An amazingly easy crock pot pizza casserole to please the entire family. Pizza night has never been so simple. Just follow the easy step by step photo instructions.
Editor’s Note: Originally Published December 26, 2013. Refreshed with expanded detailed discussion and updated photos.
I love pizza and almost lived on it for years before marriage. So a crock pot pizza casserole is a natural for me.
I read a lot of recipes for this recipe. There were lots of precooking of the pasta going on. Let’s see, precook and 4-5 hours in a slow cooker will make Ummm …. mush.
My Rating
It is a high 4 for us pizza lovers. But can’t be a five just because there is no crust.
Pro Tips: Recipe Notes for Crock Pot Pizza Casserole
The “Toppings” and Ingredients
Vary the ingredients to what you like. But you will want a base of ground meat, sauce, cheese, and pasta.
I love sausage, but the spices may dominate the flavor. So, I suggest burger and the spices of the pepperoni and sauce will kick it up some.
Be careful about adding red pepper or other spicing. The cooking gets the pepperoni spicing distributed, and some of it is already spicy.
The Sauce
Most of the recipes called for jar pizza sauce (yuck). This “make it yourself” with the crushed tomatoes and a few spices is so much better. I have used this for 40 plus years.
The Pasta
Use a shorter standard pasta. We depend on the fluid in the dish to cook the pasta. So the behavior of a non-standard pasta is unpredictable.
Many recipes call for precooking the pasta. You will end up with mush with a crock pot recipe. Please don’t do that.
Four to five hours will be just right on low for the pasta to cook. Five hours will give you some nice cheese browning also. But remember, crock pots vary so watch what you are doing.
Crock Pot Notes
This recipe fits nicely in a 3-4 quart crock pot. Doubled will do will in a 6-7 qt.
Cook on low. Do not cook on high the effect on the pasta cooking is unpredictable.
And lastly, know your crock pot. They can vary a lot.
Crock Pot Main Dishes
Smaller Crock Pot Honey Glazed Ham
Pepper Jack Italian Sausage Pasta a la Crock Pot
Other Pizza Choices
Normal pizza stuff but with dry pasta to replace the crust.
Start by chopping a small onion and half a green pepper.
Brown 1 pound of lower fat ground beef over medium-high heat. Add one small chopped medium onion after a couple of minutes. Cook for about 8 minutes until no pink left. Add two cloves of crushed garlic the last minute of browning — about 8 minutes total.
Add 1 – 28 oz can crushed tomatoes, 1 cup water, 4 oz of sliced pepperoni minus 12 slices for topping, oregano, salt, pepper, 1/2 chopped green pepper, 1 cup mozzarella cheese to a smaller 3 to 4 quart crock pot. Mix well. Add 2 cups uncooked pasta. Mix well. Helpful hint: separate the pepperoni as it goes in.
Add the cooked ground beef after draining fat.
Top with 1 cup mozzarella and the 12 slices of pepperoni.
Cook on low for approximately 5 hours until edges browning nicely.
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Crock Pot Pizza Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef - lower fat
- 1 onion - small
- 2 cloves garlic - crushed
- 28 oz crushed tomatoes
- 1 cup water
- 4 oz sliced pepperoni
- ½ green pepper
- 1 teaspoons oregano
- 1 teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 green pepper - chopped
- 2 cups mozzarella cheese - divided
- 2 cups uncooked pasta
Instructions
- Start by chopping a small onion and half a green pepper.
- Brown 1 pound of lower fat ground beef over medium high heat. Add one small chopped onion after a couple of minutes Cook for about 8 minutes until no pink left. Add two cloves of crushed garlic the last minute of browning. About 8 minutes total.
- Add 1 – 28 oz can crushed tomatoes, 1 cup water, 4 oz of sliced pepperoni minus 12 slices for topping, 1 teaspoon oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ tsp pepper, ½ chopped green pepper, 1 cup mozzarella cheese to a smaller crock pot. I used 3 ½ qt. Mix well. Add 2 cups uncooked pasta. Mix well. Helpful hint: separate the pepperoni as it goes in.
- Add the cooked ground beef after draining fat. Mix well.
- Top with 1 cup mozzarella and the 12 slices of pepperoni.
- Cook on low for approximately 4-5 hours until edges browning nicely and pasta done.
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips
- This fits nicely in a 3-4 qt crock pot. If doubled then a 6-7 qt pot would be fine. I do not suggest cooking this smaller recipe in the larger crock pot.
- Use a standard short pasta. Results with other may work, but the behavior of a non-standard pasta is unpredictable.
- 2 cups of dry pasta is 8 oz. generally. So half a one pound box.
- Do not precook the pasta; you will have mush with this recipe if you do.
- Do not cook on high. Cook on low for 4-5 hours and watch the results near the end since crock pots vary.
- My sauce is much better than can or jar sauce.
- You may vary the ingredients some, but you need a base of pasta, ground meat, sauce, and cheese.
- The pepperoni will release a lot of spice, so be careful with things like red pepper.
- Good in the refrigerator or 3-4 days and frozen for 3-4 months.
- Nutrition is calculated on 1/6 of the recipe which is about one cup.
Have a question or something not clear? Ask in the comments.
If you like this recipe or find it useful, the pleasure of a nice 4 or 5 rating would be greatly appreciated.
Nutrition is for one serving. Number of servings is stated above and is my estimate of normal serving size for this recipe.
