Ultra Cheesy Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Pizza

About this recipe

Make the ultimate Ultra Cheesy Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Pizza at home with gooey melted cheese sealed inside every golden, crispy bite. A crowd-pleasing copycat recipe the whole family will love.

↓ Jump to Recipe

This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy

Watch the recipe

Ultra Cheesy Stuffed Crust Pizza Recipe

Who loves the Pizza Hut stuffed crust?

I know I do, but to be honest there are some things I don’t enjoy about it! Pizza Hut is my favourite pizza place, but I’ve been disappointed with their stuffed crust. The concept is awesome, but I’ve got a couple of critiques:

The cheese is not really gooey inside
There’s not much cheese in the stuffed crust
The crust overpowers the pizza, so there’s not that much actual pizza surface area!

My goal with this recipe is to improve the Pizza Hut stuffed crust and to fix all of those little flaws! My idea of the perfect stuffed crust is to have a crust that’s loaded with cheese that gets molten and stays warm. However, we also don’t want the cheese to ooze or burst out of our crust! We want the crust to fully seal the cheese so the crust is a speciality in itself, not leaking into our toppings! We don’t want our crust to be too crusty so that there’s still lots of pizza goodness!

Believe it or not, this recipe has been years in the making! If you follow me on Instagram, you saw me test this stuffed crust about a month ago at the time of writing it. I first made a stuffed crust back when I didn’t even have a stand mixer and I was with roommates. It was all right but wasn’t the way I wanted it. I don’t know why but I just didn’t have the ambition to try it again until recently. I’m so glad I felt the urge to make this, though, because trust me, this is out of this world! It’ll change the way you see pizzas forever!

The video will give you a full picture and visual demonstration of how to make the ultimate cheesy crust pizza at home! If you’re not already, please subscribe to me on YouTube so you always know when the corresponding video to all of my recipes go live! Especially with a recipe that’s as hands-on as a pizza, I find a video will truly assist you in nailing the recipe and will guarantee you success in making this pizza! Let’s get cooking!

Hand holding a slice of pepperoni stuffed crust pizza with melted cheese visible inside the crust

What kind of pizza dough are we making?▼

For this pizza, I’ll be making a Napoletana-style dough! The crust won’t be too thick but it also won’t be a thin-crust pizza. I chose to make a Napoletana dough since those have become my favourite kind of pizzas, and I love how quick they cook! More details about how to make the pizza dough will be in the recipe instructions!

What Cheese should I use to stuff the Crust?▼

I use string cheese to stuff the crust. You can use any type of string cheese you want, but to mimic the stuffed crust from Pizza Hut, I’ve chosen to use mozzarella string cheese. However, when I’ve tested this recipe out, I used marble string cheese just for fun! It was super delicious and I totally recommend it!

If you can’t find string cheese for some reason or you don’t feel like getting it, then you could use a block of mozzarella cheese (or any semi-hard cheese of your choice) and cut it into sticks.

Hands pulling apart a slice of homemade stuffed crust pizza showing melted cheese inside the crust.

EQUIPMENT for HOMEMADE Cheese Filled Crust Pizza

In my opinion, there are a couple of tools I recommend you invest in to make the ultimate pizzas at home. They won’t be handy not only for this pizza with cheese in the crust, but for any pizza your heart desires! It may seem like a large cost if you’re purchasing these all in one shot, but if you get the best quality tools, they should last you a lifetime, and that’ll give you a reason to make plenty of pizzas!

I first recommend you purchase a baking steel and/or a baking stone. These allow you to achieve the best crispy crust. By using the baking steels and stones to preheat at the highest setting your oven can go to, the stones and steel retain heat and radiate it back into your pizza.

To make the actual pizza dough, I recommend a KitchenAid mixer. This will help tremendously kneading your dough! Back in the days before having a stand mixer, I would knead by hand. I know this is authentic, but it’s quite a workout! Plus, I like the convenience of having a stand mixer because I can make a large amount of dough and have extra pizzas to freeze for later, so I can just defrost a pizza and pop it in the oven when I feel like it! No need to purchase store-bought dough when you’ve got a craving!

Next essential item is a pizza peel. You’ll see in the photos and the video that I use both a wooden pizza peel and a metal peel. The wooden peel is great to form the pizza and then transfer the pizza to the hot baking steel or stone. If you are following the baking steel/stone method, this is something you need, to ensure the safety of yourself and your pizza.

