Easy Homemade Deep Dish Pizza Recipe With Sausage

With over 3 billion pizzas sold in America yearly, you can rest assured pizza is a favorite.  Regionally there are all types of pizza, the one we’re serving you today is Chicago style, meaning deep dish, we’re talking 2 inches high with a whole mess of good ingredients.  Our easy homemade deep dish pizza recipe is surprisingly easy to prepare.

If you choose to use premade grocery store pizza dough and jarred sauce you can get this deep dish pizza recipe ready in about 15 minutes.  The baking takes about 40 minutes. For me it’s the hands-on time versus the baking time that’s important.  I’m not lazy, just busy. So this pizza recipe is perfect for me.  And only one pan to clean!  It just keeps getting better.

I was inspired by a deep dish pizza recipe from a King Arthur Flour catalog that I got. I’m sure theirs is delicious. But it had homemade pizza dough, homemade sauce and homemade sausage for a total prep and cook time closing in on three hours. I’ll admit, sometimes I’ll make everything homemade……….

And then I’ll admit again, usually I use a combination and a little help from my grocery. There’s no shame in buying pizza dough from the grocery store and kicking up some jarred spaghetti sauce.

So we went from 2 hours and 40 minutes from King Arthur to 35 minutes total for On The Go Bites version. On weeknights it will be my version hands down. A long lazy weekend, maybe I’ll muster up the energy for King Arthur’s fully homemade deep dish recipe.

How To Make Our Easy Homemade Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Brush some oil in the bottom of a cast iron pan.  If you don’t have oil use a paper towel to coat with some butter.

Press one bag of dough into the bottom of the pan all the way to the edges and slightly up the sides.  If the dough keeps springing back on you, cover with a clean dish cloth or paper towels and walk away for about 15 minutes. This will allow the gluten to rest and the dough should cooperate better.

Brush a light coating of oil on the dough.

Crumble the raw sausage (yes, I did say raw sausage) and distribute evenly over the dough, half the mozzarella and all of the fresh spinach.  The spinach may seem over whelming, but it will cook down in the oven.

Lay a piece of parchment paper on your counter (to help from sticking and for easy cleanup) and press the remaining dough.  You can finish by holding the dough vertically with both hands and rotating until you get close to the desired size. 

Place the remaining pizza dough over the pizza “toppings” and pull the dough over to the sides, no need to connect with the bottom dough. Poke the top pizza dough with a fork a few times to allow steam to release while cooking.

Top with sauce, remaining cheese and Italian seasoning.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes.

What Size Pan To Make Homemade Deep Dish Pizza?

To serve four people use a 12” pan, for eight use a 14” pan. That might not sound like a big difference, but in reality, the 14” pan has about 1/3 more surface. If using the 12” pan you’ll be able to go a bit higher with the dough on the sides of the pan, or just don’t use all of the dough. 

So what should you do with the extra dough?  Don’t throw it out, see below!

Other Uses For Pizza Dough

With the extra dough can always make garlic breadsticks or cinnamon sugar breadsticks then bake for a delicious dessert or sweet snack. 

If cooking the breadsticks with the pizza then only cook for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. If baking at a different time than the deep dish pizza recipe then lower the oven temperature to 400 and bake for 15 minutes.

Garlic Breadsticks

You can brush or roll the dough with melted butter, sprinkle with kosher salt or garlic salt, then bake for 10 minutes at 425 or 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Cinnamon Sugar Breadsticks

Brush raw pizza dough breadsticks with melted butter then roll in cinnamon sugar mix, bake for 10 minutes at 425 or 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

What Is Chicago Style Pizza?

Our homemade deep dish pizza recipe follows the old tradition of Chicago style pizza.  That’s a pan pizza that is stuffed with all kinds of good stuff.  What we typically call pizza toppings are actually on the inside of Chicago style deep dish pizza.

You can fill with anything that suits your fancy.  Try to keep moisture laden things like tomatoes either added at the end of cooking or on top of the pizza.  Otherwise your deep dish pizza might not hold together well.

We use a second dough for the topping.  Technically many people would call this a stuffed pizza rather than a deep dish pizza which only has a bottom layer of dough.

For our homemade deep dish pizza recipe you can use on or two doughs.  If you choose to leave the top pizza dough layer off, then the pizza may not hold together as well, but it will still be delicious and have less calories and carbs. Your choice.

