Salt in Uno/Malnati dough clones?

[garyd]

I've noticed that most of the Uno/Malnati dough clones do not have salt added. They wind up tasting kind of bland to me. If you want to add salt how much should it be?

[AimlessRyan]

I've used as much as 1% salt in deep dish dough. After making a couple pizzas out of dough with 1% salt, I decided to omit salt in my next batch. To me, omitting salt made the pizzas taste noticeably better. Not that the 1% dough was salty or anything like that; I just found that I like this kind of pizza better without salt. (But for all I know, it may all have been in my head.)

If dough with no salt tastes bland to you, try it with a little salt. I'd say try 1% at first. If that's not enough, try 2%. You can get a feel just by doing that. And if it tells you anything, you can make what you consider appropriate changes from there.

[garyd]

So, has it been determined for sure that Uno and Malnati don't use salt in their dough?

[AimlessRyan]

Well, Malnati's sells packaged dough and offers pre-made packaged pizzas for shipping, which each list the dough ingredients on the packaging. To the best of my knowledge, these products list dough ingredients as flour, water, corn oil, olive oil, and yeast.

I don't know about Uno, but I'd say that's pretty clear evidence that Malnati's does not use salt in their dough.

[Garvey]

Lou-to-go Dough has salt.  Unfortunately, the label doesn't list sodium content.

[AimlessRyan]

This picture indicates pretty clearly that what I said was wrong. Now I'm confused, too, because I was sure I had seen Malnati's packaging that listed neither salt nor sugar as a dough ingredient.

[Pete-zza]

Lou-to-go Dough has salt.  Unfortunately, the label doesn't list sodium content.

Garvey,

Some time ago, I went through the drill on the LouToGo dough. You might want to take a look at Replies 102 and 103 starting at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10161.msg92023.html#msg92023 and also Reply 121 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10161.msg92696.html#msg92696. I came away with the conclusion that the LouToGo dough was not exactly the same dough as used in the Malnati stores and their frozen pizzas.

Unless Malnati's has changed its dough ingredients in recent years, the ingredients list that I last saw for their basic deep-dish dough is the one posted in Reply 2 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7467.msg64252/topicseen.html#msg64252. The same post covers ingredients lists for other Chicago-area pizza operators. It is possible, however, that their ingredients lists have changed. For example, since Uno's and Giordano's went through bankruptcy, it is possible that their dough formulations have changed.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

This picture indicates pretty clearly that what I said was wrong. Now I'm confused, too, because I was sure I had seen Malnati's packaging that listed neither salt nor sugar as a dough ingredient.

Ryan,

You are OK. See my last post for what I believe is the explanation for the disparity.

Peter

[AimlessRyan]

That may actually be the same post that led me to say what I said above. Since I know you're the master at finding out that kind of information, I never question it. Anyway, I like the results I've gotten without salt or sugar.