Chicago Stuffed Pizza

This Chicago original was established in the 70’s as an alternative to a single crust pizza. The “Chicago stuffed” always has two layers of pizza dough and a pizza tomato sauce baked on the very top of the pizza. It can be made with a variety of different ingredients but usually includes dry mozzarella as the interior cheese. Yes, there are similar versions of this style that are made in Italy, but as a rule those Italian versions do not have a pizza tomato sauce baked on top of them. Instead they have two layers of pizza dough that enclose ingredients like a dough encased pie and are typically made without tomato sauces inside of them. On the other hand, a Calzone could certainly be considered as a form of stuffed pizza because it is comprised of pizza dough wrapped around pizza ingredients and then baked. The “Chicago stuffed” is typically assembled with thinly rolled pizza dough, but as demonstrated in this video, they can also be made with a slightly thicker Sicilian style pizza dough approach. It’s also worth noting that the term “Chicago stuffed” should not be confused with “Chicago Deep dish”. On the other hand, the “Chicago stuffed” is prepared and baked in a 1-1/2 to 2 inch deep dish pan which suggests that it’s in fact a deep dish pizza. However, you should be aware that the legitimate Chicago versions of “Chicago deep dish” only have one layer of pizza dough on the bottom of the pans. In other words, a “Chicago stuffed” could somehow be referred to as both a “Chicago stuffed and a Deep dish” but a “Chicago Deep dish” could never be referred to as a “Chicago Deep dish and a Chicago stuffed” because it only has one layer of dough and the tomato sauce is not baked on top of the pizza.