Pizza Pot Pie – Chicago Style

I fell in love the other night. 

Cruising around one of my favorite forums, I stumbled on a post titled “Pizza Pot Pie”.  My first thought was “yuck!”  But I clicked the message and read the description of the dish and my thoughts changed to “yum!”  Then I googled and found this site with pictures and I knew I had to make it for myself. 

If you scroll down on the site I linked, you’ll see that the restaurant version looks much better than my version.  I have a bit of tweaking to do, but before I tell you the improvements I want to try, I’ll show you how I made them.  They were delicious.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 lb. Italian sausage
• 1 jar pizza sauce
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• mozzarella cheese
• 1 recipe pizza crust dough, which didn’t make it into the picture

You’ll also need oven proof bowls.  I used ramekins that are about 4″-5″ across.  Spray the bowls with cooking spray, especially on the edges and outside edges.

Brown the sausage with onion and garlic.  Rinse it under hot water to remove the extra grease.

In the bowls, layer the cheese, sausage and then sauce.  I had just enough meat and sauce for 6 ramekins.  Roll out the pizza dough.  Cover each dish with a piece of dough, pinching to seal around the edge.  Bake at 450 degrees until they are golden brown.  To serve, turn upside down on a plate and run a butter knife around the edge of the crust to loosen it.  Pry off the bowl and dig in!

Here are a few pictures of the process:

A few things I’d like to change next time:

• I think I rolled the crust too thin.  Poofier (is that a word?) crust would be better. 
• I may search for a different crust recipe.  I used the same one that I used for Calzones, but I think another recipe might work better for this dish.
• The jarred sauce was a little watery after baking.  I might try making a quick homemade with a can of tomato sauce and a can of tomato paste.  That would turn out thicker, I think.
• Oven proof bowls, as opposed to ramekins, would work better.  But ramekins is what I have, so I probably won’t change that.

Even though I want to tweak the recipe, it was still delicious.  My family loved it.  With the leftover crust, I made cheesy bread.  Rolled out the crust, sprinkled with garlic powder, layered with mozzarella cheese, shook on some oregano.  I served it with tomato sauce that I doctored up and heated in the microwave.  It was a hit!

Tagged as: Italian sausage, mozzarella, onion, pizza