Here's What Makes Deep Dish And Stuffed Pizza Different

Deep dish pizza has deep roots in Chicago. The beginnings of one of the Windy City's most well-known specialties goes all the way back to the 1940s, according to historian Tim Samuelson, who credits an artist and bar owner named Ric Riccardo for creating deep dish pizza as part of his establishment's free food offerings (via CBS News). Whether or not Riccardo actually created the dish may be debatable, but the LA Times credits both Ricardo's partner, Ike Sewell, calling it "Chicago-style" and helping to develop it. They would sell it at their restaurant, now known as Pizzeria Uno.

If you've never had deep-dish pizza, you might be surprised to learn how different it is from its thin-crust counterpart. As Doreen's Pizzeria explains, deep dish pizzas have 2- or 3-inch lightly-fried deep crusts, are baked in oil-filled pans, and come packed with all sorts of goodness including cheese, sauce, and tasty fillings. While deep dish is reason enough to head to Chicago, one another cheesy pie from the area – stuffed pizza – adds a whole new layer to the deep dish game. At first glance, they both look deep and more than capable of making you feel stuffed. So what's the difference?

For anyone more familiar with pies featuring a thinner crust, like the hand-tossed ones, it may be hard to wrap one's mind around deep-dish pizza in the first place. If you're in that boat, wait until you hear about stuffed pizza — this one's a doozy! Or, as The Takeout puts it, "You just have to love the absurd exorbitance of it all."

So, here's the deal with stuffed pizza: It incorporates a second crust. This additional crust is put on over the cheese and fillings and topped with tomato sauce, making it taller than other deep dish pizzas. Additionally, as DNA Info points out, their crusts may be different as well. According to the outlet, stuffed pizza dough is heavier on garlic and more buttery but not as moist when compared to other deep dish pizzas.

As for its origins, stuffed pizza apparently didn't come onto the restaurant scene until 1974. Both Nancy's Pizzeria and Giordano's restaurant started serving it that year, and both boast their own origin stories for the recipes. It turns out, who should get the credit for inventing deep dish and stuffed pizza may be just as debatable as which one of them actually tastes better!