Stuffed-Crust Pizza Recipe

What Cheese is Used to Stuff Pizza Crust?

We use pre-packaged string cheese products to make the stuffed crust pizza recipe in minutes. Their size and shape work perfectly in a stuffed crust, and they cut down prep time by being ready-to-use. You can use whatever variety or flavor of string cheese sticks you like!

String cheese can vary in meltability—so the variety you choose can either be melty and oozey or hold its shape, but soften:

For the richest flavor and best melt, choose full-fat varieties that don’t say “low moisture” on the package. Fat adds flavor and moisture, to help the cheese to soften quickly (and melt) when heated. If you’re looking to trim a few calories from your pizza or want your cheese to hold its shape when the pizza is cut into, choose reduced-fat, low-fat, low moisture varieties.

Pair your string cheese flavor with the flavors of your pizza toppings, if you like, or use what you have on hand. Here are a few of our recommendations:

Mozzarella : Use mozzarella string cheese in the crust with your basic pepperoni, sausage or veggie pizza.

Cheddar: Use cheddar cheese sticks if you’re going for cheeseburger or taco pizza toppings.

Pepper Cheese: Try peppery cheese sticks on a spicy pizza with ingredients like sliced jalapenos and chorizo. Yum!

How To Stuff a Pizza Crust

Here’s the basic idea of how to make stuffed crust. Refer to the recipe and how-to step shots for the complete directions:

Press Out the Dough

On a pizza pan, press the pizza crust out (taken right from the refrigerator) until it’s overhanging at least 1 inch over the edge of the pan. It’s easiest if you use your fingers, starting from the center of the dough, and working out, push the dough into a round shape. Working with cold dough will be much easier than if you’ve let it sit out on the counter and it's warmed up, you may notice it gets soft and sticky if that happens.

Arrange the Cheese Sticks

Unwrap and lay the cheese sticks evenly around the dough, just inside the edge of the pan. If you like, cut the cheese sticks into 2 or 3 pieces, to help space them evenly around the circle.

Wrapping the Cheese

Working your way around the pizza, wrap the dough snuggly over the cheese sticks, pinching the edge to the bottom of the crust. If it doesn’t want to stick together, use a wet finger to add bit of moisture as “glue”. It’s important to make sure all the cheese is snuggly inside the dough, so it doesn’t ooze out during baking.

How To Cook the Perfect Pizza

If you think the best way to enjoy pizza is by consulting a takeout menu and picking up the phone, think again. The freshest pizzas are made right in your kitchen, are simple and convenient to make, and taste delicious! We’ll show you how to get the best pizza with stuffed crust, without having to become a professional Italian pizza thrower:

The Basics: Most pizza connoisseurs focus on the toppings—thinking if their toppings are delicious, then the pizza will be too. They’re not wrong…however, that’s a lot of pressure to perform, on the topping’s part! But we feel that equal consideration should go to the crust, because without a great crust, the pizza can never have 5-star flavor.

Short of making your own scratch crust with yeast, which takes a lot of time to rise and knead, the next best thing (and most convenient when you’re dying for a delicious slice of pizza) is to start with Pillsbury pizza crust. Our classic crust is the perfect middle ground between a thin, crispy crust and a pillowy, bread-like deep-dish crust. It’s not too thick or too thin—which works perfectly when making a cheese crust pizza, like this one.

You can dial in the texture of this crust even more to your liking, by the type of pizza pan you use:

Crispier Crusts: Choose a pizza pan with holes and/or made with a dark finish. Holes in the pan allow the hot oven air to reach the pizza crust while moisture in the crust can escape, making a crispier crust. A dark finished pizza pan absorbs more heat which will also help make the pizza crust crispier as it bakes.

Softer Crusts: Choose a pizza pan with a shiny finish and without holes. A shiny pizza pan reflects the heat away from the dough. Without holes in the pan, the dough stays moist by trapping moisture in the dough.

Topping Strategies: The key to getting the ideal orchestration of the perfectly baked crust, melty cheese and tender toppings lies in the amount of toppings you use. A good school of thought to keep in mind is that more doesn’t necessarily mean better. If your pizza is swimming in sauce or overloaded with toppings, it will be harder to get the crust done and cheese melted without overbaking the crust.

Traditionally, the order of ingredients is sauce, cheese and then toppings. The cheese acts as glue, holding the toppings on the pizza as it softens and melts. Start with a large spoonful of sauce in the middle of the pizza and using the back of the spoon, work in circular motions outwards, until you've covered the dough evenly up to the cheese-stuffed edge. Sprinkle a generous helping of cheese over the sauce and arrange your toppings on top.

Baked Perfection: When checking to see if your pizza is done, time, crust color, and cheese meltiness are what to look for. Start with the minimum bake time. Check your pizza. Is the crust edge deep golden brown? Is the cheese in the center melted? If the answer is no to either of these, add a minute or two more of bake time and check again. Once you’ve achieved both the right color of the crust and the cheese is melted, your pizza is done baking and ready to devour!

Storing Leftover Pizza with Stuffed Crust

As with any pizza, for the best textures of the crust and toppings, it’s best to enjoy this pizza freshly baked. It’s quick to get into the oven and the baked pizza will have the perfect trifecta of crust texture, melty cheese, and baked fillings. Here are our recommendations for storage.

Refrigerate Leftovers: Promptly place leftover slices on a plate, cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Make Ahead: You can prepare the pizza through Step 3; cover and refrigerate for up to 2 hours. To bake, remove the plastic wrap and add a minute or two of extra bake time to account for the cold pizza.

Freezer Storage: It is not recommended to freeze this pizza whether it's unbaked or baked. The texture of the crust and toppings will not be ideal.

Reheating Your Pepperoni Stuffed Crust Pizza

Reheating cheese stick pizza crust (or any pizza for that matter) is tricky because there are several components all requiring different kinds of heat to return them to their best textures. For this reason, we try to serve pizza fresh, but if you happen to have leftovers, here are our recommendations:

Microwave Heating: In our estimation, this is the best way to reheat our leftover stuffed crust pizza. It’s quick and doesn’t require turning on an oven and waiting. Place a piece of pizza on a microwavable plate. Cover loosely and microwave it on medium-high (70%) 30 seconds to 1 minute or just until the toppings are warmed, and the cheese begins to melt. You’ll want to enjoy the warmed pizza before it has a chance to cool again—which happens quickly with microwaved food. If overheated, the crust will get tough, and the cheese will ooze out of the crust.

Oven Heating: While the texture of the crust may be better when baked in the oven, we don’t recommend this method, as the toppings can dry out while reheating, making the pizza dry to eat. It also takes longer for the oven to come to temperature when just heating a slice or two, so we don’t think it is worth the time.

Do you love to reheat pizza in your air fryer or toaster oven? If so, let us know in the comments how you make it to taste like it was baked fresh!