Vegan Deep Dish Pizza | Gluten-Free Recipe - Elavegan (2024)

FAQs

What makes deep dish pizza deep-dish? ›

The most unique and recognizable element of Chicago pizza, deep-dish crust is at least an inch deep, allowing room for extra sauce and toppings. With its even higher crust, stuffed pizza resembles a pot pie or casserole dish more than a New York-style thin-crust pie!

Often times, pizza dough is naturally vegan. The basic pizza dough formula is just water, flour, yeast, and salt. The only times that eggs or dairy are used for a bread recipe is typically just for enriched doughs (like brioche or cinnamon rolls– which we have the vegan options for on the blog!).

In most cases, vegan pizza is healthier. If you think about it, this really isn't surprising — it's made of plants, after all. A plant-based pizza is totally free of animal products like meat and dairy, both of which tend to have a lot of saturated fat and “bad” cholesterol, according to Healthline.

As for those fillings, they're layered on in an inverted order, with the cheese on the bottom, any meat and vegetable toppings in the middle, and the tomato sauce on the top. This is to prevent the cheese from burning, due to the longer cooking time required for deep-dish pizzas.

I have it on good authority that this is the real deep-dish pizza dough that's used in Chicago. The real thing is nothing like bread or even pizza dough. It's a buttery, flaky crust that's achieved by using corn oil (not butter) and minimal mixing and kneading times.

All Purpose Flour: Just regular all purpose flour works great for this pizza dough. Active Dry Yeast: I don't recommend instant yeast for this recipe. Organic Cane Sugar: Mixed with the yeast and warm water to activate the yeast. Olive Oil: Extra virgin if possible.

Although yeast is technically alive—it's a single-celled organism that metabolizes food into energy—it's no more an animal than other fungi such as mushrooms. Therefore, yeast is generally accepted as part of a vegan diet.

Here in the US, there are no vegan-by-default pizza options at Domino's. You can, however, build your own vegan pizza, from the crust to the toppings—just no dairy-free cheese. There is a sliver of hope, though. In 2020, Domino's CEO divulged that an internal team was testing out plant-based sausage crumbles.

Some of the most popular deep-dish pizza toppings are pepperoni, sausage, green peppers and mushrooms. Or, get a bit more creative with everything from spinach, bell peppers, olives and onions to ham, bacon, pineapple, artichokes or broccoli.

What toppings go on a Chicago deep-dish pizza? ›

The toppings are precisely added on top of the crust in order. The cheese goes first followed by the toppings of meat and vegetables. Tomato sauce is then poured on top to fully cover the toppings, and then it is baked to make sure that the ingredients inside are cooked well.

Unlike regular pizzas where the dough ends are rolled, the dough in a Chicago deep-dish pizza is pushed and pressed to the sides of the pan, creating a crispy crust afterward. Basically, bakers push the dough to the sides, similar to an apple pie crust, to create a thicker type of pizza.

Chicago style pizza has a deep, dense crust and is cooked in a high-sided pan. It's also known as "deep dish pizza" and takes longer to bake than other pizza types. The crust is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and it's loaded with cheese, sauce, and toppings.

The identifying feature of a Chicago-style pizza is its high-edged pie crust, which provides plenty of room for copious amounts of cheese, a chunky tomato sauce and layers of toppings. The deep-dish pizza gets baked in a circular pan with tall enough walls for the dough to expand.

Deep dish pizza is not only about the crust, it's all about the generous and thick layers of cheese and tomato sauce. Because of it, you need fork and knife to eat your Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Again, this is not a regular pizza from which you grab a slice with your hands.