Deep Dish Mushroom Pizza

The other night my husband was working late and it was just me and the kiddos for dinner. Pizza is a favorite around here and we had some mushrooms in the fridge so mushroom pizza was our dinner of choice. Although I have an absolutely delicious, number one, all time favorite pizza crust recipe, it is for a thinner more traditional crust. I was in the mood for some deep dish, and do not have a favorite deep dish pizza crust recipe (if you have a favorite deep dish crust recipe, please let me know), off to google.

I searched for 'deep dish pizza crust recipe' and found this recipe -- adapted from the book The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American by Jeff Smith, who says he ran this recipe by a pizza chef who has worked at Pizzeria Uno in Chicago for 30 years, and got a smile and nod from the pizza chef after she overlooked his recipe. That sounds like pretty high praise to me, so I was excited to give this one a try.


We are about a half a day drive from Chicago and I went there often as a child for shopping and museum trips, so I know my Chicago style deep dish and love it. Pizzeria Uno is an okay choice, but my hands down favorite for the best Chicago deep dish is Giordano's... yummmmm. I wasn't going for the whole sauce on top stuffed with goodies Chicago deep dish, I just wanted that delicious crust this time around...

It sounded good to me, I did do my own adapting a little bit, adding some salt (one teaspoon kosher) and a little sugar (one tablespoon white) just to have something for the yeast. The recipe gives filling suggestions for a 9 or 10 inch deep dish, so I figured the dough would work for my 12 inch deep dish pan (coincidentally Pizzeria Uno brand) even though the dough ingredients seemed like they would yield much more. Long story short, I think the recipe is best suited for two 12 inch pans, so my one 12 inch was overfilled and the end result crust a little too thick, even after I set some dough aside to make a smaller deep dish in a glass pie plate. Oh-well. Now I know for next time.

For the sauce I made another misjudgement -- I made a quick san marzano sauce, just put a can of san marzano tomatoes in the food processor, add a touch of salt and some basil, and you are good to go -- usually. That sauce works best with thinner crust pizzas, I found that this deep dish needed a more marinara style sauce, thick and well seasoned, and simmered all day.


These were delicious for dinner, all of the gooey cheese and yummy mushrooms, everyone had second slices. Next time we have deep dish night, if I use this recipe again, I will plan on two 12 inch pizzas and have my tried and true marinara style pizza sauce simmering all day :)