Top 12 Foods Is Chicago Known For

Chicago’s not known for many things besides the cold and the wind. However, not many know that Chicago’s home to some of the tastiest and most famous dishes and food products we all enjoy and love. What are some of those foods that make Chicago so unique?

Chicago’s known for its great food, such as deep-dish pizza and Chicago-style popcorn. However, many other foods arose from Chicago, such as Italian beef sandwiches, flaming saganaki, and brownies. What’s more, the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Chicago.

Chicago is not only a cultural and historical hub, but people revere this city as a food lovers’ paradise. If you want to learn even more about various foods Chicago’s responsible for, continue reading this article, where I list 12 tasty hallmarks of Chicago.

1. Deep Dish Pizza

No other city makes pizzas the way Chicago makes them. The whole process of making a pizza in Chicago is like making a pie in many ways. Firstly, don’t use metal trays with ordinary pizzas if you’re baking them in an outdoor oven. You use a metal tray and a deep dish with Chicago deep-dish pizza.

The final result is a pie-like pizza filled to the brim with tasty cheese and sauce (which comes on top in this case). Whatever feeling you have when eating a regular pizza, you’ll experience that three times as intensely with Chicago’s iconic deep-dish pizza.

If you visit Chicago and try a deep-dish pizza, make a turn at Lou Malnati’s. They make a unique deep-dish pizza (one of many) because the middle layer between the cheese at the bottom and the sauce at the top is made entirely of sausage meat.

2. Chicago Hot Dog

The Chicago hot dog is another street food that’s not unique (or even originates from) but arguably made better by the people of Chicago. You’d think it’s hard to improve hot dogs, but Chicago likes a good challenge. So, what’s so special about this hot dog?

Let’s start with the most fundamental component—the bun. Chicago hot dogs use poppy seed buns, which have a unique flavor. Apart from that, while other cities are happy with a bun, a dog, and mustard, Chicago needs some extra flavoring.

So, next to a poppy seed bun and a dog, a Chicago hot dog contains:

Mustard (a must)
Chopped onion
Tomato slices
Dill pickle
Green relish
Peppers
Celery salt

A Note: You’ll find many recipes for Chicago hot dogs online with exact measurements, but honestly, it all depends on you. If you like onion, you can put more of it; the same goes for other ingredients.

3. Italian Beef Sandwich

Even though the sandwich’s name starts with the word “Italian,” this tasty sandwich bears its origin nowhere else but Chicago. Of course, many things about this sandwich make it unique—apart from the flavor.

Firstly, Chicagoans serve their Italian beef sandwich on a French roll (the long one, not the round one) because of its size and crunchy sensation. This sandwich has few ingredients, but it’s not easy to make.

That’s because they roast the beef and then slowly simmer it in its own “juice” (usually wine) and various seasonings, like onions and salt. After that, the meat marinates in the gravy for a couple of hours. Once that’s over, they place the succulent meat on the French roll and add whatever you prefer—pickle, pepper, tomato, and more.

4. Pizza Puffs

Pizza puffs are Chicago’s original invention. As with many other foods, immigrants introduced pizza puffs to the area, which is the secret of Chicago’s unique takes on existing food. As the name suggests, pizza puffs use all the pizza ingredients, but instead of laying the dough flat, those small pizzas chefs fold them into small pillow-shaped pizzas.

You can fry or bake pizza puffs, though frying them is the better option. They’re also available in almost every food place in Chicago and various stores. So, you can buy them frozen and make them in the comfort of your home.

They shouldn’t be mistaken for pizza rolls, as pizza puffs are a bit bigger and are only one flavor combination from the 1970s. In contrast, the original ingredients were sausages or pepperoni.

5. Flaming Saganaki

To many of the “Italian” meals I mentioned in this list, it’s time to add something from the Greek cuisine – that’s where flaming saganaki comes in. You’ll not be surprised by now that flaming saganaki, although featured prominently in Greektown in Chicago, doesn’t come from Greece. It’s yet another Chicago invention.

Flaming saganaki’s perfect when combined with some lighter food, like salad. But what is flaming saganaki anyway? Well, it’s just fried and partially melted saganaki cheese. Once you roll the cheese in some flour, you fry it in a pan with some oil, and at the very end, you add a small amount of brandy and flambe it until the alcohol evaporates.

This relatively inexpensive and easy meal found its place quickly in Chicago, and it’s been its food hallmark ever since. The crusty surface combined with the chewy melted middle of the saganaki cheese is something you can’t miss out on when you’re in Chicago.

I recommend Greek Islands Restaurant for a delicious flaming saganaki that will change your world.

