Deep Dish Pizza (Skillet Pizza)

total time:: about 1 hour including baking

Makes 9 inch pizza - 4 servings

This recipe comes from Cuisine at Home. I’ve modified by eliminating the “make it yourself pizza crust” and adding Pre-made pizza dough (courtesy of Pillsbury!)

ingredients

Pizza Dough - due to the density you MUST pre-bake!

1 can of Pillsbury Pizza dough
Roll dough out large enough to cover skillet, sides, and drape a little as the weight of the mixture will bring it down.
Take a fork and punch holes (“Dock”) in your crust, line with aluminum foil and fill to 1 inch with beans (to help keep foil down
After baking briefly, lift out the foil and beans and bake again to get the bottom.
Crust should be golden, not crispy.

Deep Dish Supreme Filling

Brown in 2 T EVOO:
2 cups button mushrooms (or omit b/c husband hates them)
Saute in 1 T EVOO:
8 oz ground Italian sausage
2 cups onions, sliced
2 cups red bell pepper, sliced
2 T. garlic, minced
1/2 t. red pepper flakes (or omit b/c husband can’t take the heat)
Combine with:
2 cups mozzarella, shredded, divided (or more for topping)
1/2 cup canned crushed tomatoes (drain liquid)
1/2 cup sliced fresh basil
2 oz sliced pepperoni (or more for meat lovers)
LINE CRUST WITH - VERY VERY IMPORTANT
4-5 oz sliced thick ham

directions

1
Preheat oven to 450 with the rack on the bottom.
2
Brown Mushrooms in oil over high heat for 3-4 minutes, season with salt and transfer to bowl. Return pan to medium-high heat (or omit all together!)
3
Saute sausage in oil 2 minutes, add onions, bell pepper, garlic, and pepper flakes. Cook until soft (roughly 10 minutes) DRAIN your grease
4
Combine sausage mixture and mushrooms with 1 cup mozzarella, tomatoes, basil and pepperoni. DRAIN again if needed. (you’ll end up with a soupy pizza)
5
LINE A PRE-BAKED CRUST WITH HAM, then add the sausage mixture and top with the remaining mozzarella. Bake pizza on the bottom rack of the oven for 30-35 minutes or until brown.

notes

You must pre-bake You must line your crust with the ham (or eggplant) You must DRAIN excess fluids

Source: Andrea

reviews

by Andrea, September 24, 2009

There are a lot of steps to this but it is well worth it. Just remember pre-bake your dough and drain your fluids. It's the perfect dish when it's cold outside (I live in Chicago..)

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