They say there's no such thing as bad pizza, but that hasn't stopped the frozen-food industry from waging a decades-long experiment to disprove that old adage. Still, advances in rising-crust science have forced purveyors to step up their game. We're living in the golden age of frozen pizza, and some are even better than the chains.
To find the best, I risked hypothermia in the frozen-food aisle and adult-onset diabetes to taste-test the most common frozen pies on shelves. The criteria: I picked all the major brands available in their classic, most basic forms, and rated them based on cheese, sauce, texture, crust, and overall tastiness. If pepperoni was an option, I went with that. (I'm only human.) Barring that, plain cheese. No French bread, bagels, pockets, or specialties. Just good ol' pizza. This quest is ongoing, will be regularly updated, and will continue until I've eaten them all, or my doctor steps in. Here's how they stacked up so far.
21. Whole Foods 365
When it came out of the oven, this looked like the picture-perfect frozen pizza. In fact, it strongly resembled the ones the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles freebased in the old cartoons: all gooey cheese dripping over the sides to create an alluring crustlessness amid a glimmering sea of pepperoni. So when it tasted so bizarre on the first bite, I immediately thought I had forgotten to remove the plastic. For real. Everything about this tasted weirdly off, from the strangely viscous cheese to the chemically tainted sauce. It looks like an upscale version of the $1.50 Totino's Party Pizza. It tastes like one of those that got left out in the sun. You can do better than this, Whole Foods! Hell, turtles who live in a sewer can too.
20. Simple Truth Organic Pepperoni
There’s just something amiss with this Kroger-brand organic pizza. Drastically amiss. The crust is almost unrelentingly firm, avoiding both chewiness or a satisfying crunch to make it crackery, landing in some dense netherworld that reminds me of semi-dried Elmer’s Glue. The sauce has an odd tang that makes it taste like I had just brushed my teeth before eating it, which I most assuredly did not. The pepperoni is pretty good, and curls up in the way a good slice should, but it’s off-puttingly deep red, like a blood sausage made with scabs. If there’s a takeaway from this off-brand, organic offering, it’s that maybe I just really like nitrates?
19. Tombstone Original
Frozen gets a bum rap, with people automatically assuming it's gonna have a cardboard crust, mealy cheese, tons of grease, and a sauce that tastes a step up from spicy ketchup. That's because of pizza like this. This gets bonus points because it has two kinds of pepperoni (thin discs and thick chunks). The bad news? Both are kind of gross, like somebody tried to make pepperoni in a lab, then got bored and just settled once they beat Pupperoni.
18. Tony's
When I was a kid, our school cafeteria would advertise Tuesday as "Tony's pizza day." As such, it reminded me of childhood… like, the most disappointing parts of childhood, firmly wedged between going to church and finding out the Easter Bunny was actually a Communist. It was really glossy, under-seasoned, and super-bland outside of an acidic punch in the palate. Eating it made me worried that I was going to poop my pants while doing somersaults in Mr. Sacarski's gym class… AGAIN.
17. Amy's Cheese Pizza
Amy's is the go-to brand for folks who want to feel as though they're eating something healthy, yet are still eating pizza. That means no pepperoni (monsters), but that might not be a bad thing if said processed meat would under-deliver as much as the pie itself. There's an overpowering acidity and saltiness on this thing that really kills the mood. The crust is satisfyingly bouncy and the cheese has a nice little stretch, but it suffers from a weird balance between good and fake. And that sauce. Ick. It's like when you start to make your own marinara, realize you did something wrong, but eat it anyway.
16. Red Baron
It tastes like cafeteria pizza, but not the leathery self-serve kind that's been sitting there all day just sweating. Like, fresh-out-of-the-oven cafeteria pizza. The crackery bottom crust is balanced by a surprisingly bouncy topside. The sauce is a little acrid, sure, but the cheese smooths that out nicely, changing it from soapy and strange into something a little blander and more familiar. Basically, if you got your appendix out, then got wheeled down to the hospital mess hall to find this on offer, you'd be pretty stoked.
15. Totino's Party Pizza
There's a time and a place for this weird, flaky pizza with watery sauce and odd little holes in the bottom. It's called 3am, alone, after you got your heart broken at a bar. And at that time, it's perfect. Other times… not so much. BUT hear me out: If you do find yourself in said situation (or very hungry at 4:22), try rolling it up like a burrito. Sure, you'll squirt sauce out of those little holes, but if you're gonna eat your feelings, knuckle up and do it right.
