Best Frozen Pizzas - Consumer Reports (2024)

I was a very picky eater as a child, and didn’t have my first slice of pizza until I was 14. After that, though, there was no looking back. From New Haven coal-fired apizza to the huge, slightly oily slices at New York’s Famous Ray’s to Neapolitan thin crust and Chicago deep dish, I love it all.

Except for frozen pizza. My impression was that the crust tasted like cardboard, the cheese was squeaky, and the sauce bland or sour. But I have to admit that I really hadn’t eaten too many frozen pizzas, and I’ve had my preconceived notions about other foods proved wrong (case in point: boxed wine).

Red Baron is the crowd pleaser, with a balance of flavors and textures that are just right. You get the distinct taste of crust, sauce, and cheese in each bite. “Overall, this one exceeded my expectations,” said Lauren Friedman, who heads up CR’s health and food team. As it said on the box, the crust wasn’t too thick or too thin. “It has the right amount of texture and crispiness,” said Brian Ronholm, food policy director, and it wasn’t at all bland.

The pizza is topped with mozzarella, cheddar, provolone, and Parmesan. It’s quite cheesy, and the cheese goes right to the edges of the crust. Most of us felt the blend of cheeses gave this pizza quite a lot of flavor. “I could taste the various cheeses on the pizza,” said Brian. Lauren, though, tasted only mozzarella.

The sauce is the standout here. “It’s very peppery and gives the whole pizza a more well-rounded and interesting taste,” Lauren said. For me, it had the best sauce of all the pizzas we tried.

The experience we had cooking this one is a good reminder that ovens vary and different people can get different results even when they use the same temperature.

The recommended cooking time is 18 to 21 minutes. I cooked it for 19 minutes, and although the cheese was melted and the crust was browned at the edges, the crust was slightly doughy in the middle. I’d give it another minute or so next time. Lauren cooked hers for 20 minutes and said the crust was crisp at the edges and had a nice chew, but the cheese burned in spots and tasted a bit overcooked. So whether you like your pizza chewy or charred, for this (and all) pizzas, start to check your pie at the minimum recommended cooking time and keep close tabs on it from there.

In the Mintel survey, more than 90 percent of pizza buyers said that a good crust is essential to a great pizza. I couldn’t agree more. You want the crust to be more than a vehicle for the sauce and cheese, and have a distinct flavor of its own. Though Amy’s isn’t my top pick, I would buy it again just for the crust—and for its aroma. After the pizza was in the oven for a few minutes, my kitchen was filled with a delicious seasoned bready scent, and my husband and I both thought it smelled just like a pizza parlor.

In addition to being very tasty—a little cheesy, garlicky, and salty, plus a strong toasted flavor—the crust browns nicely and is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. The crust impressed deputy editor Diane Umansky and her family. “It’s more substantial than a thin crust pie, but it’s not overly bready,” her 20-year-old son said. Lauren’s partner called it “a solid freezer pizza.”

Our tasters were divided on the quality of the sauce and cheese. Diane thought there was a good amount of cheese and the sauce was “pretty darn good for a frozen pizza”—simple and not overly seasoned. It’s her favorite pizza of the ones she tried. “The cheese was plentiful—perhaps too plentiful—but there isn’t nearly enough sauce,” said Lauren. “And the sauce doesn’t have enough tang to counter the blandness of the cheese and the crust.”

The cost of this pie was a bit off-putting. It was by far the priciest of the pizzas we purchased—almost twice as costly as some of them. “I’m not sure I’d spend that kind of money for a frozen pizza again,” Diane said, “especially since we’d need several of them to feed our family.”

The box promises a ridiculous amount of cheese, and does not disappoint. The crust is there only as a base for the cheese, and if that’s what you’re after, you’ll be happy.

“The sauce and cheese come up pretty close to the edges, but there’s still a small crust around the border,” said deputy editor Natalie van der Meer. “The cheese has a nice stretchy consistency, and the Parmesan flavor comes through.” She also liked that the crust is thick but not doughy and that it has the right amount of saltiness. The sauce, which she felt was the most flavorful of the pizzas she tried, gives you a hit of garlic and robust tomato flavor. “I’d definitely buy this for myself.”

To me, the cheese has a little milky flavor, but otherwise is a bit bland.And the pizza is a little too cheesy—not all of the cheese was melted by the time the crust was brown and ready. Brian thought it was overly cheesed, too. “There isn’t enough sauce, so there are a lot of bites that taste more like cheesy breadsticks,” he said.

This doesn’t bill itself as a thin-crust pizza, but it is. “The crust is yummy—the outside is crisp but the inside is slightly soft, which is hard to achieve in a thinner crust pie,” said Diane. “And it’s ready in 7 minutes—a bonus if you’re trying to get a meal on the table fast.”

Several of us agreed that the sauce was on the skimpy side. Still, it has that rich deep flavor of a tomato sauce that’s been left to simmer for hours. It’s nicely spiced, but it has an odd flavor that sent both Natalie and me to comb the ingredients list. Turns out it’s dill, which isn’t a seasoning that you expect tofind in pizza. You can definitely taste it, but it’s not too distracting.

Mild, milky mozzarella is the primary cheese; a little more of the Grana Padano, listed in the ingredients list, would add a welcome note of sharpness. But you do get the flavor of the crust, sauce, and cheese in every bite. On the down side, this pie is pretty salty. Indeed, it has the highest amount of sodium per serving of the ones we tested: 840 mg in one-third of the pizza.

