DO NOT Make the Same Mistake I Did When Ordering This Famous Illinois Deep Dish

Ah, Illinois – the land of pizza dreams, especially here in Rockford. We’re so spoiled with incredible choices that it’s almost a burden. And if deep dish is your thing (and really, how could it not be?), congratulations! You’ve hit the geographical jackpot. After all, Illinois didn’t just invent deep dish; we gave the world the pizza cake. Yes, it’s a pie so indulgent it makes regular pizza look like diet food. You’re welcome, planet.

Chicago Deep Dish

Get our free mobile app

if dinner is going to be a slowly cooked deep dish pizza, you will never be disappointed with one from any of the most popular joints, many of which have additional locations around the state.

Pizzeria Uno

Giordano's

Gino's East

Lou Malnati's

Or, the incredibly popular Pequod's.

You'll enjoy eating pizza from any of those places, but the pizza I want to warn sausage lovers about is Lou Malnati's. Even if you only like sausage a little, you should read what happened to me.

Warning When Ordering Sausage on a Lou Malnati's Pizza

I'd only had Malnati's pizza once and a banquet, so when I took my wife to get some, I was unfamiliar with the ordering process.

I'd done nothing but rave about the place to my wife since the night of that banquet.

I love sausage and pepperoni on my pizza, my wife doesn't mind sausage and if she doesn't like the taste of the sausage, she'll pick them off. It's that last part that really got us, "pick them off."

The pizza I had at the banquet had little pieces of Italian sausage like most other pizza joints, that was not what we got when we ordered Malnati's on our own online.

Lou Malnati's will also make a sausage pizza with the entire pizza covered with an Italian sausage patty. We didn't catch when ordering that you have to specify which way you want your sausage and ours came with a flat sausage patty that covered every inch of that deep dish.

I'm a sausage-on-pizza lover and it tested the limits of my love. It was too much sausage and my wife was mortified because she couldn't escape it. It was not possible to just "pick them off"... it was THE ENTIRE DAMN PIZZA.

I'll bet it is more obvious how to order sausage at Malnati's when you're dining in, but online, I completely missed the most important part of the sausage ordering process. So, let this be a warning to be clear about your sausage limits.

It's been several years since we've been back and my wife just mentioned the other day that we should give Lou Malnati's another try. I've missed their buttery crust so much. This time, we're just ordering pepperoni.

MORE: Chefs Agree, Illinois Pizza Joint Serves Best Slice in America