Tried a frozen pizza today and it tasted like wood and hatred. It looked good in the store and it was one of the more expensive kinds, but that did me no good.
I’m not a big pizza guy, and only eat it once or twice a month, but honestly, frozen pizza sucks. Every six months I try another brand just to see if I’ve been colossally unlucky and I always end up feeling like I do now; like I swallowed a big rock, even though I didn’t eat much. I’ve tried mnost of them now, even the much-ballyhooed California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizza, which bore as much resemblance to the pizza served in a real CPK as my bathtub bears resemblance to the Atlantic Ocean.
Surely to God it’s theoretically possible to produce and sell a decent frozen pizza, so why isn’t it done? Is it simply that it would cost so much it wouldn’t be bought?
I think pizza is one of those foods that can only be eaten when freshly cooked. Like eggs. Eggs cannot be reheated sucessfully. Pizza is only good with the dough freshly baked, and the toppings piping hot from the oven. Neither the dough or the cheese fares well being cooked/frozen/reheated.
The same goes for prime rib or steak - cannot be reheated and be anywhere near as good as it was when initially served.
Mozzarella cheese has a high moisture content and just does not age well, especially in an arid environment like the freezer . Every frozen pizza I’ve ever bough was not wrapped very well, and a few were enclosed only in the cardboard box with no plastic shrink-wrapping around the pizza at all.
On the other hand, most frozen pizzas are dirt cheap, sometimes $1.99 for an entire 12"pie. At that price, I don’t really expect it to taste much better than catsup on cardboard. Most of the time I will add my own non-frozen mozzarella and maybe even some fresh tomato slices to give some moisture back to a desiccated frozen pizza.
Freshetta is great, but I haven’t had it since they stopped making the ones with the sauce stuffed crust.
What I do like right now is the Jack’s Garlic Bread Pizza. But you have to watch for it to go on sale. At my megamart, it’s normally $5.79, but then it cycles to 2/$10 and then 3/$8.99. I’m not normally the type of person that watches for things to go on sale, but a frozen pizza for almost $6.00 is too much, but $3.00 is fine, and it’s really good.
Good question. Frozen pizza kind of is its own beast. For me, it’s really a matter of the dough–precooked, reheated pizza dough just doesn’t taste the same as freshly baked dough. That’s the biggest difference for me.
That said, there are a couple of brands I like. I actually prefer Home Run Inn’s frozen pizza to their regular. Palermo’s ultra-thin crust is pretty decent. And I do like CPK’s frozen offerings (I know you say you don’t), but I am grading them on the frozen pizza scale, and I’ve never had their fresh product, so I’m not trying to compare it to that.
I think if you’re going to compare frozen pizza to fresh, you’re always going to be disappointed. My rule of thumb is to keep some cheeses, veggies and maybe meat on hand to spruce up the pizza.
Don’t know about you guys but I think Totino’s Pizza is amazing. They’re a little over a dollar and if you put them in the oven for like a minute and a half less than it tells you to on the box they come out perfectly melted. Delicious.
Never heard of it. Will have to look for it next time I’m in the grocery aisle.
My trick is I never follow the cooking directions. If I have the chance, I’ll let the pizza defrost. If not, I still cook it the same way: stick in a preheated 450 oven, directly on rack, bake until cheese is somewhat browned.
Oh god those are crack. I usually add pepperoni to mine (normal and occasionally turkey based pepperoni) and when it’s done fold it up into a kind of pizza-tacoish looking thing that represents all that’s right and delicious with the world. Eating it could best be described as better than sex with Marisa Tomei.
I have also been doing this for years—Letting it defrost, and then using extra high heat always seems to make the pizza (no matter the specific brand, though I am partial to Red Barron, which can usually be found around here on sale for about 3 bucks if you shop the ads) come out MUCH better than if you slavishly follow the directions on the box.
I have never been one to add toppings at home, as it seems to never work out all that well. Once in a great while I will slice a few olives and toss them on there, or maybe a couple of sliced jalapenos, but for the most part, I just go with the plain cheese option.
In terms of value, Totinos is the best frozen pizza available. Other brands try to make a better product, but the marginal quality drops fast. For pizza, its really all about getting the best product on the market, or the cheapest. The middle ground is sketchy. Both the high end frozen products and the low end fresh products are often disappointing.
DiGornos and Freschetta are both good, but mind you, even a really good frozen pizza only costs about $6. Delivery from a pizzeria costs about $10 if you get it with one of their discount specials, and in my experience will normally cost closer to $15.
So yeah, I would hope the fresh pizza was a lot better, because it costs a lot more.
