Easy Detroit-Style Pizza Recipe by NEPA Pizza Review

This Detroit-Style Pizza Recipe is easier to make than one might imagine. DSP has been all the rage in the United States the past couple of years. You don’t have to fly to Detroit or even leave your house to have this pizzeria quality pan pizza. All you need is a few tools, some simple ingredients, and use the process below!

Making the Dough

Making pizza dough is not voodoo magic. You just need a few basic ingredients and tools to get started! I highly recommend using a baker’s scale to weigh your ingredients as it is vastly more accurate than measuring by volume. However, I have added equivalent measurements in cups and spoons for reference.

Equipment Needed for Dough

Kitchen Stand Mixer (or mixing bowl and spoon to do by hand)
Bakers Scale (or measuring cups and spoons)
Detroit Style Pizza Pan (either 8×10 Lloypan or 10×14 Lloydpan)

Dough Ingredients

500g King Arthur Flour (4 Cups)
310g Cold Water 60-65f degrees (1 1/4 Cups)
3.5 Grams Instant Dry Yeast (1/2 Packet or 1 tsp)
10g Salt (1 1/2 tsp)
5g Sugar (1 1/2 tsp)
15g Olive Oil (3 tsp)

The batch size can be scaled up or down by simply dividing everything by 2 or dividing everything by 2. Or you can use bakers’ percentages to precisely scale to a specific sized batch!

A top and bottom view of what my parbaked crusts look like after baking for 5 minutes at 400f degrees. These were baked with a lid on for 3 minutes (2 minutes uncovered) because I like my top crust soft.

Dough Process

Combine water, sugar, and yeast in stand mixer bowl. Whisk rigorously until yeast foams.
Add flour and salt and mix for approx. 2 minutes until a wet, shaggy dough forms. Add olive oil and mix for approx. 8 minutes until a smooth and supple dough is formed.
Divide dough into portions. If using an 8×10 pan portions should be 375g each. If using a 10×14 pan, portions should be 500g each. Roll into smooth dough balls.
Place dough in lightly oiled pizza pan and cover with lid or plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature for 1 hour. Place in fridge overnight. Remove from fridge and allow to rest at room temp 1 hour before handling.
Remove dough from pan and rest on counter beside the pizza pan.
Grease the pizza pan with Crisco or butter on the sides of the pan. Drizzle olive oil on the bottom. Gently press out and stretch dough on the counter until it is roughly the size of the bottom of the pan. Place in pan. Cover and allow to raise at room temperature for 2 hours.
After dough raises for 2 hours, remove covering and parbake in oven at 400f degrees for approximately 5 minutes. The desired color is a tan/very light brown top. The crust should also rebound slightly when a finger is gently pressed into it. The bottom of the crust should be starting to crisp a bit, and should not be soggy.
Once parbake is complete, remove from pan and place on a bakers’ rack to cool.

Watch this video to see my dough process from start to finish.

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Making Detroit-Style Pizza Sauce

Detroit-Style pizza is traditionally served with stripes of warmed sauce on top.

Detroit Style Pizza is known for its “Red Top” (sauce stripes) and “Frico” (caramelized cheese edge).

Sauce Ingredients

28 ounces ground or crushed tomatoes (full can)
6 ounces tomato paste (full can)
3 tsp Olive Oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp onion powder

Preparing the Sauce

In a medium sauce pot, mix together crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, salt, and onion powder.
Place sauce over low heat to warm slowly. It will be spooned on top of the pizza post-bake.

Prepping the Cheese

In this Detroit Style Pizza recipe, we’re using 2 types of cheese – sharp cheddar and mozzarella. Typically, I do not like to use preshredded cheese on pizza, because it usually contains anti-caking agents like starches. In this case, the starch helps build a beautiful raised “Frico” edge. Sometimes referred to as lace, this caramelized cheese which is deliberately placed against the side of the pizza pan is the signature of every DSP.

I like to use preshredded sharp white cheddar on the outer ring of the pizza for the flavor and frico aesthetics. I then like to use hand shredded whole milk mozzarella in the center of the pizza to create a nice blend of flavors and textures.

Close up of the Frico Edge on a Detroit-Style Pizza Recipe made by NEPA Pizza Review.

Cheese Ingredients

16 oz bag of preshredded sharp white cheddar cheese
8 oz whole milk mozzarella cheese

Shred the mozzarella cheese into a bowl and keep the cheddar cheese separate from the mozzarella until the next steps.

Putting the Detroit Pizza All Together

Now that we have prepped all of our ingredients, we are ready to create the Detroit-Style Pizza! It’s pretty simple from here:

Place parbaked crust back into the pizza pan that it came out of.
Using the sharp cheddar, place cheese generously around the perimeter of the pizza. You want to press the cheese deliberately against the side of the pan. There should be a buildup of cheese approximately 1 inch above the top of the parbaked crust’s surface.
Once the outer edge of the crust is covered with cheddar cheese, fill in the middle of the pizza with a blend of mozzarella and cheddar.
If you plan to add toppings to the pizza, this is the step to do that. I recommend not using wet toppings near the outer edge of the pizza. Keep them more toward the center of the pizza.

Baking the Pizza

Preheat the oven to 500f degrees (ideally 475f convection mode if available).
Place parbaked crust with cheese on top in the oven for approximately 7 minutes, until the cheese turns a dark caramelized brown around the edges and is fully melted in the middle. The edge cheese should start to slightly pull away from the side wall of the pan and the bottom should be crispy. If this is not yet the case, put it back into the oven until the bottom is crispy and cheese is caramelized.
Remove pizza from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for 3-4 minutes so the cheese can set up.
Using an offset spatula, slide the edge of the spatula inside the inner wall of the pan to free the cheese frico from the pan. Depending on which pan you use, this may be a challenging step. If your pan isn’t non-stick, you may have a little more work in freeing the pizza from the pan, but not much.
Remove the pizza from the pan.
Spoon on warmed sauce in 2 long parallel stripes lengthwise across the pizza. Sprinkle some parmesan or romano cheese on top to finish and add basil if you like to garnish.

That’s it! Enjoy! I know there are a lot of steps in this recipe, because I wanted to be thorough. However, Detroit-Style Pizza is not very complicated. Some have described it as “fancy cheesy bread” to me. It’s a delicious and fun pizza to eat and one of the easier styles to make at home if you have the right tools!

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