In one of our videos a good while back Matt and I mentioned our memories of school pizza. Not long after that someone sent me a link to a recipe for lunchroom pizza.
Once I finally made it, we loved it. I still like the other type of pizza I make best, but this one is good too.
I have fond memories of eating pizza at school. I ate in the lunchroom all through elementary school, which went to 8th grade in those days, and pizza day was loved by almost all my fellow students.
Frankie Chastain was the manager of Martins Creek School lunchroom in those days. She was still managing it after I was married and had the girls.
I once mentioned my love of school pizza to her and she let me order some through the school and pay her for it. Matt and I both loved that trip down memory lane!
The recipe I’ve been making can be found here.
I’ve changed a few things.
I cut back on the sugar amount and only use 1 tablespoon.
We like a lot of pizza sauce so I use more than the recipe.
After the first time of making the pizza I tried using Italian sausage and pepperoni instead of hamburger. We liked that better, although it isn’t true to lunchroom pizza.
The recipe calls for adding yellow cornmeal to the pan before the dough. I never have yellow so I use white.
Our whole bunch likes the pizza. I’m not sure if it’s exactly like lunchroom pizza. I would say it’s better. Sort of like how a box of macaroni and cheese is pretty good, but not near as good as homemade at least in my opinion. I know some people prefer the box to homemade.
Do you remember lunchroom pizza? Did you like it?
Last night’s video: Beloved Pets & Getting Wood for the Storm (We Didn’t Get Any Snow, Only Rain).
Tipper
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Yes!!! We all loved it! As a school teacher for 27 yrs we have pizza every Wednesday. Even the picky eaters would not bring a lunch on Wednesdays! I taught 1st grade and as the children came through then lunch line we would squirt ranch dressing on there pizza. Good memories! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Lunchroom pizza, vegetable soup, and no-bake chocolate cookies were my favorites. I really looked forward to the day these were served.
That looks yummy, can’t wait to try it.
As always praying for Granny.
In our grade school cafeteria we had pizza burgers for lunch. They made them on halves of hamburger buns and they were delicious. We could work in the cafeteria for a free lunch and everyone wanted to work on pizza burger day. Always got the left overs. Would love to have that recipe
I’m in my early 80’s and I don’t recall ever having pizza in the school lunchroom in elementary school. I preferred taking a sack lunch so maybe they did have pizza, but I had never eaten it until
I was a teenager. I lived in north Georgia. A country girl until age 10. Would still like to be, but I have to bloom where I’m planted. Your home and property remind me of my former home and I love watching y’all. Just makes me a little homesick sometimes.
Love and prayers for all your family, especially Granny
We called it “sheetza” and it was a Thursday staple. Thanks for the recipe-excited to try it out.
I graduated from high school in 1976 and don’t recall having pizza. Of course I carried my own lunch, so that may be why I don’t remember pizza day. In those days it was a cool thing to carry your own lunch and I always peeped to see what other folks were eating. One girl had Pop Tarts every day in her lunch bag and I was so jealous of that! Times change. Many years later I learned that it was now not a cool thing to carry your lunch to school.
If I am not mistaken, the Italians call pizza made like this (this being in a regular sheet, or even rectangular, deeper pan) a “grandma slice,” as at home pizza that your grandmother would make is always in some old rectangular pan. 🙂
Our lunchroom pizza was rectangular and had little tiny pepperoni cubes. I didn’t like it much and always took all the toppings off and just ate the crust. My husband’s school somehow always burnt the same kind of pizza. So we don’t have good school lunch pizza memories, but this recipe is one i will try. Tonight probably. We homeschool, so if this is a hit, this will be our kids’ lunchroom pizza : )
Praying for you all!
