How To…
How to Heat Up Deep Dish Pizza in the Oven
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit
- Cover cooking sheet with aluminum foil and spray a little cooking spray.
- Put deep dish slices on sheet with some space between them.
- Spray a little water on the slices to give them a moisture boost.
- Cover pizza loosely with another piece of aluminum foil
- Bake until pizza reach desired temperature. How long to reheat deep dish pizza in an oven? Approximately 10-15 minutes.
The Best Way to Reheat Deep Dish Pizza: A Skillet
- Put skillet on burner at medium-high heat.
- Coat pan with light layer of olive oil.
- Cover pan.
- Reduce heat to medium.
- Add deep dish pizza.
- Cook pizza for 3-6 minutes.
- Enjoy!
How to Reheat a Deep Dish Pizza
Although it’s doubtful that your friends left any pizza to spare after an all-night cram session, if you do have a slice or two left, there’s a right way and a wrong way to both reheat and store pizza. As anyone who has ever eaten a soggy, greasy mess of reheated pizza can attest, the wrong way is worse than no pizza at all.
The best part? You don’t need a fancy pizza stone to heat leftover pizza.
Reheating Pizza
Here are the general rules for reheating pizza. These methods will work for reheating thin crust pizza as well as reheating deep dish pizza. In order to pay our due respect to our beloved deep dish pizza, we have a section dedicated to “how to reheat deep dish pizza” for our Chicago-style purists. If you’re one of those who swears by Chicago deep dish and only Chicago deep dish, you might want to jump down to that section. Of course, if you love deep dish pizza so much, why are you allowing any of it to be left over? Anyway, moving on.
Leftover pizza should never be heated in a microwave oven. The cooking method employed by microwave ovens increases the problematic soggy crust associated with leftover pizza.
For college students living in tight quarters, this poses a problem. Microwaves are usually part of a dorm room suite, or easily added to your room. But there’s a solution: toaster ovens.
Before the advent of microwaves, toaster ovens offered a faster and more economical way to cook food than heating up a traditional oven. A toaster oven can be purchased inexpensively and takes up just about as much room as a small dorm-sized microwave.
Some lucky students live off-campus in an apartment or shared house, and for these folks, an oven isn’t a problem. For those in a dorm, though, toaster ovens are the safest bet for reheating pizza.
Chicago-style pizza almost never tastes its best when it’s reheated in the microwave. Oven heating is the only safe bet for ensuring the original, delicious taste and texture are preserved.
How to Reheat Chicago-Style Pizza
All right, so let’s talk about Chicago-Style, or deep dish pizza, for a second. Clearly, there are two very different schools of pizza in deep dish vs. thin crust, or New York style (“Neapolitan”) pizza. Both are delicious, but while thin crust is easy to eat on-the-go and deeply satisfying from first bite to last, deep dish is a hearty meal with every ingredient essentially coming “chunk-style.”
While you might be thought of as a traitor for expressing a preference for deep dish in New York or thin crust in Chicago, it’s certainly understandable if you’re not able to let hometown loyalty dictate your pizza preference. After all, we’re talking about pizza here! While many people enjoy both types of pizza depending on their mood, some people swear by the thin-crust, while others can only have their craving satisfied by a true Chicago-style deep dish.
And if you’re a fan of deep dish, biting into one that doesn’t measure up, either because it wasn’t prepared properly or because it wasn’t reheated properly, it can be deeply disappointing. You can’t do anything about the first problem, other than not patronize that particular pizza maker again. But, improperly reheating Chicago-style pizza? That’s a problem that’s entirely within your control.
Just as with Neapolitan, or New York-style pizza, Chicago-style pizza almost never tastes its best when it’s reheated in the microwave. To be clear on a universal truth, the microwave is the mortal enemy of all kinds of pizza. Well, except microwave pizza, but you owe it to yourself to be eating pizza that was at some point made fresh in a real pizza oven. When it comes to deep dish, oven heating is the only safe bet for ensuring the original, delicious taste and texture are preserved (with possibly one very notable exception, as you’ll see below).
As bad as the microwave problem is for reheating thin crust pizza, using it for reheating Chicago-style pizza is even more disastrous. The whole joy of deep dish pizza is its thick, chewy-yet-crispy crust. Reheating deep dish pizza with a microwave will make all that glorious crust just as soggy as it would a New York-style pizza, and that’s just depressing.
