Midwestern American
Chicago deep-dish: sauce-on-top.
Chicago Deep Dish Pizza
Pan-baked pizza with a high-walled buttery cornmeal crust, mozzarella laid directly on the dough, sausage and toppings in the...
View page →The Midwest eats from farms — Wisconsin dairy, Iowa pork, Michigan cherries, Illinois corn — and from immigrant communities that filled industrial cities (Polish, German, Scandinavian, Italian). Chicago: deep-dish pizza (Uno's 1943, pan-baked thick crust, sauce ON TOP of cheese), Chicago-style hot dogs with poppy-seed bun, sport peppers, neon-green relish (NEVER ketchup), Italian beef sandwiches dipped in gravy. Detroit: Coney dogs with chili and chopped onion, Detroit-style pizza (square, crispy edges from baking in blue-steel pans). Wisconsin: cheese curds (fried squeaky-fresh), bratwurst, beer cheese soup. Minnesota: hotdish (tater-tot casseroles at church potlucks), wild rice. Kansas City: BBQ with sweet thick sauce, burnt ends. The cuisine is hearty, immigrant-shaped, and pragmatic at heart.
The Palate
Start Here
Buttery cornmeal-yellow crust formed into a 2-inch-deep pan, layered cheese first, then toppings, with chunky tomato sauce ladled on TOP. Baked 30-45 minutes.
Why start here · Deep dish is the Chicago argument with the rest of pizza-eating America. Not pizza, says New York; pizza-pie says Chicago. Both are correct in their own way.
Thin-sliced slow-roasted beef, dipped in beef-and-pepper gravy ('dipped' or 'wet'), piled on Italian bread with giardiniera (spicy pickled vegetables) or sweet peppers.
Why start here · Italian beef is Chicago's working-class lunch. Order 'dipped, hot' (gravy-soaked, with giardiniera) and you've earned local respect.
The Pantry
See all 73 ingredients›
Grains & Staples
Dairy & Fats
Sauces & Condiments
How They Cook
Techniques that define this cuisine
See 10 more techniques›
Signature Dishes (16)
Drinks
1
Soups
1Mains
9
Other regions
Siblings within American — each its own tradition.