I loved school pizza. At Clyde elementary we had 1 day a week that was potato bar day and the lunch ladies would fill the little bar containers with baked potatoes and a bunch of toppings…one of the toppings was little cut up pieces of cold leftover pizza. I loved my tater with ranch, bacos, and the pizza pieces. I’ll have to try out the pizza recipe! Thanks for posting it
I think my first experiences with pizza was school lunch room pizza in the very late 60s or early 70s.I remember liking the pizza. The menu was always the same, though seemingly a bit odd: pizza, corn, and sliced peaches. We had whole milk to drink. We went to grades one through eight in elementary and then nine through twelve in high school. If you ate in the lunch room, there was one choice each day. We will be staying in this week. Lots of ice on the ground here from the storm in NW NC. Bitterly cold temps in the forecast for this week. Windchill below zero tonight. Stay safe everyone. Prayers for all and special prayers for Granny.
I must be the only person on the planet who does NOT have fond memories of our school pizza. For some reason, I never learned to like it. Now, their yeast rolls? Absolutely. But not the pizz. I know, I’m weird.
Except for the thousands of people who have no memories of school pizza.
I do remember lunchroom pizza ! I loved it ! I think I mostly loved the “homemade “ yeast bread crust ! You could smell it baking all over the school on pizza day ! I didn’t realize that there was now a lunchroom pizza recipe going around ! So fun ! Such good memories. I enjoyed the trip down memory lane & reading everyone else’s !
Our school never had school lunches, so no comment on that. Our small town didn’t have a place to buy pizza either. The only pizza I had as a kid was a Chef Boy r Dee pizza mix in the box. A biscuit type crust you mixed together. Baked then open the little can of sauce and a little pack of cheese, parmesan I think, and then you had to add your own meat. We thought it was a real treat as we knew no better .
I so remember Chef Boyardee pizza box mix. That was a treat when I was young. I loved the sauce lol
For my first seven years of school we had to walk home every day for lunch. If you stayed at school you had to have a really good reason and a note from your parents. There was no such thing as a lunch room or lunch being served at school. From grade 8 onwards it was too far to walk home for lunch. There was no money to buy lunches everyday so I packed my lunch everyday for the last 5 years of school.
We didn’t grow up eating pizza, I was probably a teenager before I had pizza, which would have come out of a a box. We didn’t go out to eat like people do nowadays, the first and only time I ate at a restaurant with my parents was when I graduated from high school. We ate what my dad grew in the garden. That might be the reason I prefer to eat at home rather than go to a restaurant. I love homemade pizza but make mine with sourdough. I make a batch of dough and freeze it in individual serving sizes. My husband’s a vegetarian so we pile it high with veggies and cheese only. Have a great day Tipper and acorns!
A ‘delicious’ post this morning Tipper that has my mouth watering and wondering why I am sitting here eating a bowl of oats!! 🙂 Who doesn’t like a good pizza, and it is so versatile one can use any topping of preference. No snow here but a lot of heavy frost in the morning from the below freezing temps at night, enough so that it looks like a skiff of snow. Praying Granny had a good night and her day will be easy.
I never had lunchroom pizza until high school and I loved it! They didn’t serve it often, but when they did, it was a hit with everyone. I thought it was cool that the slices were rectangular. All of my family enjoys pizza so I will definitely have to try this recipe. Way before Pizza Hut came to town, we had a place called Mr. Pizza and once in a while we would get to go and I remember soft drinks being served in cold, frosted mugs. I was also a young teen before I ever tried pizza.
Italian sausage would of course be preferable, but back in the 1970’s and 80’s, was anybody in NC making it? You know, like with red pepper flakes for the hot sausage, fennel seeds for the mild sausage, or basil for the “sweet” sausage? My suspicion is that, if you butchered your own hogs, you could put whatever spices you liked in your own sausage, and men that had served in Italy during the war and liked pizza anyhow might like the Italian kind of sausages on it, and might make those kinds of sausage for home consumption, but the schools were going to go path-of-least-resistance and use more traditional sausages that were more widely made locally. Or, avoid the issue altogether and just use regular old chopped beef.
Hope Granny’s snug and warm.
I never even heard of pizza until I was half grown. I don’t think the lunchroom at my school had pizza but I can’t be sure because I didn’t eat there. They wanted money and we didn’t have any of that. The people on welfare got free lunch but we didn’t participate in none of that. My mother packed me a lunch in a brown paper poke.
