A layered, hot cheesy dip with all of the great flavours of pizza including pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, olives and green peppers.

Over the last while I have slowly been trying to free up some space in my freezer and I recently came across some pizza sauce that I had left over after making a pizza a while back. As soon as I stumbled upon it I remembered thinking that I had wanted to use it to make a hot cheesy pizza dip when I put it in the freezer. Once I had that thought there was no turning back and I was already dreaming up recipes for the dip.

At first I was just going to follow my standard hot cheese dip template where I just mix everything up, pour it into a dish and bake it until the cheese is melted, golden brown and bubbling but then I had another idea. I wanted to top the dip with slices of pepperoni but my normal dip baking dish is small and it would only allow for about three slices of pepperoni to go on top so I needed something bigger, like a pie plate. Now we were talking about something that is looking more and more like a pizza so why not make it more like a pizza with a cheese layer on the bottom that is covered with a layer of pizza sauce that is topped just like a regular pizza?

Since this pizza dip is in the form of a pizza, you could top it with any of your favourite pizza toppings. For my first pizza dip I decided to go with some classics in the form of pepperoni, green pepper and olives. I had also planned on some sauteed sliced mushrooms but I completely forgot to pick them up when I went grocery shopping. Even without the mushrooms, this pizza dip was so addictively good and it disappeared far too quickly! I served the hot cheesy pizza dip with toasted, garlic rubbed baguette slices which made perfect beds for large spoonfuls of melted, gooey, cheesy pizza goodness. I can’t wait to experiment with other versions of this dip using other pizza topping combinations!