Deep Dish Cast Iron Pizza

I’ve been employing my cast iron skillet a lot lately, as some may have noticed. One of the results is that in my research, a YouTube algorithm has decided I should see more cast iron skillet recipes. One that comes up often is a deep dish pizza cooked in a cast iron skillet.

While I have cooked countless pizzas in the past, I’ve never once attempted a deep dish pizza. So I was intrigued. My Monday Night Charcuterie Board with my fave Carolyn Flynn was rescheduled for Wednesday (Christmas Theme 2.0) and I had most of the ingredients needed for this pizza in my larder. So I watched a handful of videos, gleaned my favorite tips and dove in.

I had a frozen Publix pizza dough in my freezer (as I am wont to do), so after lunch I pulled it out, put it in a container with a top and set it aside for the afternoon.

As dinnertime approached, I put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the skillet and seasoned it with fresh ground black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. I pushed this mix around to coat the whole pan.

I then pressed in the dough to the edges and let it do a second rise for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile I made the sauce. Usually I cook it, but it was recommended not to do this. So to a 14 oz can of crushed tomatoes I added a couple tablespoons of tomato paste I had on hand, garlic powder, onion powder, dried basil an dried oregano (my garden is done for the season). I also put in a healthy amount of dried red pepper flakes. I like a zesty sauce.

With the second proof done, I put the sauce on top. Cover the whole pizza, the crust of the crisp/burnt sauce is a feature. Then I added 8oz of fresh whole milk mozzarela. Then I topped the whole pizza with quartered Canadian bacon. A small can of drained sliced black olives then covered the pizza. Normally this would be my favorite pizza, but I did have a fridge full of other fun stuff, so to half the pizza I added some sliced sweet onion, red bell pepper strips and sliced portabella mushrooms.

I then pre-heated the oven to 500° and turned the heat on the large burner under the skillet to a medium-high heat. When steam started bubbling around the edges I knew it most likely browned off enough on the bottom (from my vast YouTube watching experience). I then slid the pizza into a high rack of the pre-heated oven.

After 6 minutes I rotated the pizza and cooked it for 6 more minutes. Then I put the broiler on high for about 2 minutes to brown off the cheese and sear the ham a bit.

The result was an incredibly tasty, and very satisfying meal. Absolutely worth repeating.