Who hasn’t eaten a really bad frozen pizza? While being fairly cheap and convenient, many of these pizzas won’t give you the taste experience of a lifetime!
But why does frozen pizza taste so bad sometimes? And can it taste good?
Most frozen pizzas with poor flavor have low-quality ingredients and are produced at large scale and low costs. How you cook your pizza can also affect its overall quality and taste.
Keep reading this article and find out why frozen pizzas aren’t as good as fresh ones, how you can make them better, and what the best frozen pizza brands are.
Why Is Frozen Pizza Not as Good as Fresh?
Let’s be honest; store-bought frozen pizza will never beat a fresh homemade or restaurant pizza! I’ve never tried a frozen pizza that did, anyways!
But why exactly are frozen pizzas so inferior to fresh ones?
Well, for one thing, they are mass-produced frozen foods. Naturally, that will make them less qualitative than a stone-oven pizza baked with care and love. That’s just a fact!
They are produced industrially at a large scale and include lower quality ingredients than fresh pizza.
That’s why frozen pizzas are so cheap; they have a relatively low production cost, and the ingredients used for frozen pizzas are inexpensive.
Naturally, then, this will affect the overall taste of frozen pizza.
Cheap ingredients like highly processed ham, bacon, or sausage, high-fat cheeses, tomato sauces with a higher water content, and cheap white flour will do that to a pizza!
How you cook your frozen pizza can also affect its overall quality, texture, and flavor.
If you’re going to microwave your frozen pizza straight out of the freezer, you won’t end up with a beautifully baked and crunchy piece of art. That one is pretty obvious!
But even baking it hastily or at a low temperature in the oven can mess things up pretty badly.
Again, though, frozen pizza is a convenient fast food that people want to be able to cook and eat reasonably quickly.
Is it supposed to taste good? Why even bother, right? Wrong! It’s your food; of course it should be tasty!
Can Frozen Pizza Taste Good?
Not all frozen pizza brands are bad. In fact, my family and I find quite a few of them pretty tasty!
I’ll go over some of the best-frozen pizza brands in the next section of the article, but generally speaking, the higher-end pizzas using high-quality ingredients tend to taste much better than the cheaper uncooked ones.
Some brands also (partially) pre-bake their pizzas in a stone oven, resulting in a next-level frozen pizza experience!
The higher price often means higher-quality ingredients. Additionally, using good quality flour will give the frozen pizza a rising crust that’s moist and soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Almost like the real deal.
You may have to pay a few dollars extra for a frozen pizza like that, but it’s undoubtedly a healthier and tastier choice!
And that brings us to the second point; taste.
Believe it or not, better ingredients, better crust, and the process of pre-baking the pizza dough in an actual stone oven can make for a pretty good frozen pizza!
Granted, it still doesn’t beat a delicious homemade or restaurant pizza, but for being frozen fast food, it can still go a long way.
So what are some of the tastiest and most qualitative frozen pizzas out there?
What Are the Best Frozen Pizza Brands?
There are plenty of frozen pizza brands offering all kinds of types of pizza. Most of them aren’t very good, but a few brands have managed to come up with a really qualitative and tasty product.
DiGiorno
DiGiorno frozen pizza is probably the best frozen pizza brand in the US! They use high-quality ingredients, and their pizzas are known for having a delicious self-rising crust that makes for really good eating.
The Digiorno Pepperoni Pizza is one of America’s most popular frozen pizza choices.
Red Baron
Red Baron’s Classic frozen pizzas are a true American classic. This very old and trusted brand offers a wide variety of tasty frozen pizzas at a reasonable price.
Their Four Cheese Pizza is especially popular among consumers, and so is the more recently added Stuffed Crust Pizza.
It’s not the healthiest thing you can eat, but those four cheese pizzas are just too delicious!
Dr. Oetker
If you’re more into European-style pizzas with a thinner crust, Dr. Oetker’s Virtuosa pizza is definitely the right pick for you.
While mostly popular in Europe, Dr. Oetker also established itself in the North American market.
Their Virtuosa brand has a very thin yet deliciously bready crust and comes with many exciting and yummy toppings:
- Mozzarrella and Pesto
- Pepperoni and Pesto
- Mushroom
- Spinach
- Seasoned Chicken
DID YOU KNOW: Over here in Europe, we also have the Dr. Oetker Traditionale, which has a stone oven pre-baed crust that is to die for! Unfortunately, the Traditionale has yet to be available in America.
How Do You Make Frozen Pizza Taste Better?
Not everyone likes or can afford those brands, but there are ways to make even a regular frozen pizza taste much better.
Here are some easy tips and hacks that can upgrade a dull frozen pizza to a delicious dinner:
- Defrost your frozen pizza before cooking it. This allows your pizza to absorb some of the moisture that sits on top of it while it’s frozen and will give it better texture and flavor.
- Bake your pizza at a very high temperature. Surprisingly, this will make your crust super soft on the inside and deliciously crunchy on the outside.
- Use a pizza stone. Thanks to it, your crust will be even better!
- Brush some olive oil on the crust. Again, this is a secret hack to the perfect crust.
- Go wild with your toppings. Who says you can’t add toppings to your dull frozen pizza? Have you got some nice cheese, ham, pepperoni, tomatoes, spinach, arugula, or spices at home? Put them on for an entirely different frozen pizza experience. Just make sure you put them on the right at the end or when your pizza is done baking! Fresh toppings always taste the best!
RELATED READING: This Is Why You Should Defrost Your Pizza Before Baking
Should You Eat Frozen Pizza?
This is a much-debated question. Ultimately, the answer is up to you and you alone!
Is frozen pizza a healthy food? Certainly not, but eating one even once in a while will probably not kill you.
As always, when it comes to food, the key is balance.
In a perfect world, with enough time and excess to all the best and healthiest foods available, you’d probably never eat a frozen pizza.
But that’s not how life works. Many of us live stressful lives. We work a lot, have partners and kids to care for, a household, finances, friends and the wider family, etc.
So sometimes, we go ahead and buy some frozen pizzas for dinner! It’s convenient, not too expensive, and, as the article shows, these types of pizzas can actually taste quite okay as well.
And so, as long as you have a varied diet and eat plenty of greens and whole grains, I believe you can totally eat the occasional less healthy frozen pizza! Just don’t make it a habit.
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