oregano and cook for 1 more minute, then pour in the Crushed Tomatoes and season with Sugar and Salt
6. Bring to a Simmer then cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to reduce the sauce. Once cooked, set aside to cool
7. Remove the casing from the Sausages and place them into a frying pan over medium / high heat. Cook for about 5 minutes, breaking them up with a spoon as they cook. Once cooked, set aside and slice into thin strips once cool enough to do so
   
   

Assembling and cooking the Pizzas

8. Remove your dough and break off individual pieces about the size of a golf ball. Roll the individual dough pieces out on a flat, floured surface to form a thin layer. Place the dough into Cake tins, ensuring the dough is pushed up along the sides of the tin
9. Layer the ingredients into the Pizza, starting with Cheese, then Pepperoni, Sausage, Pizza Sauce, and finish with a sprinkle of Parmesan Cheese
10. Place in the Oven and bake for 35 minutes on 350F. If the sides of the dough start to darken too soon, you can place some foil over the top of the Pizzas to ensure it gets cooked through evenly
11. Remove from Oven and let cool for 5 minutes before removing from Cake Tins and serving
    
    

We hope you’ve enjoyed this fun Personal Deep Dish Pizza recipe and are scoffing them down right now! We’ve got plenty more fun Meat Appetizer recipes here so why not check them out? Here are a few of our favorites we’d recommend giving a try:

• Dates Wrapped in Bacon
• Cumin Lamb Skewers
• The Best Steak Sandwich
• Beef Skewers with Peanut Sauce
  
  

Happy Cooking!