The Best Way to Reheat Deep Dish Pizza
So what’s the answer on how to reheat deep dish pizza? If there’s leftovers, you’re definitely going to want to reheat Chicago deep dish pizza over throwing it away, but can you use the same method to reheat deep dish pizza as you use for thin crust pizza? Never fear — we have the answer!
Preparing Your Deep Dish for Reheating
If you know you’re going to be saving some of that deep dish for tomorrow, store it as quickly as possible. There’s more on storing in the next section, but the basic thing to know is to get it out of that box and into some plastic. Wrap it in aluminum foil, wrap it in plastic wrap, throw it in a Ziploc bag, or all of the above, but protect and preserve those precious slices for as long as possible. Now, on to the reheating.
Reheating Deep Dish Pizza With a Toaster Oven
We already know that the microwave is a no-no, and we’re assuming you don’t have easy access to a regular oven. If you do, you can reheat Chicago deep dish pizza the same way you do with the toaster oven, which is similar to how you would reheat thin crust pizza. That is:
- Preheat your oven to about 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Preheating is an important step. You want to reheat your pizza, not burn it.
- Cover your cooking sheet with aluminum foil and spray on a little bit of cooking spray. There is little worse than discovering your perfectly reheated pizza is now stuck to its cooking vessel – ruining the luscious crust.
- Put your deep dish slices on top of the sheet with some space in between them.
- Spray a little water on top of the slices to give them a little moisture boost. The trick with reheating deep dish pizza is you want the water inside to expand enough to rejuvenate your slice, so that it has that good texture you remember from the night before, but not so much that it makes your pizza soggy, or escapes the pizza entirely, giving it that stale, cardboard taste. We’ll talk more about that in the next part of this section.
- Cover the pizza loosely with another piece of aluminum foil. This will help prevent moisture from escaping and help prevent you from burning the pizza, as well.
- Finally, bake the pizza for about 20 to 30 minutes. Start checking it every five minutes from the 20-minute mark until you reach the desired temperature.
The Secret Best Method for Reheating Deep Dish Pizza
Now, the method above will work, if you do it right. But if you love deep dish pizza, you know there’s something special about it. Something that separates it from all other pizzas. Something as special as an authentic Chicago-style deep dish pizza calls for a special method of reheating deep dish pizza, and it all comes down to one magic word: skillet.
From a pan the deep dish comes, and to a pan it shall return. It turns out, according to many, the best way to reheat deep dish pizza is essentially to fry it. Now, individual taste experience will vary, but there are a number of deep dish experts who swear by this method. Some even say it makes it taste better than it did originally (no promises!). Okay, we hear you — you’re convinced. You want to know what to do. You’ve got it. Here’s how to reheat Chicago deep dish pizza using a skillet:
- Get a skillet. You’re a grown-up now, so you should have one. If you don’t, this is a great excuse.
- Put the skillet on the burner at medium-high heat and coat the pan with a light layer of olive oil – you don’t want your precious pizza to swim in the oil and come out extra greasy.
- Reduce the heat to medium and toss on your deep dish.
- Cover the pan. This is very important! First, because it will make sure the cheese melts and the toppings also get warm. Second, remember you’re going for a delicate moisture balance here. Covering the pan will help prevent the remaining moisture from escaping.
- Let the pizza cook for about three to five minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!
If you happen to have access to a griddle, you can get similar results. Start with a cold griddle, throw the slices on, cover them, cook at about 200 degrees F for 20 minutes or so, and you’re good to go.
As you may have noted above (“stovetop method”), reheating in this way will work for thin crust pizza as well, but for reheating deep dish pizza, this method is really worth the extra effort versus just throwing it in the oven.
What About Those Pizza Stones?
What about a pizza stone for deep dish pizza? What is a pizza stone, anyway? A pizza stone, or baking stone, is simply a cooking surface, often made out of stone, but it can be ceramic or even metal, that you put your pizza on to cook it in the oven. It’s usually shaped sort of like a plate. The idea is that, because the stone easily transmits heat and traps moisture, it allows your oven to work like a real pizza oven when it comes to heating your pizza. The problem is, you have to lay out your hard-earned cash for one, and they’re not good for much else than cooking pizza and a few other items. You also have to find a place to put it, and it’s not going to fit in a toaster oven. Fortunately, thanks to the methods described above, you really don’t need a pizza stone. But it’s still good to know what they are.
