Full-Fat Cheese Is Ruining The Texture Of Your Chicago-Style Pizza

When you think about Chicago-style pizza, a few different things might spring to mind: a sturdy, buttery base; gobs of chunky tomato sauce; endless elasticated strings of stretchy melted cheese. The keyword, really, is decadence. There's no two ways about it, deep dish is by no means a light meal. Whether we want to admit it or not, there are a lot of fatty ingredients involved, like the butter or corn oil used to make the pastry-like base, and sausage — one of the most popular pizza toppings in Chicago. Because of all of this, there is one area where you might want to pull back on the fat, and it might sound surprising at first: the cheese.

Full-fat cheese can not only throw everything over the edge in terms of richness, but it can also ruin the texture of your deep dish. We previously spoke to the celebrated pizza maker Tony Gemignani about the mistakes to avoid when making Chicago-style pizza, and he mentioned that full-fat cheese can lead to an oily pie. He said, "I prefer using part-skim, low-moisture mozzarella that's thinly sliced into one-ounce pieces. It's less oily than full-fat cheese and allows the pizza to bake more evenly while maintaining its structure."

Classic Chicago deep dish typically calls for mozzarella, and many local pizzerias opt for Wisconsin mozzarella, a low-moisture cheese made from cow's milk. Mozzarella has a lower fat content than a lot of other cheeses to begin with, and when you choose a part-skim, low-moisture version, you get better melting capabilities, a sharper flavor, and avoid any sogginess in the base.

Many people worry about the melting capabilities of low-fat cheese, but a good low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella should still release enough fat to melt uniformly, without creating as much oil as a full-fat version. It's best to avoid the shredded version if you can, though, as the additives in shredded cheese can clump together when melted.

That being said, many people swear by full-fat, low-moisture mozzarella for deep dish pizza. Again, buy a ball and slice it, rather than going for a bag of shredded. Provolone and Havarti are also great pizza options, and people have experimented with mixing full-fat cheddar and parmesan into their Chicago-style pizza toppings. Even Giada De Laurentiis skips mozzarella for deep dish, opting for provolone (a relatively high-fat cheese). It all depends on what you're looking for.