My wife introduced me to frozen pizza in the late 70s. I didn’t like it but tolerated it because she did. The first real pizza I ate was at the Village Inn in Hickory. I liked their pizza but I didn’t like Hickory so theirs was limited.
When I discovered the simplicity of pizza dough I started making my own. That led to me perfecting the toppings to my liking. Sliced onions, bell peppers and mushrooms. Home sliced thin pepperoni, no hamburger no sausage never. Thin crust, thin layer of sauce, toppings and enough mozzarella to cover. Put together cold in a 10″ cut down cold cast iron skillet. Put into a 550º oven until done. I can’t beat it!
I know nothing about lunchrooms but I do now know a good pizza.
Ed, I wrote that I was about 17 before I ever knew what it was or ate pizza. I went to school from 1960-1972. I think the cost of lunch for 5 days was 80 cents to $1 in grammar school and not more than $1.25 at high school. An extra 1/2 pint carton of milk (that’s all we were allowed to drink) was 3-5 cents. Somehow my Daddy managed to get the money each week to pay for my lunch. Looking back I expect he did without any snacks and drank water instead of a Coke when he was working in order to pay for my lunch.
Lunchroom pizza was one of my favorites!
I doubt anyone in my school ever heard of pizza. The lunchroom lady’s daughter and I became good friends after they bought a house from my parents. I used to spend the night with my friend so I could reminisce about the years I lived there, but mostly so I could nearly founder on her mom’s yeast rolls. Papa John’s Pizza is to die for, competing with my homemade, they always win. I buy them for half off when U of L wins a game, eat till I bust my belly, and freeze the rest. Travel is nearly impossible here after two days of every form of precipitation has pounded us. I’m so thankful the power is still on. Praying Granny has a good day.
Growing up I was homeschooled and then went to a small Christian school, so I never experienced school lunches. This recipe looks good though! I might have to give it a try. I enjoyed reading the stories of the lunch ladies shared so far. I’m thankful that the weather hasn’t been detrimental for anyone here yet. Continuing to pray for Granny. ❤️
I do remember lunchroom pizza! I’ve seen recipes for it, but I’ve never made it. I use to make the box pizza mix that had all the ingredients and one just needed to mix them to make the pizza dough, add the sauce that came with it along with the package of pepperoni pieces. I think it also had a package of dehydrated Parmesan cheese and some spices. I always doctored it up with my fresh veggies and cheese. Honestly, I haven’t done that in a long time either. I’m not sure if they even sell them anymore. I guess once the frozen pizzas came out we found they we convenient and tasty once I doctored them up to how we like our pizza. I tell myself I need to start making homemade pizza dough, but just haven’t done it since it just me and my hubby now. When the kids do come up to eat if they want pizza they either bring a take out kind, or we order delivery. Homemade is always best, just not as convenient. I guess that just shows how lazy I’ve gotten in my older years when it comes to making pizza.
I was in school during the 60s. and 70s. I don’t recall us ever having pizza. it was a treat when my mom would let us have chef boarardee boxed pizza! my favorite at school was chili day. it was served with peanut butter and honey sandwiches! I loved those sandwiches so much!
Sounds good! What does the cornmeal in the pan before the dough for?
Richard to prevent the dough from sticking 🙂
I don’t remember having pizza at school. That would have been late 50’s and 60’s. When my children were in school, and I worked there, they had pizza and loved it so much we ordered some and kept it at home.
I’m so sorry your weather was rain instead of snow. We got 10-12 inches of fluffy snow. It blew all around so there’s no good spot to measure. Today is a beautiful blue morning. It’s sunny and 10 degrees. We’ll have to dig out our cars and plow out the driveway. Blessings to you all. Especially Granny.
The pizza we were served in school in the lower grades was on hamburger buns! I remember liking it! Tipper, did you get any snow? we got a foot and that’s enough for me this year! Prayers to you and your family and especially for your mother, that God may grant you strength and comfort.
