Name: 3 Cheese Lasagna Pizza
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 1
Cuisine: New York Italian
Ingredients: 1 cup of your favorite pizza sauce, store-bought or homemade; 1 oz Parmesan cheese for grating over the pizza once it is baked; 1 cup full fat ricotta cheese; 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I like to use a Microplane for this); 1 large egg; 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning; heavy pinch of salt; several grindings of black pepper; 6 oz fresh or block mozzarella, grated or sliced thinly; 6 oz fontina cheese, grated or sliced thinly; 32 ounces of grandma pizza dough or your favorite pizza dough; 1/4 cup olive oil; 3-4 cloves garlic, minced

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If your favorite part of lasagna is the rich ricotta layer, you’re going to love this 3 cheese lasagna pizza. A mixture of ricotta, egg, herbs and spices slathered over the best grandma pizza dough recipe along with fresh mozzarella, fontina and your favorite pizza sauce. Let the ricotta pizza feast begin!

And if you are a super fan of grandma pizza in general, try my Cubano pizza.

For ease of browsing, here are all of my bread and roll recipes. Thanks for stopping by!

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Is Lasagna Pizza Really a Thing?

Honestly, I didn’t think that it was a thing. I love ricotta cheese on a pizza, so I took it one step farther and made a ricotta filling like I would for lasagna and spread that over some well risen grandma pizza dough, topped it with a simple uncooked pizza sauce along with shaved mozzarella and fontina.

Then I started looking up lasagna pizza, and I found a lot of reference to it online. A couple of the recipes actually had lasagna noodles as one of the pizza toppings.

I didn’t think I needed to go that far–I figured one carb or the other and not both, right?!

I also have seen a lot of references to pizza lasagna, which is completely different. That’s a lasagna that you build with ingredients you’d normally put on a pizza like pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, etc.

Not that you couldn’t top this lasagna pizza however you want, but I wanted to keep the toppings pretty minimal for three reasons so I could

taste the ricotta layer
keep it vegetarian
not pile on so many toppings that the crust wouldn’t bake all the way through

Do I Have to Make the Ricotta Layer with Egg?

Honestly, no you don’t. Nothing bad will happen if you leave out the egg. Heck, you could even just dot the top of your pizza with straight up ricotta cheese and not hurt my feelings at all.

This is a photo of a grandma pizza I made last week. I topped it with mozzarella, fontina, pizza sauce and dollops of straight ricotta. After baking, I sprinkled it with Italian seasoning and garlic powder. It was pretty spectacular.

A close up shot of one rectangular corner piece of grandma pizza topped with ricotta cheese and tomato sauce. — Hello, perfectly delicious slice of ricotta pizza!

What Kind of Crust Should I Use?

You can make a perfectly respectable pizza, either round or square or whatever shape you’d like, with any pizza dough recipe.

I am partial to the grandma pizza dough recipe, linked above, from Peter Reinhart’s new book, Perfect Pan Pizza. Here’s why I like it and why you will too:

It’s easy to make.
You don’t need a mixer.
It’s no-knead–you only need to fold it a few times.
It rises beautifully.
It bakes up crispy on the bottom and edges and perfectly pillowy on the insides. Not heavy at all.
The dough is versatile: not only can you use it to make grandma pizza, you can also use it for focaccia.

Shout out to Peter Reinhart, too, for writing this great book. I highly recommend picking up a copy for your cookbook library, especially if you love deep dish pizza!

Making the Ricotta Layer and Building the Lasagna Pizza

Making this ricotta pizza is very straightforward.

All you have to do to make the ricotta layer is stir together all the ingredients in a bowl. Then top your dough, add mozzarella, pizza sauce, and fontina, then bake. I also like to use my Microplane to shower the freshly baked pizza with Parmesan cheese.

Collage of 9 images showing step by step how to make ricotta mixture and layer on the ingredients for lasagna pizza. — Making this ricotta pizza, step by step.

Photos from top left corner, left to right.

Put all the ricotta layer ingredients in a bowl
Stir it all up so it’s nice and creamy.
Plop it all over the surface of your risen crust.
Use a small offset spatula to gently spread out the ricotta.
Done with that step!
Sprinkle on mozzarella (or arrange sliced mozzarella over the ricotta layer.
Blob on your favorite pizza sauce.
Spread it out evenly.
Sprinkle on grated fontina cheese.

Underside of a slice of lasagna pizza showing the golden brown crust. — A perfect slice of lasagna pizza is just as perfect on the bottom! The crust fries up in olive oil, so rather than bits of char and cornmeal, you get this golden-brown, crisp crust. It is magical!

What To Do with Leftover Pizza Dough

If you use the recipe I’ve linked to for Peter Reinhart’s dough and you make a grandma pizza, you’ll have 4 ounces of dough leftover.

Might I suggest a personal pizza?

This guy is about 8″ in diameter. I topped it with a drizzle of olive oil, some minced garlic, about 1/4 cup of sauce, and grated pepper jack cheese. Once it came out of the oven, I sprinkled on a bit of finishing salt and a bit of chopped cilantro. The perfect luncheon sized pizza!

A small personal pizza cut in half and then crosswise into 8 slices on a green cutting board.

I really hope you love this lasagna pizza, you guys! If you make it, please share a photo with me, either in the PCO Facebook Group or on instagram by tagging @onlinepastrychef and using hashtag #pcorecipe. Thanks, and enjoy!