14. Celeste Pizza for One
"Ever since 1969, Mama Celeste has resided in grocery freezers, her 'Pizza for One' boxes bringing comfort and solace to hungry people with $1, a microwave, and a dream. Not much has changed for Celeste over the years -- the box with her face on it still looks like an unloved '70s album cover, and she's still often overlooked in favor of younger, flashier pizzas. Sometimes she likes to think about her heyday, when she was a minor TV star, having been mentioned on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Welcome Back, Kotter and immortalized on The Simpsons. But most of the time she sits, unnoticed, in a Target freezer in Anytown, USA, and remembers the olden times, when an immigrant from Italy busted the doors open for frozen pizzas, only to watch the industry leave her behind. 'Pizza for One,' she thinks from the corner of the box, with a heavy sigh as yet another potential eater passes her up for the frozen White Castles that are on sale on the next shelf. Today, it looks like 'pizza for none.'"
These are the things I thought as I waited for my Celeste to bake. When the pizza came out of the oven, I had another thought: "This tastes almost exactly like Totino's."
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13. Jack's Original Thin Crust
They say that the pizza you ate as a kid ends up becoming your ideal pizza, perhaps because nostalgia is like MSG produced by your lizard brain. I fondly remember eating Jack’s as a kid -- looking forward to it, even -- whenever my dad would bring it home from the grocery store.
So I got excited when I found this lurking at a big-box store. And my consensus is that, as a kid, I was kind of an idiot (my parents, teachers, and caseworkers will vouch for this). The sauce is soupy, almost liquid. The cheese and pep are good, but the crust is like a saltine given moisture by the tomato-soup sauce. Each bite is making me wonder whether my super hot girlfriend from seventh grade was actually attractive. (Note: My mother confirmed that I actually didn't have a girlfriend in seventh grade... the nature of my reality is now in question. Thanks, Jack.)
12. Trader Giotto's 4 Formaggi
Trader Joe's offers up about 900 different takes on pizza, from flatbread to deep dish to minis. This one is the most basic (no pepperoni, though). It's actually got a nice foldability to it, plus an excellent cheese coverage. But damned if this isn't one of the doughiest, most glue-like pizzas out there. The cheese, too, is a sticky mess that sticks to the roof of your mouth in sheets (let it cool!). Not a bad offering by any means, but this is a pizza that stays with you for all the wrong reasons. It's basically soft, savory taffy.
11. Wild Mike's Ultimate Pepperoni
This former mom-and-pop operation out of Oregon has made a big splash nationally thanks to its gigantic pizzas, colorful branding, all-natural ingredients, and commitment to bettering K-12 school cafeterias. So Mike's got a great heart, and a pretty good pizza to boot. The sauce is tangy and has a nice kick, but it's kind of soupy, which causes the cheese to slip around like a frat boy on an ice rink. But it's the pepperoni that drops Mike down in this rank: it's bland and weirdly fishy, representing one of the weirdest-tasting toppings of this rank.
But Mike has some tricks up his sleeve. The thicker crust strikes a nails the balance between crunchy exterior and bready interior, with a little yeasty flavor that evokes old-school French bread pizza and seasons the whole thing with nostalgia. But the real ace here is the fact that Wild Mike thought to include two little packets -- one of Italian spice blend, one of crushed peppers -- into the mix, a simple courtesy that goes a long way to make up for that soupy sauce. That definitely gains Mike status as a trailblazer. Just, you know, maybe skip the pepperoni.
10. Kirkland Signature Thin Crust
The pizza at the Costco food court is magical, and its tastiness is all the more remarkable when you become hypnotized watching a robot make it. I’m assuming the Kirkland signature brand, too, is made by a robot, but this one, divorced from the glorious fluorescent limelight of Costco stores, isn’t functioning on all cylinders. There’s nothing inherently bad here. In fact, among the more cardboard crusted pizzas, it’s fine. But it’s also just... meh. The slightly sweet sauce and kiss of sugar in the crust is welcome, but it’s all but buried in a mountain of cheap pepperoni on top, which completely masks the cheese. The generosity of processed meat is appreciated as well as expected: Of course Costco puts enough pepperoni on its frozen pizzas to cover 15 of its competitors’ pies. But it’s also the greasiest of the lot. You’ll need about 15 paper towels to get through the greasy lake on top. Luckily, you’re at Costco, so you can buy paper towels in bulk. And also get some way better pizza in the food court.
