Cast Iron Skillet Pizza

Materials Needed

• Cast-iron skillet
• Dough
• Sauce
• Cheese
• Toppings
• Oven

The dough is the trickiest part. I cheated and used a pre-made dough from Trader Joe's. But if you're aiming high and looking for the best bubbly, yeasty, crispy pizza crust that you can make at home follow this recipe from Serious Eats.

Step 1: Preheat, Prep, and Chop

Preheat your oven to 450(f) or as hot as it will go. Chop your toppings. Nothing beats a good combination pizza in my book (or “supreme” depending on your geography.) I chopped up some onion, mushrooms, prosciutto, and basil. Grate your cheese. I used a low-moisture mozzarella. Fresh mozzarella has a lot of moisture content that could affect the texture of the dough as it cooks. Canned pizza sauce does the job. But if you’re making pizza for that special someone and want to go deluxe: this zesty, homemade no-cook sauce recipe from Kitchn is a great option.

Step 2: Oil the Pan, Dough In. Add Toppings.

I used a little bit of light olive oil in my pan before adding the dough. The oil ensures the dough doesn’t stick, and it results in a crispy, toasted-brown crust. Stretch the dough out to cover the bottom of the pan. Give it a minute or two to rest and adapt to its new surroundings. It should be roughly ¼ inch thick, give or take.

After the dough has rested spread out your sauce in a thin layer, add your cheese, and evenly distribute your toppings.

Step 3: Cook

For best results, blast it at 450(f) for 5-10 minutes. Don’t leave the kitchen. Watch it closely because it will burn easily. This pizza cooks fast, especially if your dough is on the thinner side.

Step 4: Enjoy

Oven off. Let the pizza cool down for a minute or two. It should slide easily out of the pan. Slice and enjoy!

Step 5: Enjoy

Comments

[DanPro]

Cast iron rocks!
Looks tasty.

[Secundius1]

And this Differs from a "Deep Dish Pizza" exactly how...

[boocat]

A "Chicago-style" deep-dish pizza is constructed more like a pie; it looks like a quiche, with a high lip around the outside to hold a thick layer of goodies. That style of pizza is so thick it needs a longer baking time, which would burn the toppings if they were placed on last, as they are with regular pizza. So the deep-dish has a protective layer of tomato sauce over the top (hence, "pizza-pie") in order to protect the veggies from scorching.

This recipe is for a flattened, regular-style pizza (think open-faced sandwich) with a brief baking time.

[gingerbaker]

Some tips from years of making pizza:

* Put the skillet in the hot oven for half an hour at full heat - get it nice and hot

* Construct your pizza on a sheet of parchment paper - you can drop/lift it in/out of the pan, which will no longer need oil

* Use the oil, instead, on top of the dough. Paint it on with a brush, and then no worries about moisture from sauce or cheese making the dough soggy

* Keep oven as hot as it will go. A small pizza will cook in 7 -8 minutes, just the time you need to assemble the next one on parchment paper :)

[boocat]

Thank you for the Pizza Wisdom! I need all the help I can get.

[meswanson]

Do you need to preheat the skillet to get the crust nice and brown on the bottom?

[x1134]

Dutch oven lids work nicely too if you don't have a skillet. Children like to put there own toppings on theirs. Since we need to make at least four pizzas, we use parchment paper with olive oil and prep each pizza. Then they are very easy to pull off one when it is done, then slip the next one in.

[spark master]

if this is how you do it, (on parchment, I like it by the way),1) using the pan or the id draw a circle that will fit comfortably on the outer bottom of the pan/lid, in pencil on the parchment. 2) place the pan upside down in oven (or on grill) let it get hot, gas oven do 500, electrics do 450, 3) roll out disk put on "clean" side of parchment inside the pencil circle. 4) sauce it cheese slide onto the skillet/lid, spin pie at 4 minutes at about 8 minutes sb done remove cool a bit or pay the price.

Dough doings the day before, earlier the better, age matters

4 cups flour

1.25 cups water

2 tspns salt

1-1.5 tspoons yeast, about 1/2 packet, if you want day of use a whole packet and a kiss of vinegar (waste products taste good)

Oil, 1 tble can be left out but I like a nice evoo, lard bacon fat can also be used, (bacony smokey goodness)

Sugar optional 1 tspn, ANY SUGAR WILL WORK, Yeastie Beasties Do Not Care

proof the yeast in water in bowl. then if good add everything elseget into a dough and knead a few minutes, Leave dough ball on work table, cover with bowl, Wait 15-20 minutes.Dough is a colloidal suspention, plus there are chemical reactions occcuring, letting it relax is allowing the water molecules to fully enter the flour particles as well as hydrating the yeast and allowing the salt and sugars to mix

NOW knead seriosly for 5-10 minutes cut shape (sorta) place in a cold refrigerator. It will knead much better and you will have made lots of cross linked gluten,,,aaaaarrrggghhh for gluten avoiders.