A bench scraper is extremely useful to efficiently portion your dough and even to clean your workspace after you’ve got lots of sticky dough and flour on the counter!

My final recommendation is a pizza wheel cutter to cut your pizza into perfect slices! I also find it so much fun to use! This is a more common tool, but I find it mentioning if you don’t have one already! Cutting pizza with a knife simply won’t yield the same results, and it’ll be hard to maneuver compared to the pizza wheel.

What temperature should The Oven Be?▼

I would recommend you preheat your oven to 500 F or the highest temperature your oven can go to. Then, when it’s time to cook the pizza, you’ll want to change your oven to the Broil setting.

Can I Make This Pizza Ahead of Time?▼

You could, but I’m sure you’d rather have your pizza hot and fresh, right! If you want to be efficient in the kitchen and in the pizza-making process, I recommend having your dough out at room temperature, the oven on, and your sauce prepped. Furthermore, you can have all your toppings ready to go and your cheese grated in advance. Store your grated cheese in an airtight container or cover a plate or bowl with plastic wrap so it won’t dry out. When it’s go-time, then you won’t be scrambling, and you just gotta roll out the pizza dough, top and cook!

Hand holding a slice of cheesy stuffed crust pizza with melted cheese and black olives.

Ingredients

Time to see the ingredients that we’ll need to make this awesome pizza! We’ll see what’s needed for the pizza dough, the pizza sauce, and for the actual pizza ! For all measurements with the full ingredient list, make sure to scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD! You can save this recipe for later, and the recipe card is awesome because you can scale the recipe based on how many pizzas you want to make. The card does all the calculations for you, so you don’t need to guess any adjustments and be prone to some calculation errors!

For the Pizza Dough

00 flour or bread flour. Ideally, you would use 00 flour for pizzas, but if you can’t find it as I couldn’t since all the grocery stores were sold out of it for some reason at the time of making it, then feel free to substitute with bread flour.
Instant Yeast
Salt
Lukewarm water (60-70F) + ~200 mL lukewarm water (60-70F)
Extra virgin olive oil

For the Sauce

Extra virgin olive oil
Passata or tomato puree
Garlic, minced
Dried oregano
Tomato paste
Chilli flakes
Salt to taste

For the Chilli Oil

Olive oil
Garlic, minced
Chilli flakes

For the Cheese Lovers Pizza

String cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Smoked applewood cheddar
Provolone cheese
Basil
Parmesan cheese

For the Pepperoni Pizza

String cheese
Pepperoni
Mozzarella cheese
Provolone cheese

Topping Variations

As you’ll see in the video, I’ve made two different pizzas: a classic pepperoni pizza and a cheese lover’s pizza topped with basil! You can modify the cheese lover’s pizza by swapping the smoked applewood cheddar with any semi-hard cheese, other recommendations I have include Swiss cheese, Monterey Jack, white cheddar, or Havarti!

Of course, you can top your pizza however you’d like! Here are some ideas:

Veggie delight: Clean out your fridge and make a rainbow out of your pizza! I recommend corn, peppers, mushrooms, onions, jalapeños and green chilies!
Meat lovers: I would add chorizo sausage, pork or chicken sausage, bacon, grilled chicken and pepperoni!
BBQ chicken: Use some leftover rotisserie chicken or poach some chicken and toss in your favourite BBQ sauce!
Chicken tikka: This is my favourite from Pizza Hut India! Follow my Oven-Broiled Chicken Tikka recipe and toss them on your pizza!

How to Make Stuffed Crust Pizza

For the Pizza Dough

Add yeast and 1/4 Cup of lukewarm water to a bowl and whisk until water is bubbly. Mix until you see no granules of yeast floating on the water. If the yeast doesn't dissolve, the yeast is likely dead and you will have to start over with fresh yeast.

Active yeast mixture in lukewarm water showing bubbly foam in a white bowl

Yeast dissolved in lukewarm water in a white bowl, appearing bubbly and frothy.

Add flour to the bowl of your kitchen aid mixer and add all of the yeast-water mixture. Then, slowly add most of the cold water while continuing to knead with the dough hook. Add the remaining cold water back to the bowl and swirl and add to the dough.