9. Mama Cozzi’s Rising Crust
In another era, Mama Cozzi’s Rising Crust would be a game changer, with its springy crust, salty cheese, and slightly sweet sauce working extremely well together for a solid out-of-oven experience. But in a world where rising crust pizzas are now the norm, in-house Aldi pizza just kind of fails to stand out. It’s a little bland. A little forgettable. So much so that the flavor all but fades away from your mouth the minute you’re done chewing. And, strangely for a discount grocer like Aldi, it’s a little more expensive than Freschetta and DiGiorno (at least at most locations). All is not lost, though: Mama Cozzi makes a solid take & bake pizza, plus Stouffer’s caliber French bread variations. Mama will be fine. But you can do better.
8. California Pizza Kitchen Crispy Thin Crust
This pie from the famed mall-adjacent pizza chain gets some props for getting a tad fancier: The pepperoni has a pronounced smokiness, there are little diced-up tomatoes, and the cheese -- blocks of mozz and smoked Gouda -- is flecked with basil haphazardly, as if some stoned teenager at the mall personally shook the herb on top. The crust, too, stands out with its crackery texture and slight saltiness. But those flourishes are also a bit of a downer because they give the illusion that you ordered a much better pizza before the overall meh of it reminds you that it was frozen. If you did order this at a restaurant, you'd be bummed. Unless you ordered it at California Pizza Kitchen, in which case you're probably on a high school date in Middle America. Good job getting closer to second base, my friend!
7. Newman's Own Uncured Pepperoni
Here's a pizza you can feel good about: Newman's Own donates all of its profits to charity. But it also might make you feel a little woozy after you house the whole thing. The cheese here is pretty on point, and the sauce has a hint of spice that goes great with the thicker-than-normal uncured pepperoni. This is a damn fine frozen pizza until you consider the crust, which can't make it past the cardboard phase. Still, the whole package more than makes up for a little blandness on the back end. Kind of like The Color of Money.
6. Screamin' Sicilian Holy Pepperoni
With its goofy/fun packaging complete with a cut-out mustache, Screamin' Sicilian has made a splash among the new wave of pizzas vying for space in your freezer, and damned if it isn't a strong contender in the increasingly crowded field. The crust is actually foldable and doesn’t have that weird cardboard texture: in fact, it closely resembles Freschetta's Brick Oven Pizza, which would easily rise to the top of the pile were we discussing different intra-brand offerings (rules is rules). The cheese in particular is dynamite, with a stretchiness that approaches pizzeria caliber. The thick-cut pepperoni is applied generously.
The only thing keeping this from true greatness is the sauce, which is just a tad too tangy, making good on that promise/threat to "assault your taste buds" on the box. That's a matter of personal taste, though it'd be a lot easier to ignore if said sauce wasn’t applied so abundantly. Still, this is a solid pizza, and its relatively low ranking just shows how far we've come since the days when Mama Celeste reigned supreme.
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5. Archer Farms Pepperoni & Three Cheese Frozen Wood-Fired Crust Pizza
For those of you who don’t know -- likely because you’re not a soccer parent -- Archer Farms is Target’s in-store brand. Folks like my sister, whose kids are great at soccer, are all about the Archer. Despite ringing endorsements, when I took the pizza out of the box I got a little worried: This looks like your garden-variety rising-crust pizza, but, as the very-long name indicates, the base is cooked. The little char marks immediately raised a flag, and a suspicion that this would be another hunk of cheesy cardboard.
Friends, and soccer parents, I was wrong.
