- In this Article
- Overview
- Ratings
- How we tested
Taste test: Frozen pizza
Sure, it's convenient—and cheaper than a pizzeria. But can frozen pizza truly satisfy anyone other than undiscriminating kids? In other words, you?
Yes, according to our latest taste test of 16 frozen cheese pies.
There's room for improvement among frozen pizza brands, since no pies were excellent. But most pies in our Ratings (available to subscribers) were very good—as good as or better than the Domino's hand-tossed cheese pizzas we taste-tested in May 2010.
Our tests also show that you shouldn't buy simply by brand. The CR Best Buy DiGiorno pizza scored higher than the other DiGiorno pie we tried; the same was true of the Red Baron pizzas in our tests.
Five pizzas at the bottom of our Ratings scored just OK, with Totino's Crisp Crust Triple Cheese coming in last. Though it was the least expensive pizza in our tests at $1.38, it had the most flaws in its crust (greasy), sauce (sparse and non-tomatoey), cheese (nonspecific), and overall flavor (dehydrated seasonings).
Pizza secrets
Don't thaw the pizza before you cook it.
Use a hot oven. Wait until it reaches the recommended temperature before putting in the pie.
Bake pizza directly on the oven rack. Using a cookie sheet (especially if the edges of the pizza hang off) can make the crust cook unevenly. For the cleanest slices, use a pizza cutter.
To reheat leftovers, put slices in a frying pan on medium heat until the cheese starts to melt.
