Learn how to make this deep dish pizza – your family will be glad you did!
This recipe is another one of my favorite super easy, quick to throw together, family pleasing, and incredibly delicious meals, originally from mother’s recipe collection. One of the best things about it is how incredibly adaptable it is to whatever ingredients you have on hand! I’ve made it with absolutely no cheese before and it was still delicious!
This recipe is a testament to just how many family recipes we have. I have an original family cookbook that I made eons ago which lists where every recipe came from and notes about it so I always go and look up that information when I am about to post. I have been bragging to my mother about how delicious this is for ages and telling her that she MUST make it soon! I finally got her intrigued enough to ask for the recipe and she bought all of the ingredients yesterday saying “That does sound good, I’ll have to try that this week!”. This morning when I went to my original cookbook to see where the recipe came from originally, I find out its hers!
NOW I know why it tastes so familiar and where I’ve had it before! I remember having this when I was a little girl but I guess Mama got busy with other recipes and busy work and it eventually faded into the background. Well I am reviving this puppy once more, Mama, coz it is SO GOOD!!
For all of my readers with hungry men and teenage boys to feed, get ready for a home run with Deep Dish Pizza!
For the filling you’ll need: Ground beef, Pizza sauce, Italian seasoning, onion, parmesan cheese, and mozzarella. For the crust, you’ll need: flour, eggs, oil, milk, and a bit of salt.
But really, you can add in whatever pizza toppings you like. I tend to keep mine pretty basic because my precious family has no imagination, despite a collective twenty years of effort on my part to change that. However, I will tell you that even basic, this recipe is absolutely delicious and deeply satisfying. The original recipe called for one pound of ground beef and one pound of sausage. I just used two pounds of ground beef. See how adaptable this is? Of course, I use the generic pizza sauce because it is awesome anyway.
In a large skillet brown your beef and chopped onion. After that, drain any grease and add any other pizza ingredients you typically enjoy or just keep it as is, like I do. Had my entire family (except for me) not been dropped on their heads as children (thereby ruining their ability to tell what is good in food), I would be adding bell pepper and mushrooms now. YUM! Pour in your pizza sauce and stir.
Spray a 9×13 inch pan with baking spray. Sprinkle Mozzarella cheese over the bottom of the pan. Spread meat mixture over the mozzarella.
Mix up crust: In a medium bowl place milk, flour, eggs, oil, and salt. Stir until well combined and no lumps remain. Pour over meat in baking dish and sprinkle top with parmesan.
Bake at 350 for thirty minutes. It may not look done but it is :).
By now, your kitchen is filled with the most delicious smell. Your kids and spouse have been driving you crazy asking if its done yet, and your stomach has set into a continual growl.
Or maybe that’s just me :).
Enjoy!
- 2 pounds ground beef (or a mixture of ground beef and sausage)
- 1 med onion, chopped
- 1 bell pepper, chopped (I omit due to picky family)
- 15 ounce jar pizza sauce
- 1-2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
- 2 cups mozzarella (I've replaced with cheddar before)
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon oil
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ Cup Parmesan (Parmesan is not as easy to spell as one might think...)
- Preheat oven to 350. Brown ground beef, onion, and bell pepper. Drain well. Add pizza sauce and Italian Seasoning. Stir well.
- Grease a 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray. Sprinkle mozzarella over bottom of it. Spread meat mixture over the cheese.
- In mixing bowl, add flour, milk, eggs, oil, and salt. Stir until well mixed and no lumps remain. Pour over meat in pan. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over batter. Bake 30 minutes.
You may also like Healthy Goulash – with Zoodles!
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” ~Abraham Lincoln.
Yum 
I added some bacon instead of sausage and used nacho taco cheese mix and some home made sofrito and sazon. I also added dome baking powder to the crust mix. OMG so dang yummy. I used to baking pans 9 X 9 and it it came out perfect …Thank you so much. It is awesomely delicious.
I am so glad you liked it Mindy!!
Hey that deep dish pizza bake is great, thanks!
I am so glad you liked it Jay!!!!
i am so making this tonight!! thanks..
I hope you enjoy it Julie!!
Hello! I just want to make sure that you put 2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning instead of teaspoons. Thanks so much! I love your recipes and use them quite frequently!
Had anyone tried to freeze this casserole? Did you bake it before it was frozen?
Jodi, because of the crust being on top, I think freezing it after it was baked would work the best. Since I love to cook and fill my freezer instead of cooking every day, I do this a lot. If you aren’t feeding a crew (just me and hubby now), you could cool the pizza after baking, cut into serving-sized pieces and freeze in ziplock bags.
One of your best recipes. Thank you!
Thank you so much Phyllis, I am so glad you like it!!!!
We always come full circle and it is good!
I made this, or a version of it, the other night. It was pretty excellent. I’m on a low sodium diet, which is sort of new to me, so I’m hunting for substitute recipes or recipes that don’t suffer when I change them a skooch – this one worked. I only used 1 lb of burger and it was plenty for two of us and leftovers then next day. I admit, I plopped on a little hot sauce, but it was fine without. I didn’t measure the Italian seasoning but I’m pretty sure, when all was said & done, it was at least 2 TB. 🙂
I am glad to hear you liked it and were able to adapt it to your dietary needs!!!
Made this dish earlier this evening for our family of five, and it was a big hit with everyone. I have been told by the entire crew to put it into our regular rotation 🙂
I am so glad to hear it was a hit!!!
I wonder if I could just use some refrigerated pizza dough to cover instead of making my own? Every little shortcut helps
This isn’t a traditional pizza dough, it’s a little bit different texture that you just pour over. Having said that, you could surely try it! It would be a different recipe but might turn out really good 🙂
Made this tonight forgot to add the sauce to the meat but poured it over the crust before baking. I will let you know how it turns out can’t believe both my husband and I forgot the sauce lol.
Made this tonight forgot to add the sauce to the meat but poured it over the crust before baking. I will let you know how it turns out can’t believe both my husband and I forgot the sauce lol.
Seemed to still work just fine.
LOL, it happens. I forget stuff often and then get to have fun experimenting because I forgot something in the first place 😉
Sorry didn’t mean to double post
Want to try this, but I am on the keto woe. I will try adapting the crust. I’m hoping it will work for all of us. Also going to make a half size (8×8 pan) for this first go ’round. It looks wonderfully flexible!
Make sure you check out the low carb section of the site for more recipes when you can. We did Keto for a good while and I have lots of recipes, with more coming 🙂 https://www.southernplate.com/category/lowcarb/
always enjoy a good keto meal the whole family will enjoy! (I’m the only one doing keto…)
So, I adapted this recipe just a bit, to make it more keto friendly. I used a store bought generic pizza sauce that just happens to be very low in sugar (no added, so all from the tomato base). I tossed in bacon pieces and chopped some pepperoni to the meat mixture (I also had to avoid the veggies for the kiddos…sorry. If it was me, they’d be in. but onion flakes hide well).
Anyway, the biggest changes were in the crust. I subbed almond flour and heavy cream for the regular flour and milk. I was out of eggs, so I added a pinch of xantham gum. Which was probably unnecessary, as it really thickened up in the few minutes it sat while I put the other ingredients into the pan.
I layered more mozzarella over the top and then the parmesan.
It was a very filling hit. (I made an 8×8 (so only 1 lb of meat), and 1/2 to 2/3 jar of sauce.) and still had 1/6th left over)
Thank you.
Robin, I’m not surprised it was filling… swapping almond flour and cream for the flour and milk added about 800 calories to the recipe. Do you really lose weight on this diet?
You’d be amazed. I’ve never seen anything like the keto diet.