Wow that’s a lot of snow! We only got rain 🙂
I loved Northside Middle Schools lunchroom pizza! It was not served often, but when it was the whole student body was excited; Word would pass quickly and the cafeteria was full that day. I’m sure your “tweaking” tbe recipe made it much better as there are so many ingredients available now. In our house, when making pizza-anything goes! Breakfast pizzas, dessert fruit pizzas, you name it! They even have “white sauce” pizzas (garlic aioli) but I don’t much care for it- but will eat it if that’s all there is. I think it’s the dough/bread that I love.
We’ve had freezing cold weather and wet roads but we’ve not left the house. Local news keeps us informed. We border Lexington/West Columbia here in SC, about 5miles from the Columbia Stare House-so we have to really go by what we on local news as the online zip codes can all read differently. All the trees iced over slightly yesterday but were melting by late last night. I’m hoping this is all for the winter storm. I’m ready to get outside! Stay safe and warm.
We had amazing home cooked food in our little country school. The ladies began before we all got there in the morning. I don’t remember pizza until we were older and I loved it. Things changed in the lunchroom when we got older. We started seeing prepackaged food on some days. Didn’t much care for that as we were corn fed country kids. I feel sorry for the kids today the food is down right not fitting to eat. When our grandchildren were still in public school they’d invite us to breakfast and it was so bad I couldn’t eat it. I would say 85% of the children threw it away. I couldn’t understand why the school didn’t change something.
Our weather here is near zero and wind-chill well below. The snow has stopped and the count was 12-16 inches depending on what part of the county you’re in. It’s well above my knees where it didn’t drift and above my waist where it did. There’s a lot of work ahead trying to get the truck out. I process payroll and tomorrow is payday.
Praying y’all are safe and warm wherever you’re at. Continued prayers for Granny and all y’all. May the presence of the Lord be felt.
Good morning Tipper, Matt and Acorns. It is 18 degrees this morning and powdering down the softest dry snow. Praise GOD we are toasty warm. I’m craving pizza. I picked up 2 small round deli take n bake pizza’s at food lion on Friday and baked them to have out for snack/light meal if the power went out because of ice. Praise GOD that didn’t happen. I’m going to have to make Tipper’s pizza. I have watched the video at least 5 times now. I used to help the cooks when I was in 7th and 8th grade back in 1970-72. I just took the trash out to the end of the driveway. I have my bed sheets in the washer and will hand them on the line in the living room to dry. It is already a blessed day. I keep everyone here and up Wilson Hollow in my prayers. I know GOD hears. I love y’all.
I don’t think we had cafeteria pizza until I was in high school, or maybe the later grades of elementary school, the late ’60s. Everybody loved it though it bore little resemblance to real pizza. In my memory, it had more of a soft Bisquick crust, drained, canned tomatoes as the sauce and government cheese on top, with ground beef.
I’ll have to try this recipe, it looks really good! We love pizza here and I make it a lot, but we also go out for it at the different restaurants that have it on their menu.
I hope you all didn’t get slammed with any ice and that you got your snow Tipper. We got 12 inches of snow and it’s really cold here. Now for the next several days we get to deal with cold temps and windchills. I like the snow, but I don’t like the super cold temps. In the meantime, stay safe everyone!
Lunchroom pizza was one of my favorites! I went to a tiny school only 20 kids in each grade so our lunch ladies would home cook some of the food. It was amazing. We had biscuit and gravy Friday’s one of my favorites to this day!
Pizzas didn’t become popular until the 70s and 80s and I graduated from high school in 1967, so we weren’t served lunchroom pizza in the cafeteria. I don’t really care for pizza but my husband and I will buy one every now and then. My children and grandchildren love pizza. My daughter makes it often. We got a lot of sleet and a few inches of snow here in south central VA. Thankfully, the freezing rain didn’t arrive. The temperature was 27 degrees this morning and is going up to 30. Tonight its going down to 7 degrees. It could have been worse. I thank God that it wasn’t. I’m still praying for Granny.
Hi Tricia. I also graduated in ’67 in Wisconsin and we didn’t have pizza in our school lunches either. Pizza wasn’t in our vocabulary as a whole until, like you say, the about 80’s.