Pizza dough being kneaded in a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, showing soft, pliable dough texture.

Flour being added to a stand mixer bowl containing yeast mixture for pizza dough preparation.

Knead until the dough comes together and you have a soft, pliable dough which is not sticky to touch. Add more flour/water as required to reach this consistency.

Pizza dough in mixer bowl after kneading, soft and pliable with flour dusting on sides.

Stop the mixer and add the salt. Knead on low speed for 1 minute.

Pizza dough being kneaded in a mixer bowl with salt and olive oil added, showing soft, pliable dough texture.

Soft pizza dough in a stand mixer bowl with white dough hook attachment during kneading process

Stop the mixer, add the olive oil and knead on low speed for 1 minute. After 1 minute, remove the dough from the dough hook, place in the bowl of the mixer and knead for 30 seconds to a minute.

Olive oil being drizzled onto pizza dough in a stand mixer bowl during kneading.

Pizza dough being kneaded in a stand mixer bowl with dough hook attached.

Then, transfer the dough to your countertop and continue kneading, stretch and fold the dough for 1-2 minutes.

Hands stretching and kneading pizza dough on a gray countertop during the folding and stretching step.

Hands kneading smooth, white pizza dough on a gray countertop during the stretching and folding step.

Then, portion the dough into 2 equal parts and for each portion fold the dough onto itself to create a tight surface tension as you seal/pinch the folds. Be careful not to de-gas the dough too much. The portions should resemble a ball of fresh mozzarella. This is a great time to freeze any dough you are not planning to use right away.

Hands kneading and folding pizza dough on a gray countertop to create surface tension.

Hands kneading and folding pizza dough on a countertop to create surface tension.

Transfer the dough portions to a baking sheet or plate and cover with 2 layers of plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for at least 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Two portions of pizza dough with tight surface tension on a gray surface after 24-hour refrigeration.

Hands holding two portions of smooth, round pizza dough with tight surface tension after kneading.

Two portions of pizza dough covered with plastic wrap rising in a red container.

For the Sauce

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients for the sauce and mix well. Adjust with salt for seasoning.

Red pizza sauce mixed in a white bowl with a drizzle of golden oil on top.

Mashing garlic into a red tomato sauce mixture in a white bowl with a fork.

Red pizza sauce in white bowl with chili oil drizzle and red pepper flakes on spoon.

Pizza sauce ingredients combined in a white bowl with a wooden spoon, showing red tomato base with minced garlic.

For the Chilli Oil

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients for the chilli oil and mix well.

Garlic being minced with a garlic press into a bowl of white cream or mayo for chilli oil preparation.

Chilli oil ingredients being mixed in a white bowl with blue rim, including minced garlic and red chili flakes on a spoon.

Hand holding bowl of chilli oil with red pepper flakes mixed into olive oil, with red sauce visible in background.

For the Pizza

Place one baking steel/stone on the second highest rack of the oven and another one at the bottom most rack. Preheat oven at 500 F for 1 hour.

Dust your countertop with flour and starting with one portion of dough at a time, add the dough ball over the flour. Starting from the centre of the dough, press down on the dough and create a rim around the side.

Continue pressing down the centre to stretch the dough. Then, hold the dough from the rim and rotate to let gravity stretch it further. You can also use knuckles to stretch the dough, until the diameter is about 10 inches.

Two pizza dough portions stretched thin on a red baking sheet, ready for stuffed crust filling.

Flour-dusted countertop with a pizza dough ball stretched thin in the center, ready for shaping.

Hands using a metal scraper to flatten and stretch pizza dough on a floured countertop.

Pizza dough stretched into a round shape on a floured countertop with mozzarella cheese visible along the edges.

Hands stretching pizza dough on a floured surface with mozzarella cheese visible at the edge.

Hands stretching pizza dough on a floured countertop for stuffed crust pizza preparation

Press down to flatten the rim with your fingers and then prick the ends with a fork all around the circumference of the dough. Place the mozzarella cheese strings around the circumference of the dough and then fold the dough to cover the cheese.

To create a permanent seal, use a fork and prick the seams of the fold. Then brush some water across the pricks and press lightly to seal.

Hand pressing down and sealing the edges of pizza dough with a fork on a floured surface.

