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!

What makes a pizza vegan?

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!).

What's the difference between vegan pizza and regular pizza?

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.

How is deep dish pizza layered?

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.

Is deep dish pizza dough different from regular pizza dough?

The high fat composition of a deep-dish dough means that the fat can coat a high proportion of the flour particles. Because fat repels moisture, this stops the liquid in the sauce from seeping into the dough. As a result, the crust stays crispy on the bottom, and the sauce stays in the pizza, where we want it to be.

Does deep dish pizza use a different dough?

It helps to have a particular kind of pizza dough to make deep dish pizza. You want the finished dough to be lightly crisp at the edges, but soft inside. My go-to dough for deep dish has a blend of all-purpose and semolina flour, the usual salt, yeast, and water, plus a healthy dose of olive oil.

What makes deep dish pizza different?

Difference Between Chicago-Style Pizza And Regular Pizza What is deep dish pizza? It's pizza that is baked in a deep, cake-like pan after it's been coated with oil. Cheese is added after the dough is spread out, and the sauce is placed on the top. They take longer to cook than traditional or thin-crust pizzas.

Why is deep dish pizza different?

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.

What's the difference between deep-dish and Chicago-style 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.

What's the difference between Chicago-style pizza and deep dish pizza?

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.

Vegan Deep Dish Pizza | Gluten-Free Recipe

By Ela on 19. August, 2018 | 26 Comments. This post may contain affiliate links*. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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5 from 6 votes

This easy to make vegan deep dish pizza is the perfect comfort food on weekends! The recipe is gluten-free and plant-based. You can use your favorite veggies for this yummy pizza pie!

I am sure you know how much I love pizza. Yes, I adore it! That’s why I always get so excited when I create a new pizza recipe. This deep dish pizza is a crowd-pleaser for sure. You can make the recipe with a regular (wheat flour) dough, but for all of you who are gluten-free (and vegan), you have to try out this recipe!

Healthy Pizza

You might ask why I am sharing this vegan deep dish pizza recipe with you. Well, I like veggies, mushrooms, and vegan cheese. You can fill up a deep dish pizza with lots and lots of veggies… So yeah, it’s actually a pretty healthy “pizza casserole” because of all the veggies, right. And I want you all to try out healthy-ish recipes. Isn’t it amazing when you can say: “I just ate a healthy pizza with tons of veggies and it actually tasted amazing”.

Filling For This Vegan Chicago Style Pizza

I chose spinach, peppers, mushrooms, corn, onion, tomato sauce, and vegan cheese as the filling. However, you can choose any toppings which you like for this deep dish pizza, for example, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, chickpeas and so much more.

Gluten-Free Pizza Dough

I created a new gluten-free pizza dough with chickpea flour, rice flour, and tapioca flour and actually like it A LOT! If you don’t already have a (store-bought) gluten-free flour mix at home, you should give this flour mix a try.

If you don’t care whether the pizza dough is gluten-free or not, then you can also make regular pizza dough with wheat flour or spelt flour. The deep dish pizza will be most likely thicker and fluffier.

Additional Dough Layer

Please note that this vegan deep dish pizza won’t stay nicely in shape when you cut into it because there is a lot of filling. I have made this recipe once with an additional layer of dough in between and this fixed the problem.

To make this, simply divide the dough into 2 parts, one being 2/3 of the size of the other one. Spread the larger rolled out dough into the pan/springform and use the smaller rolled out dough as an additional layer in between the veggies!

This Deep Dish Pizza Is:

Vegan (dairy-free, egg-free)
Gluten-free
Crispy
Gum-free
Healthy
Easy to make
Versatile

Vegan Cheese Sauce

I used my easy vegan cheese sauce recipe, however, you can use any vegan cheese of choice, whether its vegan mozzarella or vegan cheddar cheese, it’s your choice.

Crowd-Pleaser

I made this vegan deep dish pizza a couple of times for friends and everyone loved it! It’s so much fun to get creative and try out new things with simple pizza dough. The recipe is easy to make because you just need a pizza dough and your favorite veggies.

Should you recreate this Chicago Style Pizza, please leave a comment below and don’t forget to tag me in your Instagram or Facebook post with @elavegan and #elavegan because I love to see your recreations.