All nutritional information are estimates and may vary from your actual results. This is home cooking, and there are many variables. To taste ingredients such as salt will be my estimate of the average used.
Originally Published December 26, 2013
Kaci
5 hours in the crockpot was way too long. It cooked all of the sauce out of it and tasted horrible.
Claudia Matusiak
Just finished dinner of your crock pot pizza casserole and it was very good. I added 8 oz of fresh sliced Portobello mushrooms because I just can’t imagine any pizza type entree without them and this is a fantastic recipe. My husband also stated it was a “Real keeper!” My 3 1/2 quart crock pot had it completely done on ‘low’ in 3 hours 10 minutes so mine must run a little hotter.
Keep these great recipes coming. I enjoy reading your detailed instructions and photos as it leaves no questions on how you prepared something. I also appreciate the photo’s of your ingredients before hand as it leaves no questions as to what you used. Great job, you are appreciated.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Claudia,
Welcome to the blog.
Glad you enjoyed the recipe and the presentation. We don’t do mushrooms generally in this house due to food allergies. That leads me to forget to include them as an option.
Thanks so much for the note and the rating.
Dan
Patricia
My entire family loves this! The uncooked pasta was so great not mushy and the homemade sauce was perfect since I hate jar pizza sauce . I always add more toppings but this by far is the best recipe I’ve ever tried and a family favorite
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Patricia,
Welcome to the blog and sorry for the delayed response.
I do love this recipe. Glad you enjoyed the sauce.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Lindsey Mozgai
I just wanted to let you know that one of your posts was mentioned in my post :)
Jeffrey
This was amazing! Now, I did use Mid’s True Sicilian Pasta Sauce Pizza Sauce from Kroger. Grabbed 2 – 16 OZ jars and added 2/3 a cup of water. I used that instead of the crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, and oregano mix. Also, I added mushrooms and pineapple (my fiancé’s and my favorite pizza toppings). We used a 7 qt crock pot on low for 3.5 hours. Thank you, so much for keeping up this blog and sharing.
Charles
It’s cooking now. After the heat came up, all of the topping cheese just melted through the lower layers and disappeared. For the pizza effect, I’m going to add another batch of cheese/pepperoni for the last bit of time. (not going to be a healthy one, that’s for sure)
On another note – for things that are very compressible, such as shredded cheese (or any dry baking ingredient really,) could you please add a weight measure to go along with the cup approximation? 8 oz liquid != 8 oz dry loose != 8 oz dry packed…
Thank you for this site – I’ve tried several recipes, and all have turned out nicely.
DrDan
Get the extra cheese on now… You want the edge to cook and brown nicely.
About the measuring / weight issue. 1 cup volume wise is 8 oz of water. Most liquids likewise weigh and measure about this way (oil not quit). Most home cooks do not have accurate weight measurement available so I measure things like flour, sugars etc by volume mostly. I those cases I state for example 1 cup of flour. When something is measured by a manufacturer like pepperoni if it is 8 oz package and I want half I will state 4 oz. With cheese I try to use volume.
I will try to pay more attention in future posts to this issue and it appears that some will try measuring differently I will try to include both.
DrDan
Charles
I did add another layer of the toppings at the last bit of cooking, and ate it before I saw your response. Next time, I’ll save back all of the reserved toppings for the last 30-60 or so. Regardless, it turned out very nicely.
Regarding the cheese. Normallly for any ingredient, weight and liquid can *almost* substitute. 8 oz of wet is *nearly* 8 oz of dry/weight measure. For shredded cheese, however… 8 ounces (weight) in the block = 16/2 cups dry after shredding. or even 24/3cups if you use a different grater. Unless you pack it – and how hard you pack it.
In a recipe like this, It probably doesn’t matter. (Like bacon and garlic, you can (almost) never have too much cheese.)
DrDan
I was on line when your first comment came through but wasn’t fast enough. The longer the topping is on and cooking the more browning and more “pizza like” it will be.
More cheese is always good. I can’t let my wife help cook when cheese is involved. She won’t measure and it ruins the post… and then she yells at me.
Dan
Suzi Castiglione
When you say smaller crockpot, about what size do you mean?
DrDan
I used a 3.5 qt. but larger should work but add more cheese to the top.
Dan
Sam
This turned out great. I was worried we wouldn’t like it since it isn’t really “pizza”, but it certainly held its own. Felt like I was living on the edge with the uncooked pasta, but it was the right choice. I added some parmesan to the mix and to the top… also a good choice. Thanks for the recipe.
DrDan
So glad it worked for you. I’m a “pizza guy” and find this amazingly good. I was quit surprised the first time…Nice modifications.
Thanks again for the comment and rating.
DrDan
Tina B
Tried the pizza cassarole in the crockpot and loved it! We made it to take to a friend who is a fiend for pizza, but wanted something “more” than just pizza. We will definitely make this again and again. So delicious and hearty.
DrDan
I though this was amazingly good and I didn’t expect that. Glad it worked for you
Thanks for the note
DrDan
Nancy
Just want to tell you I love your new blog! I follow you pretty much everyday because I live alone and many of your recipes are perfect for one or two people’s servings! It’s a bit difficult to just cook really good food for just one after being used to cooking for a family of five, so I really enjoy your recipe ideas! Thanks much for some really great ideas and some really yummy food!!!
DrDan
Thanks for the note.
Dan