Tortilla pizza
- Preparation 30 min
- Cooking 32 min
- Servings 4 to 6
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍕 Rich, filthy and it never disappoints
This tortilla pizza is unapologetic food. Six tortillas stacked up, pepperoni, spicy capicollo, a mountain of mozzarella and my homemade pizza sauce between every layer. The sauce is what makes it. Store-bought gives you a decent dinner. Mine gives you the one people talk about after. You pull the skillet out of the oven, it steams, cheese everywhere, and the table goes quiet. I have never seen anybody walk away from this one disappointed.
📌 An idea I saw on Pinterest about ten years ago
I saw the idea go by on Pinterest. That was roughly ten years ago, and the recipe has been on the site since 2017. I made my own version with my cured meats and my sauce, and I have not changed a thing since. That is not laziness. I like remaking my recipes exactly the way they are when they are good, and this one made it through the years without me wanting to touch it.
🔁 Improvise, that is the whole point
It bends without breaking. Hate mushrooms, leave them out. Want peppers or olives, go ahead. Salami instead of capicollo works too. Swap the cheese as well, a bit of sharp cheddar in the mozzarella does good things. The build stays the same: sauce, meat, vegetables every other layer, cheese, tortilla, press. The rest is whatever your fridge is holding. If you want that same pizza flavour without making dough but smaller, my pizza quesadillas do it with one folded tortilla in twenty minutes.
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🍅 The ladle of sauce at the bottom is not a mistake
Before the first tortilla even goes in, a ladle of sauce goes into the bottom of the pan and gets spread out. Two reasons, and both matter. It keeps the tortilla from sticking to the metal, and it adds flavour. A dry tortilla on hot cast iron is just cardboard. Use my homemade pizza sauce here, it carries the whole dish.
🍳 Cast iron is optional, toxic nonstick is not
I use a cast iron skillet around 10 inches, because the tortilla fits in it and rides a little way up the sides. I never trim them. Those edges curling up make a natural rim and hold the stack together.
That said, cast iron is not mandatory at all. Any oven-safe pan does the job, and so does a baking dish. My one opinion on this: stay away from toxic nonstick pans. I do not own any and I am not buying any.
🧀 Cheese is the glue
Skimp on the cheese between layers and your pizza falls apart on the first slice. Be generous, and bury the top. The mushrooms and red onions go in every other layer instead, otherwise the middle turns soggy. The broil at the end, a minute or two, is only there to get that top cheese even more golden. Nothing else.
⏱️ Five minutes of rest, then cut it into wedges
Five minutes, no less, or you are eating lava and it melts your face off. Then slice it into wedges like a real pizza. The layers shift a bit, the slice is not perfect, and I could not care less: what matters is not how pretty it is, it is how it tastes.
🥣 What you can do ahead
Everything that gets chopped or measured. Mushrooms, red onion, grated cheese, the sauce: all of it can sit in containers in the fridge the day before, and assembly takes ten minutes at dinner time. Assembling ahead, though, no. A built pizza sitting around means the bottom tortilla drinks the sauce all night. Build it, bake it.
❄️ Five days in the fridge, and it freezes
Leftovers keep five days in the fridge. I reheat them in the oven, never the microwave, which leaves you with a sad floppy tortilla.
For the freezer: cool it completely before slicing into wedges, then wrap tight. Straight from frozen it goes back in the oven at about 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 25 minutes. It takes a while, but do not thaw it first or everything goes soft.
✅ What do I serve with my tortilla pizza?
A green salad, always, with a honey, thyme and smoked paprika vinaigrette to cut through the salt. Creamy coleslaw with apples and celery works too, especially with a crowd. And if you are actually hosting, put out a pizza-style hot dip while the pizza bakes, or a pepperoni pizza-style pasta salad to keep the whole evening on theme.
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Ingredients
- 6 big wheat tortillas, about 10 in (25 cm)
- 1 1/2 cup (375 ml) homemade pizza sauce
- 200 g (7 oz) pepperoni, finely sliced
- 200 g (7 oz) spicy capicollo, finely sliced
- 4 1/2 cups (1.12 L) mozzarella cheese, grated
- 3 tablespoons (45 ml) red onions, finely chopped
- 10 white mushrooms (about 200 g), sliced
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) dried parsley, to taste
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Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
- In a cast iron skillet of about 10 in (25 cm) (or in a baking dish), pour a ladle of sauce in the bottom and spread.
- Place a tortilla on the bottom and press gently. Spread another ladle of sauce on the tortilla then add a couple of slices of pepperoni and capicollo on top. Add a small handful of cheese, place another tortilla on top then press gently to compact.
- Repeat with the sauce, pepperoni and capicollo then add 1/3 of the onions and 1/3 of the mushrooms. Add another handful of cheese then place a tortilla on top, pressing gently again.
- Continue in the same pattern, adding mushrooms and onions every other layer, in order to finish with some mushrooms and onions on top. Cover in cheese then garnish with dried parsley to taste.
- Place in the oven and cook for 30 minutes. Crank to broil for 1 to 2 minutes until cheese is golden, if necessary! Remove from the oven and let cool down 5 minutes before eating. Serve with a green salad in order to balance the salty side of this recipe!
No, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I do not preheat my cast iron, the bottom tortilla bakes in the sauce, and what you get is a cooked, firm base, not a pizzeria crust. It is a pizza built on tortillas and it should be taken for what it is. If crust is really what you are after, go look at my Detroit-style pan pizza instead.
Technically yes. In practice, no. Six tortillas stacked in a pan is way too much for the space inside a home air fryer, it simply does not fit, unless you rebuild the whole thing with mini tortillas. And there is no need to run everything through the air fryer either. I have also done it on the stovetop with a lid on. I do not see the point. The oven does it better.
Prep everything that gets chopped and measured ahead, but assemble it right before it goes in the oven. Once baked, it keeps five days in the fridge and reheats in the oven. It freezes very well too, sliced into wedges and wrapped tight: about 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 25 minutes, straight from frozen.
Format, and how many people are eating. My pizza quesadillas are one folded tortilla, stuffed and cooked fast: two people, a Tuesday night, twenty minutes. This tortilla pizza is six layers in a skillet, thirty minutes in the oven, feeding four to six around the table. Same family, completely different occasions.
A green salad with a honey, thyme and smoked paprika vinaigrette is my reflex: you need something acidic beside it to cut the salt and the fat. For a full evening, add a pizza-style hot dip to start and pepperoni pizza tacos for whoever still wants more. And if you run short of sauce along the way, my homemade pizza sauce comes together while the oven preheats.
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