Use this dough next day. In Pizzeria I worked at we made it say thursday and did not use it til maybe friday night. It keeps well 4 days gaing taste as it goes.

Sauce

In a blender plop a 28 ounce can of whole plum tomatoes in heavy puree. The only thing in the can should be tomato, tomato puree(or paste), salt, NACL salt, READ THE LABEL!

To that add a couple of cloves of cut up fresh garlic and a tspn dried garlic granules. 1/8 tspn oregano, 10-20 fresh basil leaves, 2 tspns onion powder, pinch red pepper flakes and 1/8 tspn black pepper . No sugar, no salt, the termaters ARE salted and the onion provides sugar. Whizz it till it is pureed, DO NOT COOK IT. Put in fridge, if it looks like tomato pudding then shame on you, you bought a product with a firming agent added, that when it mixes with fresh garlic make tomato pudding. No worries on taste and it won't hurt you. But until you know it , like me, you may just throw it out, then the next day the left over salsa cruda is just like the one you, (I ) tossed out.

Cheese, but the good stuff, crappy cheese is just that, crap. If you insist on wasting money on a "Fresh Mootsie", or even if it just Pollio, shred it small, spread it on a plate uncovered in the fridge over night. This will dry it out somewhat, it will be much nicer no puddling.

This is a simple dish do not over think it, but there are simple rules. Once you get it done 4 times or so you stop thinking about it.

Oh if you must make dough and use it tonight, use a full packet do add some vinegar or lemon juice. The acids will help the reactions and become "Dough Conditioner", and also add flava! Rye bread in this country is usually made with vinegar, (read label), that is because they do not want to take the time to make it the way it was done many years ago. many good German bakers make a "saur" the night before, and then in early am add rising yeast, (diff strain) and make the bread dough, then in 1 rise, bake it. 2 risings are not possible really. It took me years, 1/2 my life to figure out how to make nice rye breads that were not bricks, I do not add coffee or cocoa.

I hope someone takes the time to read this comment and use it.

Oh yeay I fergit, go to a stone yard, but enough red clay or fireplace bricks and line you oven, you now have a brick oven, no kidding I do this on BBQ or in house oven. And at 1.70 for fireplace bricks, using 10 it is less then half the price of a "baking stone". Go hog wild, use 20 and line two racks, allow 30 minutes to heat up. Splits are thinner and they are wonderful. I place food tight on them, but parchment of foil or a pan all can be used.

ciao

[Wild-Bill]

The presentation got me to look at your pizza instructable. It looks absolutely delicious. I do all my pizza from scratch. Making your own Pizza dough is nothing the only thing I do out of the ordinary is add course ground garlic powder. Pizza sauce is a bit more effort than opening can but I cheat and make what I call Sun Dried Tomato Walnut Pesto with Chipotle, and this includes lots of garlic, olive oil and some tomato paste for colour. I always make a lot when I do and keep the unused portion in the freezer. Some times I don't use sauce at all but truffle oil especially when I do my Forager Pizza which has wild mushrooms (when I don't have any wild mushrooms I use Shiitake mushrooms), garlic, goats feta and provolone. I cook my Pizzas on unglazed tiles (which I bought from a local tile store) and I made a Pizza Peel (Pizza paddle) out of a scrape of 3/8" plywood. The pizza shown below I call a my Three Cheese Haggis Pizza and that is the Peel I made in about 15 minutes about 10 years ago. I was so impressed by the look of your pizza I decided to throw a couple of these ideas at you so you can up your game.

[thesnowtheriver]

Oh this looks soooo delicious. In order to stay slim, I stopped eating pizza more than a decade ago. Oh but i do miss it still. thank you for sharing this amazing recipe!

[pop4guns]

As a previous multi-store owner of Little Caesar's Pizza I think that instead of using oil in the skillet try corn meal after you've spread a little oil on a paper towel and have lightly coated the surface of the pan, I love this method with an iron skillet!

[GoatM]

Oh yeah. I've been making my pizza like this for years now. You can
even cook pre made ones this way. Almost always add toppings for the
pre made ones also, especially sauce and more cheese. What is really nice
too, is in the winter heating with kerosene to cook on top of the
heater, though not all heaters are as apt for cooking on.

[gralan]

I really dig this recipe, guy. Wow. And this is just the right size for pizza for one or two. And I've got more than one cast iron skillet and eat. Thank you very much.