Deep Dish Pizza - The Classics

Jan 13

Instead of posting three identical recipes with the same steps, here is a combined recipe for THE CLASSICS - sausage, pepperoni, and mushroom. We’ll get more creative in the next ones. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Forza Pizza’s Deep Dish Dough
1/2 lb Whole milk mozzarella sliced or shredded
15 oz Sauce (recipe here)
1 tsp Oregano
2 Handfuls of pecorino Romano
A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
12 oz Sausage or
6 oz Pepperoni or
8 oz Sliced fresh mushrooms

Tools

14” diameter pan (buy)
Pan grabber (buy)
Metal spatula

Steps

1. Preheat your oven to bake at 500F.

2. Prepare and stretch dough as described in the Deep Dish Dough Recipe.

3. Lay down the cheese like below.

4. For deep dish, now is when you add the toppings.

Sausage - Pinch and press the sausage into the cheese making sure to leave some space in between pieces. This will help prevent the sausage from forming a large patty making it difficult to eat. Also, the sausage will shrink in the oven so be sure to press it all the way to the edge so you’re not left with a gap there after bake.

Pepperoni - Let’s not overthink this one, just cover the cheese with pepperoni.

Mushroom - Scatter the mushrooms on the cheese. I used fresh sliced mushrooms, but some prefer sauteed or canned. If that’s you, be aware your pizza can get watery if you don’t strain them or use too much.

5. Prepare the sauce as described in this recipe and cover the toppings like below.

6. Sprinkle the oregano and pecorino Romano on top. Give the sausage and mushroom pizzas a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Skip this step on the pepperoni pizza. Since it is already an oily topping, there is no need to add more.

7. Bake at 500F for approximately 22-25 minutes. The top of the crust will turn light brown and detach from the pan a little.

8. Using the pan grabber or an oven mitt in one hand, run the metal spatula in between the pizza and the pan to detach it. Then every quarter turn, slip the spatula underneath the pizza to detach from the bottom.

9. Now the tricky part. Once you are confident the entire pizza is detached from the pan, lift the pizza with the spatula and pull the pan away with the other hand. One quick motion!