A Chicago-style deep dish pizza built in a 12-inch cast iron skillet: mozzarella goes down first, then Italian sausage, pepperoni, and your choice of vegetables, with the sauce spooned over the top. This makes three pizzas to feed 10 people, 8 slices each (24 slices, a little over 2 per person). It uses the Deep Dish Pizza Dough and follows the method on the Classic Deep Dish Pizza page.
Ingredients (serves 10, three 12-inch pizzas):
Dough:
- 3 batches Deep Dish Pizza Dough (one batch for each 12-inch pizza)
Cheese and meat:
- 3.6 pounds (1.2 pounds per pizza) low-moisture whole milk mozzarella, sliced
- 1 1/2 pounds (1/2 pound per pizza) Italian sausage, raw, bulk or removed from the casings
- 12 ounces (4 ounces per pizza) sliced pepperoni
Vegetable toppings (about 3 cups per pizza, all 15 divided across the three pizzas, or use only the ones you like):
- 1 cup artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
- 1/2 cup sliced banana peppers
- 1/2 cup sliced black olives
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
- 4 cloves chopped garlic (raw)
- 1 cup green bell peppers, thinly sliced
- 1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
- 2 cups (8 ounces) mushrooms, sliced
- 1/2 cup pineapple chunks, drained (a fruit, but a Blaze Pizza topping)
- 1/2 cup red onions, thinly sliced
- 1 head roasted garlic, cloves squeezed out and mashed
- 1/2 cup roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
- 2 cups fresh spinach (about 2 ounces)
- 1 cup roasted broccoli, chopped
Sauce and pan:
- 6 cups canned crushed tomatoes (2 cups per pizza), with juice
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided (1/4 cup per pizza)
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Instructions:
- Make the three batches of Deep Dish Pizza Dough and let them rise until doubled, about 2 hours.
- While the dough rises, prep the vegetables. Roast the broccoli florets with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper at 425°F for about 15 minutes. Roast the head of garlic (top cut off, drizzled with olive oil, wrapped in foil) at 400°F for about 40 minutes, then squeeze out the cloves. Drain the artichokes, banana peppers, olives, pineapple, and roasted red peppers and pat them dry.
- Preheat your oven to 475°F.
- In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté the mushrooms, bell peppers, and red onions in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until soft and lightly browned. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the spinach for the last minute until just wilted. Set aside.
- Make the sauce: stir the crushed tomatoes, oregano, and a pinch of salt and pepper together.
- Grease each 12-inch cast iron skillet with about 1 tablespoon of the remaining olive oil. Press one batch of dough into each skillet, pushing it up the sides so it is evenly distributed.
- Lay one third of the sliced mozzarella directly on the dough in each skillet, covering the whole surface.
- Crumble 1/2 pound of the raw Italian sausage evenly over the cheese in each skillet, then lay 4 ounces of pepperoni on top.
- Divide the vegetable toppings evenly among the three pizzas, scattering the cooked vegetables, broccoli, artichokes, banana peppers, olives, tomatoes, jalapeño, pineapple, red peppers, chopped garlic, and mashed roasted garlic over the meat.
- Spoon about 2 cups of the sauce over the top of each pizza, spreading it to the edges.
- Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, until the crust is golden and the sauce is bubbling at the edges. If baking two at a time on separate racks, swap their positions and rotate them halfway through. Bake the third pizza after the first two come out (keep its dough covered, or build it while the others bake).
- Let each pizza rest 15 minutes before slicing so the cheese sets. Drizzle with a little olive oil, scatter the torn basil on top, cut into 8 slices, and serve.
Cook's Notes:
- The vegetable list is every vegetable topping on the Blaze Pizza build-your-own menu, including chopped and roasted garlic. Pineapple is on that list too, though it is technically a fruit. Use all of them, or skip any you do not like and keep the rest.
- Each batch of dough makes one 12-inch skillet pizza, so make three batches. Three skillets bake faster; with one skillet, build and bake the pizzas one after another.
- The cheese goes under the toppings and the sauce goes on top so the crust stays crisp and the cheese does not burn.