Again, when it comes to reheating deep dish pizza, or any pizza, different people will have different opinions. The only thing it seems we can agree on is that the microwave is a last resort. But in truth, even that’s in dispute among some pizza lovers. Some pizza lovers say it’s better to go cold or (*gasp!*) throw the leftovers away rather than nuke them, while others say if you give your slice a brief turn in the microwave to warm the insides and then throw it in the toaster oven to crisp the outside, you’ll be just fine. Remember though, if you’re looking for a quick reheat, the skillet method only takes 5 minutes plus the time it takes to warm your skillet.
What we present here are the methods for reheating that we think are most likely to lead to the hot, delicious, right balance of crisp vs. chewy taste that you enjoyed when the delivery guy first arrived at your door. Feel free to experiment with a couple of these methods to see which one is just right for you. In the end, it’s all about taste. Now, as promised, let’s talk about the best way to store that pizza.
Storing Pizza Safely
Let’s say that your favorite pizza place offers a two-for-one special. You can’t eat two pies in one night, so how can you store the second pizza safely until you’re ready to eat it?
Store pizza using the following guidelines:
In the refrigerator, store it no longer than three to four days.
Frozen pizza keeps for one to two months if you have room to store it in a freezer.
Most people just chuck the whole pizza, cardboard box and all, into the fridge, but that’s probably the worst way possible to store pizza. Not only does the cardboard absorb grease, but the pizza itself can absorb odd fridge odors if you’re not careful.
Instead of storing pizza in the original delivery box, take the slices out and stack them on a plate with a paper towel in between. Cover the entire stack and plate with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Cold Pizza? Why Not!
There’s really nothing wrong with eating cold pizza. Heck, the Russians love it — remember?
For students who don’t have access to a toaster oven or regular oven, cold pizza may be just fine. As long as you store pizza in the refrigerator and not on the desk overnight, you should be good to go.
Your fellow students may not wash their hands as diligently as you do, and when they grab slices, they can leave behind bacteria. These bacteria can multiply rapidly at room temperature and give you a whopping case of food poisoning if you eat pizza that’s been sitting out for a while.
So put that pizza in the fridge, where the cold slows or halts the progression of bacteria, and enjoy it reheated in the oven. Your stomach will thank you.
Insisting On Frozen Pizza? Why Not Giordano’s?
Reheating frozen pizza may seem easy when you read the instructions on the box, but like we said – you deserve better than frozen, never baked, pizza. Reheating a Giordano’s pizza, let alone a frozen-shipped Giordano’s Deep Dish, might seem intimidating. No worries, though, we’ll ship you our deep dish and make reheating it a breeze. It’ll be like a night in Chicago – no matter where you are!
The following information is provided to you to help maintain the freshness and safety of your delivered Giordano’s Frozen Pizza Pie…
Your pizzas should have arrived to you within two days of shipping. Each package is packed with over 5 lbs. of dry ice, but may arrive with little to none remaining. The pizzas should arrive frozen or partially frozen. Unless you plan on baking your pizzas within a few hours, we suggest you place them directly into your freezer for storage. The pizzas will retain their freshness in the freezer for as long as six months. (If you plan on baking your pizzas within a few hours, you may store them in your refrigerator where they will continue to thaw.) Do not eat uncooked pizza.
For the very best results, follow these cooking instructions:
- Place rack in center of oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. If your oven has a convection fan feature, do not use it.
- Place the pouch of additional pizza sauce in a bowl of hot water to thaw.
- Remove all packaging from the pizza (saving the cardboard circle).
- For optimal cheese melt, place the pizza in a microwave oven and cook on HIGH for 6 minutes (4 minutes if pizza is thawed). There is a lot of cheese in there, so this helps make sure your cheese melts to perfection.
(NOTE: These microwave times are based on standard 1000-watt microwave ovens.
If your microwave oven is higher in wattage, subtract a minute from the cooking time. If your microwave oven is lower in wattage, add a minute to the cooking time.)
- Remove pizza from microwave oven and spread amount of preferred sauce from pouch over the existing sauce on the pizza.
- Then place pizza directly on center rack of oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes (slightly less time if the pizza is thawed), until the crust turns golden brown.
(NOTE: Cooking times may vary slightly depending on your oven, so watch for the golden brown crust color.)
- Remove pizza from oven and carefully slide pizza onto cardboard circle (you must have saved it from the original package) for easy slicing. Use caution as baked pizza will be very hot. Cut into slices and enjoy!
Should you have any questions or require additional assistance, please give us a call at (800) 982-1756 Monday through Friday between 8 am and 3 pm CST. We’re here to help!