Chicago, Illinois, United States

Chicago deep-dish

Pie pan, buttery crust, cheese on the bottom.

Hydration
50–58%
Bake temp
425–475°F
Bake time
30–40 min
Ferment
12–24 h cold
Oven
deep round pan (2–3" wall) in a conventional deck oven
Flour
All-purpose flour, Bread flour, Semolina

Defining characteristics

A casserole disguised as a pizza. Crust pressed into a buttered pan; cheese on the bottom against the crust; toppings in the middle; chunky tomato on top. Eaten with a fork. The crust is a flaky-laminated pastry-like dough, not a Neapolitan-derived bread dough.

History

Chicago deep-dish is conventionally credited to Pizzeria Uno on the corner of Ohio and Wabash, opened in 1943 by Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo. Who actually invented the recipe is contested — staff memoirs from the original kitchen credit pizzaiolo Rudy Malnati or Adolfo "Rudy" Malnati Sr., whose son Lou later opened Lou Malnati's. What's not contested is that the form crystallized in postwar Chicago: a buttery, pastry-like crust pressed up the walls of a deep round pan; cheese laid down first against the dough so it doesn't burn during the long bake; sausage or other toppings in the middle; chunky uncooked tomato on top; a 30–40 minute bake at moderate heat.

The stuffed pizza branch — Giordano's, Nancy's, Bartoli's — adds a second layer of dough on top of the fillings before the sauce, producing something closer to a savory pie. Stuffed is a 1970s development, often credited to Nancy and Rocco Palese's Nancy's (1971) and Giordano's (1974). Both stuffed and classic deep-dish coexist with the older Chicago tavern-cut tradition (cracker-thin, party-cut squares), which most Chicagoans actually eat more often.

The ongoing Chicago vs. New York pizza argument tends to flatten this into one local style; in fact deep-dish, stuffed, and tavern are three distinct pies sharing a city. Deep-dish became the tourist face partly through Pizzeria Uno's 1979 franchising push (eventually Uno Pizzeria & Grill nationwide).

Common riffs

Stuffed pizza (Giordano's, Nancy's) sandwiches a second dough layer over the fillings before the sauce. Pan pizza is the shallower, faster cousin — same dough family, half-inch wall, no fork required. Sausage-and-cheese with a crumbled fennel sausage is the canonical deep-dish; spinach-and-mushroom is the long-running vegetarian default.

Other Chicago deep-dish recipes