An Illinois Sausage Pizza Cautionary Tale: My Lou Malnati’s Experience

If you're planning to indulge in a deep-dish pizza from Lou Malnati's, there's one crucial detail you should know before you order: the sausage situation. Prepare yourself for a tale of unexpected meat abundance and a cautionary note on ordering wisely

We're blessed in Illinois, and even more specifically here in Rockford, to have the most incredible pizza choices. If deep dish is your thing, you're geographically in the best possible position, as Illinois is the birthplace of the pizza cake.

We're blessed here in Illinois, and even more specifically in Rockford, to have the most incredible pizza choices.

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If deep dish is your thing, you're geographically in the best possible position, as Illinois is the birthplace of the pizza cake—also known as Chicago deep dish. And by "cake," I mean the sort of meal that might make you reconsider your life choices as you sink into its cheesy depths.

A Sausage Pizza Cautionary Tale: My Lou Malnati’s Experience

So, Chicago Deep Dish at Malnati's. Even if you only like sausage a little, you should read what happened to me.

Consider this your public service announcement—or perhaps your culinary cautionary tale—about diving headfirst into the sausage wonderland of Lou Malnati’s.

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. Here's the shortlist for those unfamiliar with our illustrious pizza scene:

• Pizzeria Uno
• Giordano's
• Gino's East
• Lou Malnati's
• Or, the incredibly popular Pequod's

You're going to enjoy eating pizza from any one of those places, but the pizza I want to warn sausage lovers about is Lou Malnati's.

Imagine going in for a delicious pizza experience and finding yourself in a sausage-centric situation that feels less like a meal and more like an existential crisis.

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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 on their app. We were expecting the usual sprinkle of sausage confetti, but what arrived was something altogether different.

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.

MORE: 5 Places in Rockford Area Serving the Best Comfort Food

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. Trust me; you don’t want to find yourself overwhelmed by a sheet of sausage.

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. A nice, predictable pepperoni—no surprises, no heart palpitations, just a beautiful, cheesy, sausage-free pizza.

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