Pizza puff
Template:Pizza A pizza puff is a deep-fried dough pocket filled with cheese, tomato sauce, and other pizza ingredients such as sausage or pepperoni.<ref name="Bizzarri 2016"/> Originally from Chicago, pizza puffs can be found at many casual dining restaurants there.<ref name=Chicago-Tribune/><ref name=AFFOTD/><ref name=Takeout/><ref name=Serious-Eats-Kuban/><ref name=Mental-Floss/>
Pizza puffs are similar to panzerotti. They are also somewhat like calzones, but calzones are baked instead of fried, and do not always include tomato sauce.<ref name=Chicago-Tribune/>
Some Italian restaurants and casual dining establishments make their own pizza puffs from scratch. These pizza puffs feature a pizza dough wrapper, and tend to be somewhat larger than the pre-made ones.<ref name=Serious-Eats-Zemans/><ref name=Chicago's-Best-Grassano's/><ref name=Chicago's-Best-Terry's/>
Commercial varieties
Some hot dog stands in the Chicago area serve mass-produced pizza puffs that they purchase from the Iltaco company. The frozen pizza puffs are deep-fried before serving. The dough wrapper of these pizza puffs is similar to a flour tortilla. Iltaco was founded in 1927 and was originally called the Illinois Tamale Company ("Il-Ta-Co"). It has been suggested that Iltaco invented the pizza puff.<ref name="Bizzarri 2016"/> Iltaco pizza puffs are also sold in the frozen food section of some local area grocery stores.<ref name=Chicago-Tribune/><ref name=AFFOTD/><ref name=Mental-Floss/><ref name=BD&P/>
Arco Frozen Foods is another company that mass-produced pizza puffs, and introduced a retail pizza puff circa 1968.<ref name="Quick Frozen Foods 1968"/>