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By Kara Reinhardt, Cheapism.com
Pizzaioli will tell you that a perfect pie with exquisitely crisp crust comes from a brick oven heated to upward of 800 degrees.
If you don’t often have the luxury of eating out (much less a kitchen with a brick oven), pizza is more likely to come from a freezer set to 0 degrees. Frozen pizza may be no match for a Neapolitan pie, but it has its own appeal for cash-strapped parents with picky kids and time-strapped professionals with otherwise dormant kitchens. Cheapism.com set out to find the best cheap alternatives to restaurant, delivery, and pricey cook-at-home pies by conducting a blind taste test of 10 frozen cheese and pepperoni pizzas. All the sample pies cost less than 30 cents per ounce.
Here are the ones that received the highest scores from the nine-person panel:
- Freschetta Signature Pepperoni (purchase price: $5.99 for 27.35 ounces, or 22 cents an ounce) stood out from typically anemic frozen pizzas for its flavorful, plentiful sauce. Panelists also appreciated the spice they detected in this pepperoni pizza. All but one considered it tasty enough to buy and eat again. (Where to buy)
- Freschetta 4-Cheese Medley ($5.99 for 26.11 ounces, or 23 cents an ounce) took the top spot among cheese pizzas with its well-balanced ingredients, including piquant sauce, flecks of herb, and a mix of cheeses. Even the crust, often a weakness of frozen pizza, came close to inspiring a positive consensus among the panelists. (Where to buy)
- Trader Giotto’s Pizza 4 Formaggi ($3.99 for 13.4 ounces, or 30 cents an ounce) is a private-label product that takes its Italianized name from the specialty grocer Trader Joe’s. It may not have been the prettiest pizza in the group, but tasters found it one of the most flavorful -- particularly for plain cheese. This is a smaller pie with a higher price per ounce, but those who preferred it were fervent admirers. (Where to buy)
- DiGiorno Half & Half ($5 for 30 ounces, or 17 cents an ounce) makes an attractive choice for anyone with a household divided between cheese and pepperoni loyalists. However, the pepperoni people will be happiest with this pizza, according to the panel. Testers liked the spicy pepperoni and tangy sauce but not the stiff cheese. (Where to buy)
Panelists rated each pizza on a scale of 1 to 5 based on appearance, aroma, texture, and, above all, taste. While these are undeniably subjective measures, testers tried to assess the pizzas as objectively as possible. Nowhere was this more apparent than in their evaluation of Totino’s Party Pizzas, the cheapest on offer at just $1 per pie, or about 10 cents an ounce. Two panelists gave the brand poor scores and acknowledged the pizza’s low quality even as they called it a personal favorite and went back for seconds. One explained that it brought back memories of college and the other admitted that she loved the fake, processed taste. Some online reviewers likewise seem to embrace the product for what it is, rather than seek out a closer yet still subpar imitation of a proper pizza.
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Did they sample Red Baron? It is very good now that they've changed their recipe.
We love Red Baron and Frechetta,the self rising crust one.
Green Mill and Home Run Inn have decent frozen pizza, but I think they are only in the Midwest.
I too find Red Baron to be a very good choice and even lower costs than the highly rated ones here. I have learned that the way to improve these pizzas is to remove the toppings and to sprinkle with fresh mozarella and then to retop the pizza with the toppings - even adding some additional ones. The taste is much improved. Another good tip is to use left over spaghetti sauce on the pizzas - remove toppings, spread sauce over frozen cheese, add the fresh mozarella, and retop with the toppings removed earlier. The extra cost is next to nothing and you bridge the fresh pizza / frozen pizza gap for a superior pie.
I love party pizzas!
The Party Pizza's are great with a little more added.
Coupons get the price down to under a DOLLAR each and coupons added for free Pepperoni's make it a GREAT Pizza.
I hate those thick crust pizza's. They are just terrible.
"Best Frozen Pizza" is sort of like "Tallest Pygmy in The Tribe".
They all suck. (The pizzas, not the pygmys)
Hands down Heggies!!
give me a stack of Totino's boxes and just get OUT MY WAY !!!
Yeah, I got use to eating them in college. Started adding a few toppings to their cheese pizza such as fresh bell pepper, mushrooms, onions, beef, and oregano and a tad of garlic. Before long, I had some buddies asking me when is the next "Totino night". That's what we started calling those great evenings. Tasted great with cold brews.
Kraft has a new brand out called Dr. Oetker that is really good and decent for you. Same with Kaschi (several good offerings). My favorite is still Newman's Own White Caesar Pizza. And if I were to splurge on fat and salt I would go with a brand called Home Run Inn (especially the uncured pepperoni).