How To Make Individual Homemade Deep Dish Pizza

These are more like Deep Dish Pizza Cups.  The challenge is to keep the pizza cups from being overpowered by the dough.

I’ll give a brief description or you can see a post here (well, it will be here soon when I write the post).

Oil or butter your pans.  Press a four-inch square of dough into a 3 inch ramekin or large muffin tin.  When I say large muffin tin, I’m referring to those extra-large muffins, not the actual size of the pan. Press into the bottom and up the sides until the dough surpasses the top of the tin.

Place your “toppings” in and cover with a smaller square of pizza dough. Prick top dough with a fork. Put a bit of sauce and cheese on top.

Bake for about 20 minutes, checking when the dough is golden brown.

Homemade Pizza Dough or Store Bought?

Really it’s your choice.  If you have a bread machine it’s easy peasy to make your own dough.  But if you don’t think of it in time (um, me quite often) then use store bought dough.

I find good groceries like Publix often has pizza dough on hand in the bakery section. If you don’t see it then ask behind the bakery counter, you just might not know where to find it. Some pizzerias will sell their dough as well, you just need to ask.

The ingredients of these doughs are usually good and just what you’d use at home.  They should be labeled.

How To Reheat Deep Dish Pizza

If you have the time it’s better to reheat in a 375 degree oven, covered, for about 15-20 minutes.  This way the deep dish pizza will heat all the way through.

Otherwise you can eat it cold or room temperature (personally the way I like to eat it), or microwave using the reheat button.  Cover and reheat a minute at a time.  If you use the regular or high setting it will cook the pizza more and may leave a cold center

How to Store Our Homemade Deep Dish Pizza Recipe

Store covered in the refrigerator for a few days.

Ingredient Substitutions

Pizza dough – use the bakery at your grocery store for great pizza dough.  I’ve used both Publix and Trader Joes that have both worked well. 

Or buy dough from you local pizzeria.

Or use the refrigerated pizza crust by the biscuits.  This dough is fine but tends to be a little drier and lacks the flavor of your other choices.

Or make your own homemade pizza dough, it’s really not that hard

Pizza sauce – You can buy jarred pizza sauce by the spaghetti sauce.

I’m simple and don’t like to store duplicates of things.  To me pizza sauce is the same as tomato, spaghetti, marinara or enchilada sauce.  So I use what’s on hand.  Jarred or homemade. No one notices and quite frankly, it’s usually better.

When I make homemade enchilada sauce or spaghetti sauce I usually make large batches and freeze them.  My favorite for this pizza is my spicy enchilada sauce

Sausage – use any sausage you like. Bulk is easiest rather than links. If you use links you should remove the casings.

Or make your own. I have a homemade chicken sausage recipe that’s delicious, if I do say so myself.

Or you can skip the sausage for a vegetarian deep dish pizza.

Or add any meat that you usually like on a pizza. I haven’t tried bacon but I don’t think it would cook well, or at least won’t crisp up.

Italian seasoning – you can skip if you don’t have Italian seasoning. Or use dried oregano, basil or thyme. I like adding fresh basil after the pizza comes out of the oven.

Mozzarella – mozzarella is the main cheese for pizza, primarily because it melts and gives that wonderful long string as you bite into a warm piece of pizza.

But you can use any cheese you like. If you buy shredded cheese they often have an Italian blend, or a blend of cheddar and mozzarella.

Fresh spinach – I like using fresh spinach for convenience. OK, so most of you think frozen is convenient. Yes and no.

Frozen you have on hand all the time. But you need to defrost it and squeeze it dry. Personally, I always have fresh spinach around.

Time Savers

I’ve already given you huge time savers by using store bought dough, sauce and not pre cooking the sausage.

If you choose to make homemade pizza sauce(add link) or homemade pizza dough(COMING SOON) then the can both be made and refrigerated a few days prior to making the homemade deep dish pizza recipe.

How To Freeze and Store

Store the cooked homemade deep dish pizza recipe covered and in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.  If you don’t have meat in the pizza and only vegetables it can hold a couple of days longer.

The pizza freezes beautifully.  Flash freeze by placing the cooked pizza on a baking sheet and freezing for a few hours.  Then place in a plastic freezer bag, squeeze out as much air as possible, close and label.  Freeze up to 3 months.

Reheat cooked deep dish pizza in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until heated through. 

For the uncooked version, heat in a 400 degree oven straight from the freezer, covered with foil for 20-30 minutes, remove cover and cook for additional 10 minutes or until heated through.