I don’t have much of a recollection of lunchroom pizza. Your pizza looks great! I have played around with making pizza and am also making sourdough bread with a starter that was gifted to me March 2025. The recipes do get better with time and experience. Happy eating.
My father-in-law, who graduated in 1964 told me he had never tried or even heard of pizza until he went north to work in the car factories. He also said he’d never had spaghetti until he moved up north after graduating. I graduated from the same school eighteen years later and the workers (one of which was my mother’s mother) were taking a stab at “pizza”, but it reminded me more of a marinara cobbler with some pepperonis, sausage, and cheese. LOL
I do remember it but back in NH the day I liked best at school was the day we had Shepherd’s Pie. That day we actually could get seconds which was unusual back in the old days (1950s). By the way tell Matt I made Diane some of his oyster stew and she liked it. It was the first time I’ve had it. I grew up around clams. My whole family would go claiming and bring back several pecks if clams. From those my day would make fried clams ( the whole clam not just the strip), clam chowder (Diane love’s my clam chowder), and the best of all steamed clams. As far as oysters are concerned we both love raw oysters with a little hot sauce. I will give the pizza a try. Again prayers to all of you from the man from Murphy.
Our school pizza had a lot of sugar in the sauce. It was soft and greasy. I never liked it. Being able to adjust the recipe might make it better but I have no fond memories of school food.
I’m sure your version was wonderful.
Back in my day, 1946, lunch time was comparing with others in the lunchroom…sometime sharing and sometime swapping with other friends.
oh yes I remember school pizza and loved it–I have duplicated it several times in my life. we had the best cooks at my school-I feel bad that kids today do not have the same good ‘home cooked’ food we had, our cooks also made the best fried chicken with real mashed potatoes and gravy and yeast rolls mmmmm then at the end of the week took leftover vegetables and made the best stew (usually hamburger was the stew meat)
A lady at my grammar school (1st-7th grade) made the best yeast rolls I have ate anywhere in my lifetime. I was trying to say the same thing as you when I wrote home cooked food. No we did not have pizza and such all through my 12 years of school. Even after I was grown and married we very seldom “went out to eat” or stopped on the way home from work and picked up something to bring home. My precious wife would cook her family, meaning me and our children a good stick to your ribs home cooked meal each night even though she had to be at her job each morning at 4 o’clock. ALL restaurants would soon have been out of business if they depended on customers like us. Many of today’s children don’t know or have ever had a good home cooked meal. As for picky eaters, my niece by marriage can prove by her two boys that picky is taught or allowed, her two boys (both under 8 years old) have been taught from the time they first began to eat solid food they had to eat whatever was on the table before they could have deserts or anything else to eat. They would be no special meals cooked for them because of being picky. For many in the older generations you ate what was on the table or went hungry!
Like I have said before, when I was growing up during the late 50and 60’s if we didn’t grow it we didn’t eat it. I ate a school lunch everyday I was at school and enjoyed the food served, it was more like country home food and prepared/ cooked by older country women. Unlike today there were no pizza days, or these foods many schools serve today. I was about 17 years old before I ever had my first bite of pizza and had never even heard of spaghetti or similar food like that. For me, a hot dog was the special occasions food and a maybe a hamburger every now and then on a blue moon. I thought pepperoni pizza was made with peppers and wouldn’t eat it, my first pizza was a cheese pizza.
Weather Report. God blessed me and other neighbors around me, I made it through without a hitch, no loss of power. I am still staying hunkered down at home, the back roads I live on are still in bad shape and I have no pressing need of going anywhere. I saw a few minutes ago on a local news website there was a lot of power outages and trees down in the north west areas of SC- Oconee and Pickens county. A tree fell across the cab of a Blue Ridge Power truck crushing it while 2 lineman were on their way to a call, God was with them and the lineman escape unharmed, the front of the cab over the dash, steering wheel was crushed and not the section where there heads would have been. High winds forecasted for today and very cold 2-3 dog temperatures for tonight, a chance I may still loose my power.