Pepperoni Lovers Deep Dish Pizza
This easy cast iron skillet pizza is deep dish with a tall crust and full of flavor. Use pre-made pizza dough and make it whenever you have a craving!
Ingredients
- 16 oz pizza dough pre-rolled out, optional
- 1 ½ c pizza sauce
- 6.5 oz pepperoni chopped
- 1 ½ c shredded mozzarella
- 4 oz fresh mozzarella sliced
- 3 garlic cloves crushed
- Olive oil for brushing your pan and the crust
- Fresh Basil about 5 leaves
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- Flour for dusting the pan and the dough
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F
- Brush cast iron skillet with olive oil and dust with flour.
- Note, if you did not purchase pre-rolled pizza dough, you will first need to dust a working space with flour and roll out your pizza dough to be used in your cast iron skillet.
- Press pizza dough into the bottom of the skillet and up the sides, about halfway up is fine. Brush pizza with olive oil and crushed garlic, do not add toppings yet. Bake for 18-25 minutes or until the crust is golden. While the crust is baking, chop the pepperoni, divide into two small piles and set aside.
- When the crust is golden brown, remove from the oven, add pizza sauce and spread evenly. Top with half of the chopped pepperoni followed by half of the shredded mozzarella cheese. Add the remaining chopped pepperoni (optional to save a little bit to sprinkle on top before baking). Spread the remaining shredded mozzarella followed by the fresh mozzarella, place the circles evenly apart and add the fresh basil. Sprinkle the italian seasoning evenly on the pizza and add any leftover chopped pepperoni.
- Bake the pizza with the toppings for 8 -10 minutes or until all of the cheese has melted. To get the toasted spots on your cheese, let pizza cook under the broiler for 1-2 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest 15 minutes before slicing and pulling apart. The rest time will ensure that the toppings and cheese don't spill out onto the plate.
Notes
For this recipe I used a 10” cast iron skillet pan, any deep dish pizza pan can be used.
Pizza Dough: I used pre rolled out dough from the bakery at my local grocery store, most have this option if you ask. As an alternative, Walmart bakery has an excellent pizza dough sold by the bag and you can roll it out yourself. Most pizza joints will allow you to purchase pre-made pizza dough as well.
Toppings: be creative with the toppings of your choice, I used a pepperoni stick and chopped it as it builds better for the deep dish pizza layers.
Store leftover pizza in an airtight container no longer than three to four days in the refrigerator.
Nutritional facts are estimates and are provided as a courtesy to the reader. Please utilize your own brand nutritional values to double check against our estimates. Nutritional values are calculated via a third party. Changing ingredients, amounts or cooking technique will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.