Upside-Down Pizza Flips Everything You Know About The Iconic Pie
Upside-down pizza is currently trending on TikTok, and no, it's not a pie that someone just flipped over. The "upside-down" element in this unique pizza preparation is similar to an upside-down cake in that all of the toppings are on the bottom until you flip it over (either the whole pie or a single piece) and suddenly what was down becomes up and vice-versa. The pizza can be cooked in either an ovenproof skillet or a baking pan and it involves all your standard pizza-making ingredients: dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings. In fact, there's one version making the rounds that involves only ingredients sourced from Aldi.
One TikTok video shows someone making an upside-down pizza by putting all the toppings on the bottom of a cast-iron pan (the creator uses sausage, mushrooms, and pepperoni), then adding the cheese (parmesan and mozzarella) followed by the sauce (they opt for white, explaining that their wife is no fan of tomatoes). The pizza is then finished off with a layer of raw pizza dough, then baked until the crust is cooked. Unfortunately, the TikTok pizza fails to come out of the pan when flipped, but the video maker just uses a spatula to pry it out, saying that it turned out "perfect ... almost." Another person who tried this method, however, did not agree. As they shared on AllRecipes, the end result of their attempt was a soggy slice with toppings that needed to be scraped from the pan.
There's more than one kind of upside-down pizza
As the TikTok-famous upside-down pizza is more of a casserole than a true pizza, so it may be more suited to home cooking than the type of dish you'd see in a restaurant. It's not the only kind of pizza that goes by the name upside-down, though. Upstate New York and New Jersey have long had their own versions, which may be Sicilian in origin and involve the cheese and toppings being placed under the sauce. For a classic New York-style upside-down slice, aka Utica pizza, try O'Scugnizzo Pizzeria, serving Uticans since 1914. Colonial Pizza in Easton, Pennsylvania, has been dishing up a similar upside-down style since 1947, while The Original Thin Crust Pizza Company in South Brunswick, New Jersey has revived the same style of upside-down pizza (sauce over cheese, though the crust stays on the bottom) that was originated 50 years ago by the now-defunct Pete's Bar in Old Bridge.
In Chicago, however, a variant of deep-dish pizza may be cooked in an upside-down fashion that puts the crust on top and the toppings on the bottom. If you'd like to try a more TikTok-esque take on upside-down pizza, "pizza pot pie" is a popular menu item at the Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Restaurant. There, the pizza gets cooked in a bowl, which makes the end result looks like a cross between a deep-dish pie and a cheese-and-sauce-filled bread bowl.