6. The Rainbow Cone

We move away from the savory dishes and talk about one of Chicago’s most famous sweet treats—the iconic rainbow cone. The name describes it pretty well – it’s an ice cream cone (although you can have it in a cup as well) with multicolored ice cream on top.

What’s unique about the rainbow cone is that they haven’t changed their original flavors, which they always stack in the same order, which is (from bottom to top):

Chocolate
Strawberry
Palmer House
Pistachio
Orange sherbet

“Where can I find the rainbow cone?” you ask. The original location’s still Western Avenue, Beverly (9233 s.), and you’ll probably spot a few of their ice cream trucks. Additionally, in 2021, the Rainbow Cone opened its new location at E. Lombard Road (498).

7. Brownies

Continuing with Chicago’s famous sweet treat inventions, we get to the famous brownies. It’s true; brownies originated in Chicago. More specifically, they’re the invention of the Palmer House hotel, which even to this day uses the original recipe from the 19th century.

Naturally, you can find versions of brownies across Chicago (and the US), but you should go for the original one if you find yourself in the city. The Palmer House hotel still sells its brownies which are nowadays individually packed and still decorated with walnuts.

You can get one brownie for $5 or treat yourself at the hotel’s Lockwood Restaurant and order Bertha’s Brownie Pancakes for $16.

8. Chicago-Style Popcorn

The Garret Popcorn Company, headquartered in Chicago, IL, invented the Garrett Mix. Over time, it gained a more proper name it’s known all across the world—Chicago-style popcorn. Like many things in Chicago, it’s a mix of two things that create a memorable experience you can’t forget.

Chicago-style popcorn is a combination of:

Caramel-flavored popcorn (CaramelCrisp)
Cheese-flavored popcorn (CheeseCorn)

This mix brings the two opposing worlds together: the sweet caramel and the salty cheese popcorns look fantastic with their brown-and-yellow combination and taste unbelievably good.

The price for the Chicago-style popcorn at Garret varies based on the tin size. For the smallest tin (which serves up to 8 people), you’d need to pay $34. On the other hand, the giant container (meant to serve up to 50 people) will cost you $144.

9. Jibarito Sandwich

Another tasty creation by immigrants who settled in Chicago (Puerto Rican immigrants this time) is the jibarito sandwich. With jibarito sandwiches, you get your fillings which are most usually:

Meat: chicken, steak, or ham
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Onions
Cheese
Mayonnaise

But their outer layer, their “bread,” makes jibarito sandwiches so delicious and hard to resist. Instead of some usual bread used for sandwiches, jibaritos utilize two sliced green plantains, which they fry until the starch turns them into a sweet golden-brown wonder.

It’s this combination of sweet and salty that, much like Chicago-style popcorn, creates the unique flavor only Chicago has to offer. Many places provide jibarito sandwiches in Chicago. I include only some of them you can visit here:

Cafe Central
La Bomba
Borinquen

10. Malort

After all this talk about tasty foods Chicago’s known for, it’s easy to get thirsty, and Chicago doesn’t disappoint in that category. Swedish immigrants invented Malort (or Malört), an alcoholic drink with a famously bitter taste, in Chicago in the 1930s.

Malort means wormwood in Swedish, and it’s the main ingredient for this liqueur. People once sought wormwood for its healing powers against stomach cramps or other digestion issues. However, according to WebMD, there’s no evidence that wormwood helps with those issues. What’s more, its oil can be poisonous to humans.

Malort, however, is everyone’s favorite drink in Chicago. The bitter taste isn’t for everyone, but during cold and windy days in Chicago, there’s nothing better to warm you up.

11. McDonald’s (the First McDonald’s)

That’s right! Chicago’s responsible for McDonald’s—where the first McDonald’s opened its doors. In 1955, Ray Kroc opened his tiny fast-food store that became McDonald’s in Des Plains, a suburb of Chicago. By the 1970s, McDonald’s headquarters moved to Oak Brooks, Chicago, and had 500 restaurants.

Back then, the very first menu, a true “archeological find” these days, contained only nine items, with the most expensive one reaching 20 cents (Shakes). The original menu listed:

Hamburgers
Cheeseburgers
Shakes
Fries
Coke
Root beer
Coffee
Orange drink
Cold milk

So, the next time you see those golden arches, remember that they bear roots in Chicago.

12. Chicago-Style BBQ

The last thing on our list is usually not mentioned often, but Chicago dabbled in its BBQ as well; hence we (fortunately) have Chicago-style BBQ. What makes Chicago-style BBQ unique is the combination (again) of two types of meat. On the one hand, we have our usual ribs (or rib tips); on the other, there are sausages.

Now, that’s all pretty standard, but Chicago-style BBQ requires ribs to be boiled and smoked. Another essential element is the sweet sauce used while the meat is smoking, usually by indoor smokers.