Chicago Deep-Dish
Chicago Deep-Dish
The knife-and-fork pie — a short-kneaded, biscuit-like crust built tall in a deep pan and layered cheese-first.
Recipes · 10
Chicago Tavern-Style Thin Crust (Dry-Cured Skins)
A cracker-thin Chicago tavern crust at 50% hydration with 10% oil and very little yeast, cold-fermented for up to five days. The defining move is rolling the skins thin, then leaving them out overnight to dry into a leathery sheet so the baked crust turns out crackly and crisp all the way through.
Chicago Thin / Tavern - Pizza Factory Style
A South Side tavern-style thin crust at 50% hydration with 8% oil and a 48 to 72 hour cold ferment, rolled cracker-thin and baked directly on a hot stone for a crisp, party-cut square pie. The long ferment and stone bake give the bottom its signature snap.
Home Run Inn-Style Chicago Pan / Thin
A clone of Home Run Inn's tender pan pizza at 42% hydration with a generous 24% corn oil, which gives the crust its signature short, rich, almost shortbread-like bite. A stiff dough is kneaded well, given two warm rises, then patted into a dark perforated pan and baked hot.
Laminated Chicago Stuffed Pizza
A two-crust Chicago stuffed pie built on a stiff 43% hydration dough enriched with cultured butter (6%), olive oil (3%) and cultured buttermilk powder (4%) for a rich, tender, faintly tangy crust. A long cold ferment plus a three-fold lamination of the bottom skin gives the layered, flaky structure under the cheese, sauce and thin top crust.
Deep Dish with Light Semolina (Malnati's-Leaning, 4%)
A Malnati's-leaning deep dish at 47% hydration with a dual corn-and-olive-oil fat (about 24.5% total) and just 4% semolina for a flaky, lightly crisp crust that stays close to the soda-bread character of the original. The dough is barely kneaded, given two warm rises, then pressed into a deep pan.
Uno / Malnati-Style Deep Dish (No-Salt, Corn Oil)
A spare Uno's / Lou Malnati's-style deep-dish dough of all-purpose flour, water and corn oil with no salt or sugar, mixed and kneaded only briefly. An overnight cold rest builds flavor; the crust stays medium-thick and tender rather than a true thick pan crust.
Deep Dish - Short-Knead Biscuit Crust (Giordano's-Leaning)
A Giordano's-leaning deep-dish dough built on the short-knead secret: roughly 100% all-purpose flour, about 39% water and 21% oil, kneaded only two minutes so the crust bakes up biscuit-like rather than bready. A long room-temperature rise (up to 8 hours) develops flavor before the dough is rolled thin and pressed into a deep pan.
Lou Malnati's-Style Deep-Dish with Semolina
A Lou Malnati's-style deep dish with 15% semolina for flavour and a tender, flaky crunch — low hydration, enriched with corn oil and a little butter. A single 9-inch pie.
Giordano's High-Gluten Clone
A high-gluten take on Giordano's stuffed deep-dish — All Trumps flour at 50% hydration with a good hit of soybean oil and sugar for a tender, flaky double-crust shell. Makes two pies' worth of skins.
Giordano's-Style Deep-Dish Crust
By feel, the Giordano's way — a biscuit-like deep-dish crust whose secret is a mere two-minute knead. Volumes are the original's; gram weights are approximate.