Stuffed Crust Pizza - a step by step photo tutorial on making a stuffed crust pizza. So much cheese in every bite!
You will love this pizza made with our best homemade Pizza Dough and the 5-Minute Pizza Sauce.
STUFFED CRUST PIZZA
Every time I think about stuffed crust pizza, this particular movie scene comes to mind. My kids know it well and we were telling them "I'll stuff you all in the crust" so many times while making this tutorial because they were watching us and constantly asking: are you done? can we eat the pizza now? Bread and cheese are a match made in heaven. The stuffed crust pizza is like a step up from a regular crust because you are filling the edge crust with cheese that will melt and create a gooey surprise!
Ingredients needed:
- pizza dough (I used our homemade recipe)
- mozzarella cheese sticks
How to make Stuffed Crust Pizza?
- Because the cheese sticks are quite stiff, you need to make notches with a knife along one side of each stick, so it will bend. Otherwise, it will shape the dough awkwardly.
- Roll out your pizza dough about one inch bigger than your pizza pan. You need enough dough to fold over the cheese.
- Place the dough on the pizza pan. Using the edge of your pizza pan as a guide is quite helpful. Notice how the notches we made allow the sticks to form a circle.
- Gently, fold the dough over the sticks. Make sure to seal it or the whole cheese will melt out of the crust. You may need to wet your fingers with water to glue the dough together. After you fold all of the crust, sprinkle a little bit of flour over the wet places.
- Check if there are no holes where the cheese can get out during baking. Especially, on the outside edge. If you are worried, you can place a drip pan under the pizza pan in the oven.
- We always proof our pizza crust for 6 to 10 minutes, before baking it with toppings. We do that to prevent the soggy unbaked dough.
- After that, we spread the pizza sauce (we have a killer recipe coming up for that!), pepperoni, sliced peppers, onions, olives, and more cheese!
- You can butter the cheese-stuffed edge and sprinkle with just a little bit of cheese (we find Parmesan is great for it) or cornmeal.
What kind of cheese is the best?
For this crust, we tried a few types of cheese. The shredded cheese didn't work well as it was creating problems while we tried to fold the crust over it. It was also time-consuming. String cheese seemed like a better idea. But there is a trick to it. If you want a super cheesy crust, use whole sticks. However, they might expand in the dough so much that they will leak a little bit over the crust. Now, that's not a bad thing at all! As long as it seeps into the center of the pizza and not under the crust and from the pan (place a drip catch pan underneath the pizza pan, just in case). You can slice each cheese stick in half if you want to prevent that, but the gooeyness won't be as pronounced. Either way, it will be one cheesy crust pizza!
More Pizza Recipes:
If you like this recipe and make it, snap a photo and share it on INSTAGRAM! Tag me @crunchycreamysweet so I can check it out and leave a comment! 😀
Stuffed Crust Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 pizza dough homemade or store-bought
- 8 to 10 mozzarella cheese sticks
Instructions
- Make notches with a knife along one side of each cheese stick. This will allow it to bend.
- Roll out your pizza dough about one inch bigger than your pizza pan. You need enough dough to fold over the cheese.
- Place the dough on the pizza pan. Using the edge of your pizza pan as a guide is quite helpful.
- Arrange cheese sticks along the edge.
- Gently, fold the dough over the sticks. Make sure to seal it or the whole cheese will melt out of the crust. You may need to wet your fingers with water to glue the dough together. After you fold all of the crust, sprinkle a little bit of flour over the wet places.
- Check if there is no holes where the cheese can get out during baking. If you are worried, you can place a drip pan under the pizza pan in the oven.
- Bake the pizza crust for 6 to 10 minutes, before baking it with toppings. We do that to prevent the soggy unbaked dough. After that, we spread the pizza sauce, pepperoni, sliced peppers, onions, olives and more cheese! You can butter the cheese-stuffed edge and sprinkle with just a little bit of cheese (we find Parmesan is great for it) or cornmeal.
Notes
- Please note, that the nutrition value can vary depending on what product you use. The information below is an estimate. Always use calorie counter you are familiar with.
- You can use our homemade pizza dough recipe or use a store-bought dough.
Beth says
Why have I never thought of notching the cheese sticks?! That's genius. I'll have to try that next time!
Ramona W says
Oh yes... I'm doing this with my kids... how fun!
Rachel says
Such a great tutorial - and this sounds so delicious!! Love it.
Kelly says
Stuffed crust? What a throwback! You're a genius!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Thanks so much, Kelly! 🙂
Heather says
So, this is the pizza you posted the other day on Instagram! We love stuffed crust pizza, but haven't ever tried a homemade version. Since we bake pizza almost every Friday, we'll have to try this soon! Thanks for sharing:)
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Haha! Thanks, Heather! I would love to try your buffalo hot wing pizza!
Melanie says
Oh, how I love stuffed crust pizza! This looks amazing!
Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet says
Thanks, Melanie!