Detroit style pizza is the American pizza that’s taken over menus in the last few years — a thick, rectangular, deep-dish pizza with a crispy, caramelised cheese edge and sauce on top rather than underneath the cheese. It’s the opposite of Neapolitan in almost every way, and it’s genuinely easy to make at home.
What Makes Detroit Style Different
- Rectangular pan: Traditionally cooked in a blue steel industrial pan; a standard 9×13 inch baking tin works well at home
- Thick, airy dough: High hydration dough (70–75%) that proves in the oiled pan, creating an open, soft interior
- Cheese to the edge: Brick cheese (or mozzarella + cheddar at home) is spread right to the sides of the pan so it caramelises against the hot steel, creating the “frico” crust
- Sauce on top: The tomato sauce goes on after the cheese, in two or three stripes across the top — it doesn’t go underneath
- Lower temperature: Cooked at 230–260°C (much lower than Neapolitan) for 15–20 minutes
Ingredients (Makes one 9×13 inch pan, feeds 4)
- Dough: 450g strong white bread flour, 340ml warm water (75% hydration), 9g fine salt, 5g instant yeast, 2 tbsp olive oil
- Cheese: 300g low-moisture mozzarella, grated + 100g mature cheddar, grated (UK substitute for brick cheese)
- Sauce: 200ml San Marzano tomato sauce (see our best pizza sauce recipe), seasoned with salt and dried oregano
- Toppings: Pepperoni (optional — place under the cheese so it curls and crisps)
Method
Day Before: Make the Dough
Combine flour, yeast, and water. Mix until no dry flour remains. Add salt and olive oil. Mix again — the dough will be very wet (75% hydration is much wetter than standard pizza dough). Cover and refrigerate overnight. The cold, slow ferment develops flavour and relaxes the gluten, making the dough easier to handle the next day.
Day of Cooking: Pan Proof
Pour 2 tbsp olive oil into a 9×13 inch metal baking tin. Remove the dough from the fridge and pour it directly into the pan — don’t knock it back. Use oiled fingers to stretch it gently towards the edges. It may not reach all the way; leave it 20 minutes and stretch again. Cover with a clean tea towel and prove at room temperature for 2–3 hours until puffy, doubled in size, and filling the pan.
Assemble and Cook
Preheat your oven to its maximum temperature (230–260°C domestic oven, or let a pizza oven cool to this range). If using pepperoni, lay it on the dough surface now. Cover the entire surface with the grated cheese mixture right to the edges of the pan — this is not optional; the cheese touching the pan sides creates the caramelised crust. Add sauce in 3 lines across the top of the cheese (do not spread it — the stripes are distinctive).
Cook for 15–18 minutes in a domestic oven until the edges are deeply browned and the cheese on top is golden. In a pizza oven at 250°C, it takes 10–14 minutes — check at 10 minutes and rotate if the browning is uneven. The bottom should be crispy and brown when you lift the edge with a spatula.
Rest 5 minutes in the pan before running a knife around the edge and tipping out onto a cutting board. Cut into rectangular slices — 8 pieces from one 9×13 pan.
Getting the Cheese Edge Right
The caramelised frico edge is the defining characteristic of Detroit pizza. For this to work: the pan must be well-oiled (so the crust doesn’t stick), the cheese must reach the very edge of the pan (any gap and the edge won’t caramelise), and the oven must be hot enough (too low and the cheese melts rather than crisping). Mature cheddar caramelises better than mozzarella alone — the mix of the two gives both melt and caramelisation.
Variations
White Detroit: Skip the tomato sauce and use a garlic butter base, topped with mushrooms and cheese — the frico edge is the star. Hot honey Detroit: Drizzle hot honey over the finished pizza before slicing — the sweet-heat contrast with the caramelised cheese is excellent. Sausage and pepper: Crumbled Italian sausage under the cheese with sliced peppers laid on top of the sauce.
See also: best pizza sauce recipe | how hot should a pizza oven be | Neapolitan pizza dough recipe | Margherita pizza recipe
