The home of Kansas sports betting is probably best known for barbecue. But don’t overlook another nosh that’s popular throughout the state and the whole country: Pizza.
Celebrated on February 9, National Pizza Day is the perfect way to celebrate Super Bowl Sunday. BetKansas.com used Google Trends to rank the top five pizza toppings in Kansas. We based these rankings on search interest scores from queries conducted over a one-year span, ending Jan. 23, 2025.
Rank | Toppings | Search Interest Score |
1 | Cheese | 64 |
2 | Meat Lovers | 15 |
3 | Supreme | 12 |
4 | Sausage | 11 |
5 | Veggie | 6 |
The overwhelming favorite in Kansas was just plain cheese on a pizza pie. Just give folks some good dough, some sauce and a heaping helping of cheese – usually mozzarella, but you can use a blend – and they’re happy, it seems. Cheese was the top topping by a huge margin, coming up with a search interest score of 64, easily more than the other four most popular options combined.
See Kansas’ top 5 cheese products for another take on dairy-based goodness in the state.
Meat lovers was the second option on the list, according to our research, with a search interest score of 15. This could mean a wide variety of things, depending on where you get your pizza. But pepperoni is usually involved, plus some combination of sausage, meatballs, ham or other products. This being Kansas, it would not shock us if barbecued meat was more popular here than in many other parts of the country.
One of America’s most famous pizza chains, Pizza Hut, was founded in Wichita in 1958. Brothers Dan and Frank Carney, students at Wichita State at the time, borrowed $600 from their mother to open the first restaurant. Legend has it (at least legend as the Pizza Hut website tells it) that they chose the name because they had a sign that only had room for eight letters.
For some, the phrase “meat lovers pizza” might even be synonymous with Pizza Hut, but the company points out that it introduced a plant-based alternative (using meat substitutes) nationwide in 2020.
Speaking of non-meat topping options, vegan pizza comes in at No. 5 on our list. And veggies are part of a supreme pizza, which comes in third.
If this list makes you hungry, our story about the best barbecue in Kansas might just fit the bill.
USA Today Network photo by Caitie McMekin/News Sentinel
Author
Jim Tomlin edits and writes about sports, gambling and the intersection of those two industries. He has 30 years of experience with companies such as the Tampa Bay Times, FanRag, Saturday Down South and Saturday Tradition. He now lends his expertise to BetKansas.com, among other sites.
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