Hand using fork to prick and seal edges of pizza dough on floured counter.

Hand pressing and sealing the edges of a stuffed pizza crust with a fork on a floured surface.

Hands pressing and sealing the edges of pizza dough with a fork to secure the stuffed crust.

Hand pressing and sealing the crimped edge of pizza dough with mozzarella cheese stuffed inside the crust.

Hands pricking dough edges with a fork to seal the stuffed crust pizza on a wooden board.

Set oven to Broil mode, let top steel/stone heat for 8-10 minutes.

Dust a wooden pizza peel with semolina and place the stretched dough on the peel.

Add half of the tomato sauce and spread until the edge of the pizza. Tear layers of the provolone and dot 2-3 slices around the pizza, followed by mozzarella

For the pepperoni pizza, top with pepperoni slices. For the cheese pizza, top with the smoked applewood cheddar.

In a swift push and pull motion, place the pizza on the top baking steel/stone.

Bake for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes or until the crust has some char or brown spots and the cheese has molten.

Then transfer the pizza to the bottom steel/stone to finish off the crust of the pizza, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Unbaked pizza dough with raised crust edge and tomato sauce spread in center on wooden board.

Pizza dough with raised crust edges on wooden board, red tomato sauce being spread with spoon.

Unbaked pizza on parchment with red sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese before baking.

Homemade stuffed crust pizza with melted cheese and pepperoni baking on parchment paper in oven.

Stuffed crust pizza with melted cheese and char marks being transferred from oven rack to pizza stone.

Pizza with melted cheese and toppings on a wooden peel being transferred in an oven.

Homemade stuffed crust pizza with melted cheese and red toppings baking in an oven on a steel pan.

Two homemade stuffed crust pizzas baking in oven on separate racks, one with melted cheese on top rack, one with pepperoni on bottom rack.

Remove the pizza from the oven, top with parmesan cheese and brush the crust with the garlic chili oil. Garnish with basil.

Finished stuffed crust pizza with melted cheese, garnished with basil and drizzled with garlic chili oil.

Freshly baked pepperoni pizza with golden-brown puffy crust on a pizza stone, ready to serve.

Pepperoni pizza with stuffed cheese crust being sliced, topped with melted cheese and red pepper flakes.

Serve hot and enjoy!

Hand pulling a slice from finished stuffed crust pizza topped with melted cheese, pepperoni, and basil, with another pizza nearby.

Tips for a Perfect Cheesy Crust Pizza

If the yeast doesn’t dissolve after mixing, the yeast is likely dead. You might need to start-over with fresh dough.
Be careful not to degas the dough too much as you are folding the individual portions onto itself. If you work the dough too much, it will start to resist as you start to stretch the dough for the pizza.
I recommend passata strained tomatoes for the pizza sauce because the tomatoes will cook as you cook the pizza
Invest in a baking steel or baking stone. They are cheap, and an essential tool if you are serious about your pizza.
Make sure to preheat the oven at the highest temperature your oven can reach for at least 1 hour.
Use a pair of baking steels/stones if possible, setting up one of them towards the top rack of the oven and the second one at the bottom.
10 minutes before baking the pizza, set the oven to broil mode to make the top steel/stone scorching hot. This will help rapidly cook the crispy crust.
To finish up the crust, transfer the pizza to the bottom stone/steel to finish up the crust.

How to Store Leftover Pizza▼

I’m sure this pizza will be so delicious that it’ll be gone in a flash! However, if there are any leftovers because perhaps you want to save some to enjoy the next day, then no worries! I sore my leftover pizza by wrapping it in plastic wrap and keeping it in the fridge. I recommend reheating the pizza slices in a microwave or air fryer.

You only need about a minute for your pizza to be completely warmed through if reheating in a microwave. To reheat your pizza in an air fryer, I would heat at 400 F for about a minute or two. If you. don’t have an air fryer and want to reheat your pizza in the oven, I would follow the same steps as in the air fryer. However, bear in mind it will take longer in an oven since it will need to preheat.

I recommend you reheat your pizza in the oven or air fryer, if possible. Pizza tends to get soggy if you reheat in the microwave.

Let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments! If you’ve tried this recipe, be sure to post it on social media and tag it with #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cooking.withanadi. Thank you!

Recipe by Anadi Misra