This is the 21st frozen pizza I have eaten on this odyssey, but it’s the first time I’ve gotten pizza bubbles like the ones you see at charming at mom & pop shops. This weirdly endeared me to the pizza immediately. But there’s a lot more going for it than bubbles: turns out, pre-cooking the cook gives it a much airier texture, and while that sacrifices the bouncy texture some might expect, it makes up for it by tasting an awful lot like a disc-shaped French bread pizza. The cheese is salty and generous, and has the texture of soft halloumi. The sauce -- an Achilles heel of so many of these pies, which rely on an overload of pepper to mask the acidity -- is simple, sweet, and tangy. The pepperoni is used sparingly and doesn’t have that weird carrion taste that ruins weaker entries. This is, shockingly, a damn solid entry. And it pairs perfectly with Target wine, another thing we'd all do well to listen to people who drive minivans about.
4. Freschetta
The crust here is the closest any frozen pizza has currently gotten to tasting fresh. If you time it right, it's springy and altogether delightful. It can't match that pizzeria bounce you get from thicker-crust offerings, but it's close, and the stringy cheese goes a long way in heightening the experience. It's a bit generic, but in a great way. But the sauce is the real detriment here. It's got a kick to it that overpowers everything, which would be fine if this thing wasn't swimming in it. It just straight-up drowns everything out. It's a shame that it derails such a solid pie -- and make no mistake, this is a solid pie. The good news? Freschetta makes a great brick-oven square pie, but that only makes the OG's collapse at the finish line that much more tragic.
3. Signature Select Rising Crust
I am frankly aghast -- nay, flabbergasted -- that this store-brand DiGiorno knockoff placed this high, and even beat out Freschetta, which was my predicted winner here. But here we are. Why?
First, the crust, which tastes almost exactly like a HOT-N-READY from Little Caesars. That isn't exactly the epitome of takeout, but hits a certain nostalgia spot. It's flecked with Parmesan (nice touch) that gives it an almost Crazy Breadish vibe, and the crust almost completely avoids that cardboard texture. It’s, hands down, the best crust of the bunch. Bouncy, crunchy, pillowy. Bravo, off-brand pizza (available at stores like Safeway, Vons, and Albertsons!).
But there's a downside: It's topped with what appears to be pizza soup, a combination of mozz and a runny, relatively tame sauce that feels more like an afterthought until you consider that there's so much of it. And the pepperoni -- here piled on in discs and thick strips -- is clearly brand X. Five paper towels later, it was still a slippery mess of grease, and combined with the sauce and cheese, it completely changed the middle into a mess of doughy goop. The closer you get to the crust, the better it gets. But that's a lot of wasted real estate in the center.
2. DiGiorno
Look, this isn't a "real" pizza. The crust is exceedingly firm on the bottom and doughy on top. But this pizza feels like it's really, really trying to be a real pizza, and it's largely succeeding. I'd rather eat this than Domino's or Papa Murphy's any day.
The cheese? Salty and elastic. The sauce? Slightly sweet but with a nice little red pepper spice to make it the best of the bunch. Even more important, unlike the other top contenders, it doesn't appear to be applied by a hyperactive 2-year-old given free reign on a stock pot and a big-ass ladle. No, you would never believe that this was delivery. But you also probably wouldn't care, because this is one of the most balanced and nuanced of all the options in your freezer. An obvious choice? Sure. But it's obvious for a reason.
1. Home Run Inn Classic Pepperoni
Generally speaking, it's best to ignore internet comments. I'm sorry. I'm sure you're all lovely people, but sometimes you're just insane. But following the original publication of this article, the sheer volume of people touting the virtues of this Chicago-area favorite made it all but necessary to taste, and luckily Home Run Inn can now be found nationwide, if you know where to look. (I found it at Whole Foods.) Turns out, you were right, commenters! About this pizza. Not about the world being flat.
This isn't the pizza you imagine when you crave a quick fix, unless you grew up with it in Chicago and went to a very specific pizzeria (called Home Run Inn, in case you didn't realize it). A deep-dish or Chicago thin-crust this ain't: It's more a hybrid, taking the butteriness of a deep-dish, then flattening it out. The crust is dense, rich, and buttery rather than fluffy, and tastes a lot like a mix between a cracker and a savory pie crust. But when it mingles with the slightly sweet and tangy sauce, the blanket of immaculately salty and stretchy mozz, and the mildly spicy uncured pepperoni, some sort of magical alchemy occurs. No, this isn't what you were imagining when you decided to get a pizza at the grocery store. It's better. The best frozen pizza on the market, in fact. Time to start questioning this spherical world "science."
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