Bring Back '90s School Lunch Nostalgia With This Rectangular Cafeteria-Style Pizza

Nostalgia is one of the most powerful ingredients in cooking, and school cafeteria pizza is the ultimate proof. By most measures, few unaccustomed to it would not consider the cheap, square slices consumed by many American students to be "good" pizza. To kids, however, almost any pizza is good pizza — and pizza day was always the best day at school. If you grew up with it, something about that cheesy, meaty taste is embedded deep in your brain. All these years later, cafeteria pizza is still a solid formula for a tasty meal, one that's both easy and cheap.

The school lunch pizzas that many remember were sheet pan pizzas designed for mass production, often available as both plain cheese or with chopped meat on top. In the late '80s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released "Quantity Recipes for School Food Service," which contained recipes for both pizzas. Of course, sheet pan pizza is also a popular form of homemade pizza, like the "grandma pies" you find around New York.

These pizzas remove the need for specialty ovens or equipment, simplifying shaping and cleanup. They also produce a wonderfully crispy crust. But two things really made the cafeteria-style pie special. The first is a pourable pizza crust, which uses dry milk, vegetable oil, water, flour, and other ingredients to create a paste-like dough that spreads in the pan over cornmeal. The second is the heavy use of ground beef on the meat pizzas, imparting an unusually savory flavor.

The pourable pizza crust was a big part of the texture but buying pre-made fresh pizza dough is fine too. The USDA recipe for the meat pizza makes ground beef (or pork) a heavy part of the sauce, made by browning the meat with onions and garlic before adding tomato paste, water, and dried herbs. This offers you that nostalgic taste, but some copycat recipes use grocery brand jarred pizza sauce and ground beef for a more tomato-heavy flavor. The cheese pizza does the same sans the meat.

The government recipe used just over a quart of beef sauce per sheet pan, but these industrial sized pans were twice the size of what most have at home. Thus, to follow the USDA recipe, you'll need to scale down the meat sauce and cheese accordingly. Regarding cheese, mozzarella is the standard, but some may remember a more golden cheese on their school's cafeteria pizza. This can be recreated with an equal mix of mozzarella, cheddar, and American cheese.

While that will give you the childhood flavor you crave, you don't have to stop there. Some '90s kids may also remember the Mexican pizza, made with taco seasoning and a Mexican cheese blend. This pie is perfect for adding other toppings like jalapeños or diced peppers. Of course, cafeteria-style pizza is still just pizza and should work with many of your favorite toppings.