Don't knock frozen pizza. You can buy quality ingredients and add them easily. I put gourmet mushrooms all over mine. Far better and healthier than garbage chains like Papa John's, Domino's, and Pizza Hut. Might as well buy a hunk of white bread, gnaw on it, swill some tomato sauce and bite out of a hunk of mozzarella. Then swallow half a shaker of salt. Better to be blind than to read the details on those pies.
None of these listed would make my list. Waaaayyyy tooooo muuuuch salt!
your post was rather Salty
You can make any of them far better with a little extra pizza sauce and fresh mozzerella cheese. As always in a Friday night tradition, a big doobie will make everything so good......
Make sure you stock up for the attack of the munchies.
Sprinkle that doobie on the pizza and kill 2 birds with 1 STONE!
I would dress up a cheese one with onions, olives, peppers, sliced tomatoes,sardines, some Italian seasonings, and into the oven for three to five minutes longer than the box says, and it would be home again, in the 60's, when pizza came from a Chef Boy R Dee box.
We ONLY buy Freschetta's pizzas (we prefer the brick oven crust to the thick crust). We simply prefer them to any of the other major brands.
I just saw a new pizza in Walmarts ad this week. Bought and tried it, best frozen pizza we have ever enjoyed called Digiorno Pizzeria. My kids have a new favorite.
I would never shop Walmart.They treat their employees lousy and do not promote very many women to the higher levels of management.Your screen name suggest that you are female so you should also boycott that store.Most of Walmart's employees receive some form of government assistance because they make peanuts.Most of them do not participate in their company's health insurance benefit plan because they don't make enough money to pay for it.
....really?.....and who is holding these employees hostage so that they are forced to work in Walmart???.....this is America.....go get a better job if you don't like the one you have, like everyone else has to do...whiner....
You are right, nobody is holding them hostage. They can quit and Wally world will hire more people that need public assistance to help them survive.
.....really?....think much?
Better choices are the pre-made (not frozen) stuff at Sam's, Costco even Wally-mart. Most are actually better then starving to death.
These and the rest of the so-called pizzas sold in the USA
continued: wouldn't pass muster in Italy. There pizza consists of cheese and tomato on seasoned dough placed in a bloody hot wood-fired oven for about 5 minute [or less] and it comes out bubbling hot and delicious.
Beppe,You are right about the pizza in Italy.Although the article was about frozen pizza found at the store.I love Freschetta self rising four cheese pizza and Red Baron.
i still dont buy pizza, frozen or delivered. Not the healtiest food by far. Rather cook at home, at least i know whats in it.
That's the true measure of food. Do you want seconds? Some days, Totinio's Party Pizza is the best comfort food around.
Palermo's Primo Thin crust pizza.
BOO! Who eats thick crust anything? They are lousy, chewy, and it's closer to having ketchup on a loaf of bread than it is to pizza. You should have rated thin crust, the only REAL pizza.
Score: 1 pepperoni out of 5
Best pizza i ever had was while growing up in Rhode Island. We went to the Italian bakery and boyght fresh pizza dough. My mom did the rest - made dough boys w/ the leftover dough. Fry the dough in olive oil and roll in granulated sugar. I'm leaving work now to catch a plane!!!!! LOL
Pizza is very healthy - depending what is on it. You MUST use olive oil, which most people don't use because of the cost.
I prefer Safeway Select Pizzas, they are cheaper and are usually very good. You can find them on sale a lot for 3.99 and with a coupon 3.49 Not bad for good quality!!!!
For cheap Pizza I prefer Jacks brand, Supreme, its better than most for the price but then again there's now so dang many out there its getting stupid to even try them all.
I dunno, what got me through college was the Trader Joe's Spinach Pizzas (from the fridge section). They come 6 for $3.00, and you just use them as your base, put on chicken and bacon, or sausage and peppers, and some cheese. Even with having to add the topping, still a cheaper, and way tastier, option then any of these.
Never seen a Trader Joes but I can attest the other pizzas on this list are very good (by frozen pizza standards, anyway). Red Baron as others have mentioned is also a family favorite.
Red Baron has some specialty one the other day that was real good, an upgraded version of the regular.
DiGiorno's is probly the best. California Pizza Kitchen was overpriced crap when I tried it.
And of course...when everyone was little Totino's or Jeno's were great hahahahah.
I think the independent neighborhood pizza joints make the best. We have Dolce Vita in Green lane ,Pa.
But, try ALDI's prepared pizzas'. $5.99. for 16" pizza. Not bad, not bad at all, and the price is right