Deep Dish Pizza Instructions

If you are reading this, chances are you saw the video of how to make your very own deep dish pizza, if not don't worry check it out here.

Ok, so in the video you might have thought "That looks pretty simple" well it's the truth!!!  Let's take it step by step, first thing... Inventory

1. Oven that gets up to at least 450
2. Deep dish pizza pan
3. Ladle 
4. Brush
5. Pizza Cutter
6. Spatula 

Inventory check!  Now let's take stock of ingredients you are going to need

1. Lou To Go Dough purchased from Peapod (Search Lou Malnati's)
2. 16oz can of crushed tomatoes in puree (go with a brand you trust)
3. Two Tomatoes
4. 1/2 a pound of sliced mozzarella (not too thin)
5. Olive oil
6. Oregano (2 Tbsp)
7. Sea Salt (2 Tsp)
8. Sausage, taken out of the casing and rolled into balls (Nottoli)
9. Parmesan & Romano cheese grated and mixed together 

Alright, first thing you do is defrost the dough.  Take it out of the freezer and set it on top of your refrigerator 18-24 hours prior to when you are going to use it.  Next step, drizzle some olive oil onto the deep dish pan and brush it around to cover the entire bottom.  This oil is going to heat up and help sear the bottom of that crust for you later.  Now it is time to go ahead and slap the dough into the middle of your pan and press it down.  Press it down so that it is just a thin layer on the bottom with no holes, and work it to the sides of your pan.  Once you get it to the edge, go ahead and pull it up a little more than 1/2 way to the top (it will rise a little once it cooks).  Good news, the toughest part is over, moving on we cover the entire bottom with slices of mozzarella.  Spread out 1/2 pound evenly over the crust.  Let's grab the sausage that is already rolled into little balls (remember I told you up top to take out of sausage casing and roll into balls) and distribute them as you see best on top of the cheese.  Hmm we are almost there, pour that crushed tomato puree and 2 chopped up tomatoes into a bowl, mix in 2 teaspoons of sea salt and 2 tablespoons of oregano.  Stir that up good and grab a ladle, use that ladle you just grabbed to cover the pie with your sauce.  Try and do it in a circular motion and mush everything around so that it is all smoothed out.  Drizzle on your Parmesan/Romano mix on the pie & PUT IN OVEN!  

• 600 - 32 minutes
• 500 - 39 minutes
• 450 - 42 minutes

Whichever one of those applies to your oven, equipment varies... my oven tells me I can set it to 500 but I have a thermometer in there that tells me differently.  So when the time is up, grab that pie out of the oven, set it down and chop it up.  I like to use a dough cutter but whatever you have that works will do.  Grab a spatula and don't be afraid to scoop as fast as you can onto that plate.  Now go ahead and Dig On It!

6 pieces of equipment

9 ingredients

1 authentic Chicago Style deep dish pizza

-amateur video courtesy of Chicago Pizza Tours