Dishing Deep

I've made many a pizza and love how you can change it up with the different toppings, dough or sauce....but how about changing around the ORDER of those toppings to make your pizza different?

If you are aware that Chicago Style pizza is not only DEEP DISH but they put their sauce on top rather under the cheese. So I felt in the mood to play around with our pizza .....with the ORDER, that is.

If you have a deep dish pizza pan (mine has holes on the bottom so my dough type wouldn't work this time) a larger cake pan would work....but a 10 inch springform pan is just perfect.

Deep Dish Pizza

Pizza Dough of choice (you can use the refrigerated type, frozen pizza dough or the dough mix in an envelope)
1/2-1 cup of Meat of choice (pepperoni, sausage, chicken, soy crumbles)
8 oz package of favorite cheese (either grated or sliced is fine)
1 cup of sauce (meat or tomato only)
veggies of choice (pictured mushroom and onion)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Place dough in nonstick pan. I find a greased pan is difficult for the dough will keep shrinking back. Use hands to press dough on bottom and up the sides about 1 inch. 2 inches if you plan on loading up the toppings.

3. Layer your pepperoni's or sausage. Whatever you choose, the meat goes on the dough first.

4. Now for the cheese. I used a mixture of shredded and sliced. I put on the shredded first and the slice last. I did this intentionally for I knew that I'd been spreading around sauce on it and didn't want the cheese to get mixed into the sauce.

5. Top with your sauce. You may want to watch how the amount spreads. You want only just enough to cover the cheese. Those of you who are using only a veggie based sauce probably even less. When the sauce heats up it will spread. So go on the light side.

6. Arrange your veggies on top last for you want them to cook more from the oven's heat. Having the veggies under the cheese or sauce....they will not cook as much and will still be crunchy (unless that is what you are going for).

7. Bake for 25 minutes or until crust is brown and crispy and veggies on top are cooked to your liking.

8. Remove your springform ring and slide pizza off springform pan bottom to cut on a cutting board or large plate. You don't want to ruin your nonstick pan bottom with a pizza cutter do you?


Add some freshly shredded Parmesan on top (we did, but only after I snapped the pic).


Cook's Notes:

• I used the dough from an envelope for this recipe and I was concerned that the dough would be mushy since it was not yeast based. SURPRISE! It was nice and firm and crunchy! It was cheesy but the sauce being on top and was a bit different for us and I was glad I didn't go overboard. It was messy enough holding and biting in our slices anymore would have been a disaster.
• This was a fun alternative but we still like our pizza 'sauceless.' We enjoy tasting the toppings and find that the seasonings from the sauce is just too much competition. If you enjoy a saucy pizza then this recipe is for you!
  

Enjoy!