Giordano’s Deep Dish Cheese Pizza – How to Make It

In Chicago, Illinois, in 1974, brothers Joseph Boglio and Efren founded one of the most popular American pizzeria chains, the Giordano’s. Giordano’s has unreal popularity for serving Chicago-style stuffed pizza in over 65 locations nationwide. Some people even consider this Giordano’s deep dish pizza to be the best Chicago pizza to has even been out there. But what’s the reason behind it? Well, that is all we are going to figure out in this blog!

Actually, Chicago-style deep-dish pizza was already famous in Chicago even before 1974, for 31 years, when the brothers, Joseph Boglio and Efren arrived in the town. Then they reformed this pizza using their mother’s Italian Easter Pie. Between the two layers of flakey dough, they added a lot of melted mozzarellas and baked it. Eventually, they came up with this Giordano’s deep dish pizza Chicago.

Interestingly, in spite of having the toppings on top of the sauce and cheese, none of this outweighs the buttery and thick crust of this pizza. In fact, it is this buttery and thick crust that made this pizza so famous.

Ingredients

For Pizza Crust

• All-purpose flour (3 cups; a little more separately for dusting)
• Dry yeast (3 teaspoons)
• Water (3/4 cups of room temperature)
• Granulated sugar (1 tablespoon)
• Softened and unsalted butter (6 tablespoons)
• Olive oil (1/2 cup)
• Salt (1 teaspoon)

For Pizza Sauce

• Italian seasoning (2 teaspoons)
• Garlic powder (1 teaspoon)
• Crushed and canned tomatoes (1-1/2 cups)
• Quartered local tomatoes (20 ounces)
• Olive oil (2 tablespoons)
• To taste, black pepper
• To taste, salt

For Deep Dish Pizza

• Finely grated mozzarella cheese (1 pound at room temperature)
• For the garnish, grated Parmesan cheese
• Finely chopped green bell peppers (1 cup; and more for the garnish if you want)
• Pepperoni (25 slices; and more for the garnish if you want)

Equipment

Cooking spray, non-stick

Instructions

Pizza Dough

1. Dissolve the sugar and yeast in water in a medium bowl.
2. Take some time, 5-7 minutes, and let the mixture stand. Better if you wait till the mixture bubbles up or blooms. Then, set it aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, sift all the salt and flour. Then, add the yeast solution, oil, and butter to the bowl.
4. Now, take enough time to combine the dough so well that you can mixing enough flour in it. (Keep mixing as much as you can)
5. Use some flour to dust a flat and fine surface. Form a small soft and elastic ball by kneading the dough slowly on that dusted surface.
6. Use plastic wrap to tightly wrap the dough.
7. Place the dough safely in the refrigerator for 2 days, and not less.

Pizza Sauce

1. In a medium pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Place the quartered tomatoes in it and sauté. Add in the garlic powder, crushed tomatoes, and Italian seasoning. Combine finely.
2. Use black pepper and salt now to season the ingredients. Adjust the seasoning and taste as per your choice.
3. Now, allow the sauce 15 minutes so that it simmers finely and gets reduced to half completely.
4. In a small bowl, transfer the sauce. Meanwhile, to make smaller bits, lightly mash the quartered tomatoes.
5. Make sure you don’t the tomatoes in a way that it becomes unable to be chunky for this pizza recipe (Don’t crush too much, in short).
6. Set the sauce aside in the bowl and let it cool down.

Giordano’s deep dish pizza

1. Now, comes the time to take the dough out from the refrigerator and place it in a bowl to get down to room temperature. At the same time, turn on the oven to preheat and set at 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Carefully divide the pizza dough into two. Take the 1/3 slice separately and set it aside.
3. For the bigger portion, make a 14-inch circle and use the rolling pin to make the dough to equal to that 14-inch circle. Then, fold it in half.
4. Then, use cooking spray to grease the cake tin. Unfold the cake dough after placing the dough in that grease tin. (It doesn’t matter if the excess of the dough keeps hanging out of the tin.)
5. Now, all over the dough, in a circular fashion, layer the pepperoni. Top using mozzarella cheese after adding up the bell peppers till the dough fills the cake tin to ¾ portion.
6. Now, use the same rolling pin on the other 1/3 slice of the dough and make a 10-inch circle. Make sure this dough remains thin compared to the one that is on the bottom of the cake tin.
7. At this stage, use this dough all over the previous one on the cake tin like a blanket. Down on the cheese, slowly and press the dough.
8. Now, seal the dough from all sides along with hanging parts. Pinch together both the bottom and top pieces.
9. Aging, pinch the two doughs to ensure perfect sealing. Pinch around and then trim the top. On the top of the pizza dough, make a few holes at the same time.
10. Cover the whole surface of the pizza lightly by using the sauce with a spoon. You don’t need to use all the sauce, rather you can use it for another pizza.
11. At last, take 40-45 minutes and bake the pizza. Take more time, if need be, until the pizza surface gets golden brown.

Finish the Dish Pizza

• In a warm area, let the pizza set and give enough time to cool down after baking.
• Use a flexible spatula to gently nudge the pizza so that you can remove it safely from the cake tin. This way, remove the pizza from the springform ring carefully and you are done.

Now you can cut Giordano’s deep dish pizza into 8 slices. I also recommend serving hot. Enjoy!

Recipe Notes

• While kneading the pizza dough, be very patient and careful. If you do it more than what is needed, the pizza crust will get dry and you will find it hard to chew.
• I recommend keeping the dough in the refrigerator for 2 days. Thus, the dough will properly rise. Eventually, you will get comparatively more mellow and tender pizza at the end of the day.
• For the optimal result, make sure you spin the pizza dough frequently while baking it. This will endure equal baking for all the sides and will get brown evenly.

To enjoy to the fullest, try a couple of other pizza recipes:

Easy Fruit Pizza Crust Recipe

Shredded parmesan asiago pizza Recipe

Nutritional Information

As you are taking this much time to paper this giordano’s deep dish pizza Chicago, you might also want to know about the amount of calories in giordano’s deep dish pizza. Well, it’s well filled with healthy nutritional ingredients. Check it out:

Serving (Per serving)	Nutritional Value	Daily Value
Calories	562 (2304 kJ)	–
Total Fat	34 g	64%
Saturated Fat	12 g	75%
Trans Fat	2 g	67%
Polyunsaturated Fat	1.2 g	52%
Monounsaturated Fat	1.1 g	34%
Sodium	634 mg	65%
Total Carbohydrate	54 g	33%
Dietary Fiber	32 g	27%
Cholesterol	101 mg	53%
Sugars	14 g	45%
Protein	10 g	23%
Calcium	456 mg	69%
Iron	4 mg	24%
Potassium	614 mg	67%
Vitamin A	345mcg	37%
Vitamin C	8.9 mg	16%

I have been in Chicago for almost 7 months. At that time when we talked about hometown classics, the thing that would automatically pop up in the list was Chicago’s pizza.

There are many types of Chicago pizza, as you know the Artisan pizza pie, tavern-style, Sicilian, the Chicago style thin. But the only incomparable, as regarded by the locals, one is this one, Giordano’s deep dish pizza. Try it yourself and see the result! I will be waiting to hear from you.