Why Giada De Laurentiis Skips The Mozzarella In Her Deep Dish Pizza

Deep-dish pizza is a thing of Midwestern legend and it seems like everyone who has ever encountered the bowl-like pie packed with unbelievably large servings of sauce and cheese has an opinion on it. As a Chicagoland native who grew up shoving large, heaping slices of Lou Malnati's into my mouth, I definitely have strong opinions on what constitutes an authentic Chicago-style deep dish pizza, so you can imagine my surprise when I learned that TV chef and food world icon Giada De Laurentiis skips mozzarella in her deep dish recipe.

In De Laurentiis' defense, her deep dish pizza recipe has zero mention of Chicago or Pizzeria Uno, where the iconic 'za was created in the 1940s. We're all about shirking tradition and putting a twist on dishes in the name of food innovation and it seems like De Laurentiis discovered a pretty good variation when it comes to cooking up some homemade deep-dish pizza. According to a post on her website, De Laurentiis prefers to use provolone instead of mozzarella because it has "more of a cheesy flavor than mozzarella." Deep dish is full of indulgent flavors; you don't really have to worry about one ingredient overpowering another as long as there's a lot of everything, so it makes sense that De Laurentiis reaches for the provolone which tends to be bolder, flavor-wise, than mozzarella. 

There are a number of ways you can pull off the ultimate deep dish, with a few non-negotiables, like having the right pan, par-baking your dough, and including lots and lots of cheese. Aside from this handful of must-dos, even I can admit that there's no hard and fast rule when it comes to which kind of cheese you use, as long as the cheese you choose has a good melt point, gives you that insanely satisfying stretch, and — of course — is full of flavor.

Although cheese connoisseurs will tell you that mozzarella and provolone are two completely different kinds of cheese, we see them more as cousins due to a similar production process called "pasta filata," as the Italians say. Pasta Filata, or stretched curd, involves manually stretching curd after it's been soaked in hot water or salt brine, then shaping it into what you want. But here's where the two kinds of cheese differ: Mozzarella is more delicate and subtle, while provolone is dry-aged for a longer time, which results in a sharper flavor, hence why Giada De Laurentiis prefers to use it over mozzarella.