Chicago Tavern Style Pizza with Italian Sausage
Josie + Nina · josieandnina.com · 2025 · Original
Chicago Tavernas labeled by the source
DietNot vegetarian: uncooked bulk italian sausage. Reviewed: Italian sausage; mozzarella.
Against 5,130 pizza recipes
Chicago Tavern style, 50% hydration: drier than 90% of the 1,480 doughs that parse, baked at 500°F, hotter than 80% of recipes that state an oven.
Chicago Tavern (Chicago): cracker-thin, cut into squares (not wedges), rolled with rolling pin, what Chicagoans actually eat
Tradition: 45 to 55% hydration (this recipe: 50%) · 475 to 525°F bake (this recipe: 500°F)
Baker's percentages
Every ingredient as a percentage of the flour weight (flour = 100%), the way bakers compare doughs across batch sizes.
Flour
473g
Water
236g
Hydration
49.9%
Salt
2.5%
Yeast
n/a
Oil
9.9%
Sauce
267g
Cheese
396g
Dough weight
768g
Process
Bake temp
500°F / 260°C
Bake time
8 to 10 min
Oven
home standard
Surface
stone
Cold ferment
12h
Ingredients (10)
- sauce tomatopizza sauce or your favorite jarred version1 1/3 cup · 267g
- cheese mozzarella½ lb mozzarella cheese1/2 lb · 227g
- cheese otherfontina cheese1 cup · 113g
- cheese other½ cup grated parmesan cheese1/2 cup · 56.5g
- flourbread flour473g
- yeast.3 g instant yeastn/a
- waterwater236g
- saltsalt12g
- oilolive oil47g
- floursemolina flourn/a
Toppings (1)
Position matters: under the cheese steams, over the cheese roasts, post-bake stays fresh.
- over cheese½ lb uncooked bulk Italian sausage1/2 lb · 227g
Keep exploring
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Do something with it
- Scale this doughStart from 50% hydration and 2.5% salt, then set your own flour weight and ball count.
- Find the dough you wantAnswer a few questions about oven, time and crust and the tree points at the recipes that fit.
- See what hydration doesWhere 50% sits, and what changes as it goes up or down.
- Where it sits among the restEvery dough plotted by its numbers, with the Chicago Tavern group marked.
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