Easy Homemade School Cafeteria Pizza (2024)

Lunch Lady Pizza is loaded with sauce, cheese and your favorite toppings then sliced into the large rectangle slices you remember as a kid.

Relive some of your favorite childhood memories when you make tasty school cafeteria pizza at home.

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When I was in elementary school, my mom never packed me a lunch–I just always at a hot lunch from the cafeteria. Friday was our School Cafeteria Pizza Day, and it was our favorite day each week!

Time has changed things, so I can’t speak much about the quality of school lunches today, but in the 80s and 90s, when I was in school, everyone loved school cafeteria pizza.

The rectangle pizza slices were delicious and filling but, most importantly, served as a reminder that the school week was finally over!

Whenever I mention lunch lady pizza to friends similar in age, we take a trip down memory lane and wax poetic about those ooey-gooey slices of thick crust topped with melty cheese and diced pepperoni.

If you are of a certain age, you are probably picturing a melamine lunch tray piled up with a large slice of school pizza, fruit salad and a carton of milk.

I remember these slices often had tiny bits of diced pepperoni on them, or sometimes we had Italian sausage pizzas or plain cheese pizzas.

This homemade school lunch pizza is so easy and fun to make with homemade pizza dough. Serve these rectangular pizza slices to your kids for a nostalgic dinner you’ll all love.

Bonus points if you can score a pint of chocolate milk and some vintage trays for serving–or get these new-edition trays from Amazon to pretend it’s grade school lunch day again!

More Pizza Themed Recipes To Try:

• Easy Instant Pot Pizza Burgers
• Instant Pot Pepperoni Pizza Tortellini
• Air Fryer Naan Pizza

Rectangle Pizza Made Easy

My great-grandma was a school cafeteria cook long before I was born, back when the lunch ladies actually made everything from scratch.

I’m pretty sure by the time I was in elementary school, and definitely by the time I was in middle school and high school, scratch-made foods were a thing of cafeterias past, as efficiency took top priority.

Public school rectangle pizza was served by cafeteria ladies everywhere, bringing happy smiles to the faces of school kids.

The beauty of this lunch lady pizza is that school cafeterias across practically every school district in the country can crank out sheet pan after sheet pan of this tasty treat to hungry kids at 10:30 in the morning every Friday.

And kids are running down the halls to be first in line to get a slice of square pizza.

That means old-school pizza is not only easy to make but tasty too. Your kids will love this homemade pizza, and it’s also perfect for birthday parties, holiday gatherings and potluck suppers.

Grab your jelly roll pan and get started!

How to Make Lunch Lady Pizza

It’s really easy to make school pizza at home.

Ingredients You’ll Need:

• Olive oil
• Cornmeal
• Homemade pizza dough or store-bought refrigerated pizza dough
• Pizza sauce
• Mozzarella cheese
• Additional toppings of choice, if desired: pepperoni, cooked sausage or ground beef, diced peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, ham, pineapple, fresh basil, etc.
• Optional: Garlic powder, dried oregano

How to Make this Easy School Pizza Recipe:

(Full printable recipe is available below)

Prep the pan and dough. First, you’ll preheat the oven to 475F. Spread olive oil into your jelly roll pan (this is a little smaller than a half-sheet pan) and sprinkle lightly with cornmeal. This will give some great texture and flavor to the bottom of the crust.

Press the dough into the pan, stretching to fit.

Add Sauce and Cheese. Next, you’ll add the sauce spreading it all the way to the edges. Top with lots of cheese, again spreading to the edges.

Add toppings and bake. Last, you’ll add your favorite pizza toppings, sprinkle with garlic powder and oregano or Italian seasoning and bake for 10-12 minutes. Slice into rectangles and serve.

Notes and Adaptations:

• Store-bought refrigerated pizza dough can be a great shortcut! It only costs a couple of bucks and can be found in your grocery’s deli section. However, be sure to let the dough come to room temperature first so it’s easier to stretch and work with.
• Feel free to adjust the amounts and types of toppings to your liking–customize away!
• I often make homemade pizza sauce with some tomato paste and seasonings (you can also doctor up a can of tomato sauce), but a jar of pizza sauce from the store works just as well.