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A thin, square-cut bar pizza with sausage and cheese to the edge. The pie in the photo is a Milwaukee tavern shape.
Yeast Dough and Knots

Chicago tavern-style pizza

Prep 25 min Cook 12 min Total 1 hr 45 min Servings 8

By Lukasz Jagiello

Published Oct 12, 2026 · Updated Oct 12, 2026

Photo: The ed17, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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About this recipe

I only post recipes that I have tried and verified and are good to my taste — all taste may vary.

A stiff dough rolled almost to nothing, baked on a preheated steel, browns before it can puff. Cheese all the way to the rim is what fries the edge. A thick rim would make a different pie.

Ingredients

Method

  1. 01

    Stir the yeast and sugar into the warm water and wait until it foams, about 5 minutes. Mix the flour and salt, then the oil and the yeast water. Knead about 6 minutes. The dough should be stiff, not sticky. Cover and let it rise 1 hour.

  2. 02

    Heat the oven to 500°F with a pizza steel or an inverted sheet pan on the middle rack. A preheated sheet pan works if that is what you have.

  3. 03

    Brown the sausage, if you are using it, and drain it.

  4. 04

    Roll the dough very thin on a sheet of parchment, almost to the edges of a half-sheet pan. It should look cracker-thin, with no puffy rim. Dock it with a fork.

  5. 05

    Spread a thin layer of tomato, then the cheese all the way to the edge so there is no bare rim. Scatter the sausage on top.

  6. 06

    Slide the parchment onto the hot steel or pan. Bake 8 to 12 minutes, until the bottom is browned and the cheese at the edge is bubbling and spotted. Rest 2 minutes, then cut into squares.

Notes & swaps

  • Square cut, cheese to the edge, sauce in a thin layer under the cheese. This is not the deep-dish skillet pie.
  • The photograph is a Milwaukee bar pizza: thin, square-cut, cheese to the edge, with sausage. The shape is the tavern shape. The pie in the picture was not baked in Chicago.
  • The total time includes the rise.

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