DiGiorno is the top-selling frozen pizza brand in the U.S., and the last time CR looked at frozen pizza in a 2017 lab test, our sensory panel found this to be one of the better-tasting products. This time, it didn’t fare as well with our evaluators. The crust does indeed rise as promised and flavor is inoffensive with a slight yeasty note. But it’s an overly bready, doughy pie, with a white bread texture that goes gummy in your mouth. It didn’t crisp up for me—in fact, the crust was so floppy that I had trouble getting the pizza out of the oven. Putting half of it back in for 5 extra minutes didn’t improve the crust’s texture much.

Despite not really liking this one at all, my husband and I still finished our pie. But Lauren and her partner just... couldn’t. “I hate food waste, so it really pains me to share this, but I could only have a couple of bites of this one,” she said. “Right into the compost with you, DiGiorno.”

It wasn’t a hit with CR health reporter and writer Catherine Roberts, either, though she said it was okay. “Just out of the oven, the crust is pleasantly chewy, though I wish it were crispier on the bottom. And this is a sauce-heavy pizza. It tastes alright, but it’s overpowering, so I couldn’t taste the cheese [mozzarella, Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano] at all. The sauce also makes the crust soggy in some places.”

Other Frozen Pizzas We Tried

How We Evaluated Frozen Pizzas

Each pizza we chose was reviewed by at least three people, and all the pies were cooked in home ovens, according to package directions.

Evaluations focused on the taste and texture of each component of the pizza—crust, sauce, and cheese—on their own, as well as the overall flavor experience.

Although pizza is a simple food, its combination of ingredients can produce a complex, savory flavor called umami, which is the result of glutamate. This amino acid (a building block of protein) is a flavor booster, and cheese and tomatoes naturally contain a lot of it. In addition, under high heat, the crust and the toppings undergo a series of chemical reactions collectively known as the Maillard reaction, which occurs when amino acids and sugars in food interact. This causes the browning of the cheese and crust, but also leads to a variety of molecular changes that create different flavor compounds and aromas. These factors don’t always guarantee a perfect pizza, as our evaluation shows, but they help to explain why a good pizza can be irresistible.

Before we started our tasting, I consulted with Amy Keating, RD, a food sensory expert who heads CR’s food tasting lab to get her take on what makes for a great-tasting pizza. The tasters used these criteria in their evaluations.

Crust. A high-quality pizza should have a crust that is distinctly crispy on the edge and the bottom, but not so crispy that the interior of the crust is dried out. When you bite into it, the crust should have some give and a bit of chewiness without being tough. A soggy, flabby, doughy crust is undesirable.

Cheese. The cheese should provide some flavor other than just salt. The flavor can be mild and milky, but it should taste like something. The cheese should be stringy—when you bite into it there should be some softness and stretch, and it should adhere to the crust enough that you don’t pull all the cheese off a slice in a single bite. You also want a pizza to have enough cheese. Although that’s a matter of personal preference, we considered how the amount of cheese on each pizza compared with others in our evaluation.

Sauce. The flavor of either fresh or cooked tomatoes and a pleasant acid-to-sugar ratio are key. You don’t want a sauce that is just sweet or acidic, or too salty. A fresh tomato sauce will have a lighter taste than one that is reduced in cooking, which has a deeper, somewhat caramelized flavor. Either is acceptable.

5 Steps to Getting the Best Results

How you cook a frozen pie makes a big difference. Keating has some cooking tips:

1. Don’t thaw the pizza before you cook it. Cook time is based on it being frozen.

2. Preheat your oven and let it sit at the recommended temperature for a few minutes before you put in the pizza.

3. Place the pizza directly on the center oven rack. The crust will crisp up better.You could put it on a baking sheet if you like a softer crust, but you may have to adjust the cooking time. If you’re worried about spills, place a baking sheet on the rack below the one you’re cooking the pizza on.

4. Wait a few minutes before you cut. This will give the flavors a chance to meld and also allow the ingredients to firm up a bit. And you’ll get a cleaner slice with a pizza cutter or kitchen shears than with a knife.

5. Got leftovers? You could reheat them in the oven, back on the rack, but you may not want to rev it up for a slice or two. An air fryer works well and does a good job of re-crisping the crust. Place the pizza on the frying plate inside the air-fryer basket, and set the temperature to 360° F. Air-fry for 4 to 6 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling. You can also use a toaster oven. Just don’t microwave—you’re likely to end up with a soggy slice.

(If you’re interested in making your own pizzas, check out these healthier pizza recipes from CR’s test kitchens.)

A Note on Nutrition

We evaluated these pizzas on taste alone, but as someone who’s been covering food and nutrition for a lot of years, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out a couple of things.

First, be realistic about the portion size you will eat and don’t let the nutrition numbers fool you. You might look at the calories on the nutrition facts label and think, “hey, 300 per serving—that’s not so bad.” But those numbers are just for a fraction of a pizza, and the serving size varies.

I can practically guarantee that you will eat more than what’s listed as one serving, which ranges from ⅙ to ⅓ pizza among the pies in our review. In fact, one of these pizzasprobably will feed just two adults, maybe three for the larger ones. And the smaller pies might feed only one very hungry adult. For half of a pizza, the calories in the pies we looked at ranged from 435 to 900.

And even if you did just eat the amount listed on the box, you’d be swallowing a lot of salt. One serving of the lowest-sodium pie (Amy’s Cheese Pizza) in our evaluation supplies about a quarter of the maximum amount of sodium you should have in a day (2,300 mg).

The way around this is to make a quarter or third of a pizza more satisfying by bulking it up. Topping it with vegetables, like peppers, mushrooms, or onions, increases the fiber count, which will make a smaller serving of pizza filling. To make sure they’re cooked when the pizza is done, sauté them first. Or turn it intoa salad pizza by placing some raw arugula and fresh tomatoes, lightly dressed in olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, on the pizza after cooking. If you prefer your pizza plain, you can get the same benefit by serving a big salad or a plate of roasted vegetables on the side.