Easy Cast Iron Skillet Pizza

This easy Skillet Pizza, a fast and easy deep dish Pizza Recipe made in a cast iron pan or any heavy bottomed pan. A simple tomato sauce topped with skillet fried mushrooms and pancetta and lots of melty cheese! So good!

Easy Cast Iron Skillet Pizza changed the way I make pizza. So easy and it cooks to perfection. My daughter says every time she eats it,  it reminds her of Canada. She liked the deep dish type of pizza crust there. So do I for that matter.

Living in Italy I have tasted the best pizza you can get on the planet. Friday nights would be our pizza night, once I started to make my own easy Pizza Dough recipe, I could make some of our favorites, from a Pizza Bianca to a Potato Pizza to one of our favorite Fresh Tomato Pizza and don’t forget Mini Pizzas for parties or get togethers!

Recipe Ingredients

• Pizza dough – either Homemade pizza dough or store-bought dough
• Olive oil – extra virgin olive oil
• Mushrooms – sliced or chopped mushrooms
• Pancetta – or even chopped bacon
• Parsley – fresh Italian parsley
• Oregano – ground or fresh
• Salt
• Water

For the Pizza Sauce

• Tomatoes – canned Marzano peeled tomatoes
• Oregano – ground or fresh oregano
• Olive oil – extra virgin olive oil
• Basil – gound or fresh basil leaves
• Salt
• Red pepper flakes – optional

Extas

Mozzarella – either firm or low-moisture mozzarella, fresh mozzarella tends to be too watery, unless you drain it in sieve for a couple of hours.

How to make Skillet Pizza

Prepare the pizza dough. If you use store-bought pizza dough then knead it a few times, cover it with a clean tea towel and let rest 30 minutes.

While the dough is resting, in a medium pan add the olive oil, chopped mushrooms and pancetta, spices and water, cook on medium high heat until the ingredients are slightly golden. Remove from heat.

In small bowl add the tomatoes, break them up with a fork, stir in the olive oil and spices.

When the 30 minutes has passed, re-roll the dough into a circle and place it in the prepared skillet. Top the dough with the tomato sauce and sprinkle with the mushroom pancetta mixture.

Bake in the preheated oven until the dough is baked, (check underneath the pizza to make sure the dough is cooked). Top with the shredded mozzarella and place back in the oven to melt the cheese.

Carefully transfer the hot pizza to a cutting board and cut into slices. Serve immediately!

Different Pizza Toppings

Pancetta could be substituted with Italian sausage, bacon, pepperoni or you can leave it out and substitute with another vegetable such as onion or bell peppers. You could even use grilled vegetables. Top the crust with olives, artichokes or baby arugula leaves.

You could substitute the mozzarella cheese or use half and half with provolone, gouda, fontina or even parmesan cheese.

Who invented Pizza?

It is thought that the Italian baker Raffaele Esposito from Naples was the first to make a “pizza pie”. Although it is also thought that street vendors in Naples would sell flatbreads with toppings for many years before Raffaele.

Apparently the Italian King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples sometime in 1889. Esposito was asked to make a pizza for them.

He proceeded to top the pizza with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil. That pizza was named Pizza Margherita and of course is still extremely popular today.

How to store leftover pizza

Any leftovers should be stored in an airtight container and refrigerated, it will keep for up to 3-4 days. You can re-heat it in the oven or in the microwave. Be sure not to leave it out at room temperature for more than two hours.

So good, and the perfect fast and easy weeknight meal, Skillet Pizza doesn’t have to be just for the weekend! Buon Appetito!

Updated from October 24, 2017.