Imo's Pizza Recipe (St. Louis Style Pizza)

"If you've had it, you know its crispy and amazing.he definitive characteristics of St. Louis-style pizza are a super-thin yeast-less crust, the common (but not mandatory) use of Provel processed cheese, and pizzas cut into squares or rectangles instead of large pie shaped slices. The crust is too thin to be folded like a NY style slice so little party pieces werer made. Provel is a trademark for three cheeses fused to form one (provolone, swiss, and white cheddar), used instead of (or, rarely, in addition to) the mozzarella or provolone common to other styles of pizza. (wikipedia.com) George's pizza off of 95th St. in Overland Park, KS is my favorite pizza joint hands down. They do a similar style to this."
 
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Ready In:
40mins
Ingredients:
21
Yields:
2 12
Serves:
12
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ingredients

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directions

  • Crust: Mix until thoroughly combined - Dough will be very stiff. makes enough for two (2) 12" pizza pies. The dough is ready to use "as-is" No need to rise or kneed. Divide the dough in half, shape into a round ball and roll out paper thin.
  • In order to move the crusts around a pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal works well.
  • After the crust, it's the sauce that begins the first real steps towards forming the total Imo's pizza experience. Imos uses a tomato sauce mixture that has a sweet taste, but it's not so overly sweet to hide the rich tomato flavor or spices.
  • Sauce:Combine together and it's ready to use - do not pre-cook the sauce! This Makes enough sauce for about four (4) 12" pizza pies, so that should give you some idea of how much to use on each pizza.
  • On top of the sweet sauce Imo's uses Provel Cheese, which is simply a blend of Cheddar, Swiss and Provolone cheeses with some liquid smoke flavoring. If you can't find Provel in your local market, it can be easily created.
  • Cheese:Toss until cheeses and smoke flavoring are completely incorporated. Typically it's enough cheese for two (2) 12" pizza pies, but if you like extra-cheese you'll want to make more.
  • Authentic Imo's pizza toppings include: Extra-Cheese, Onion, Green Pepper, Sausage, Hamburger, Pepperoni, Anchovy, Bacon, Black Olive, Mushroom, Canadian Bacon, Jalapenos, Pineapple, Banana Peppers, and Tomatoes.
  • In a professional pizza oven the meat toppings (Hamburger, Sausage, Bacon, etc.) can usually be put on raw, but at home you'll want to fully precook the meat before assembling the pizza.
  • Now you have the correct style crust, sweet sauce, smoky cheese, generous toppings, it's now ready to be lightly sprinkled with some Italian seasonings.
  • Seasonings: Combine all the ingredients in a small mixing bowl and blend well.
  • While in the restaurant the pizza is baked in a pizza pan, at home you'll have the best results using a pizza stone and an oven temperature around 450 degrees. If you don't have a pizza stone, use the thinnest baking sheet you have and the lowest over rack position. The pizza is done when the underside of the crust is a dark golden brown, and the cheese is has a slight golden tint to it. Underbaking the crust will result in a limp crust, overbaking will result in a hard, tough, burnt-tasting crust, getting the right baking time to produce a crisp crust will require a bit of experimentation. The amount and type of toppings you use will also affect the total baking time. A rule-of-thumb is to check the pizza after about 10-12 minutes and adjust baking time from there accordingly.
  • And, as a final touch to truly replicate Imo's Pizza at home, is to cut the pizza into tile-like squares instead of the traditional triangle slices.

Questions & Replies

  1. How did the frozen crust turn out
     
  2. Can you freeze this recipe
     
  3. Are these directions (specifically for the crust) accurate? Barely 3 tablespoons of liquid to hydrate 2+ cups of flour?
     
  4. Where can i find Imo's italian sausage or similar? I live in Austin, TX.
     
  5. Are the measurements for the herbs for fresh or dried?
     
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Reviews

  1. I grew up just across the river from St Louis. We had our own Imo's pizza in Godfrey IL so I can say I have had Imo's pizza many times. This recipe is close but no cigar. First the crust. It got it very close, as close as you get without a pizza oven. I suggest using a pizza pan with the holes in it to get the best results. Next the sauce. NOPE!!! Not even close. I found that Prego Pizzaria sauce comes closest. Now the cheese. It is close but not quite right. Instead of one cup white cheddar and one half cup provolone I would switch that. One cup provolone and one half cup cheddar and one half cup Swiss is more like it. That gives you that "stick to the roof of your mouth" effect that Imo's has. I really miss Imo's pizza since I moved to Peoria. This recipe with my modifications satisfys my pizza urge. Now if they only had White Castles here.....
     
  2. First of all I have to writ that I am from St. Louis, but now live in Texas. I grew up on a street with one of the Imo's families. Sometimes, when Mr. Imo would have left over pizza, he would bring it home and all the kids would sit on the curb and eat it in the street. What memories... There is good pizza in Texas, but it's different, not Imo's! My daughter was so excited when I made this. I think she ate a whole pizza herself. This was really good. I've made a lot of home made pizza over the years and my family liked this the most. I didn't follow the cheese recipe exactly. I bought a bag of premixed pizza cheese. Next time I'll follow the recipe. The liquid smoke added a great flavor though. The crust came out perfect too. The sauce tasted exactly right. This is a keeper!
     
  3. Excellent recipe for Imo's pizza. I grew up in St. Louis and moved away after college. One of the highlights of going back each Christmas is having Imo's pizza. This year with Covid my family was not able to travel so I wanted to continue the Imo's pizza tradition at home. This recipe was spot on. I did splurge and ordered Imo's sauce from Amazon but followed the rest of the recipe and it was perfect. I baked mine in a 500 degree oven on the lowest rack using a pizza stone and finished it by sprinkling oregano before cutting. My whole family gave it rave reviews and said it was as if we were in St. Louis!!!
     
  4. I have never had Imo's. I live in Florida and there are none around me. But I have been making this recipe for about 5 yrs. I actually got this recipe printed out from a friend. I love the crust. It's perfect for making at home. I usually add a little extra seasoning. But this is an easy to make crust that tastes great. I love the sauce too. I embellish it with fresh herbs. Great pizza for cooking at home
     
  5. Great recipe! This is the first time trying the St Louis pizza style, so I can't comment on how close it is to Imo's. What I can say is that it is everything I had hoped it would be. And my kids loved it! The only change was fresh mozzarella and smoke flavoring. This will be my "go to" recipe whenever I don't have time to make NY or Chicago style pizzas. Thanks for sharing.
     
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Tweaks

  1. If you find that your crust is cooking fast enough, but the toppings are not, set your oven to broil, move the pie to the top oven rack for the final 3 mins of cook time, but WATCH IT, it absolutely will burn easily.
     
  2. We used the crust and sauce recipe (more or less). We are St. Louisans who love the pizza, especially Pirrone's. Our daughter has soy and dairy sensitivities so we skipped Provel cheese in favor of Teese vegan mozzarella cheese substitute (it's good!), but really, the pizza stood on its own without the cheese/Teese! We used tomato sauce instead of the diced whole tomatoes in the sauce and substituted 2 t of brown sugar with an extra 1/2 t of water for the dark corn syrup in the dough. It was amazing! Thanks for the recipe! We will use it again and again!
     

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