We tried all these frozen pizzas. With one exception, they weren’t terrible.
Last week’s post produced a number of comments from people who have found decent frozen pizzas at Aldi’s and Trader Joe’s. After trying them, we have to agree that not all frozen pizza is terrible and the problem is the low expectations that supermarkets have for their customers when stocking the freezer case. Here’s what we tried:
Roasted Garlic and Pesto Pizza with Deep Fried Crust from Trader Joe’s. Good flavors and an addictive chewy crust. (One commenter said he liked the crust so much he wished he could buy it plain and add its own toppings.) It didn’t have enough toppings for us, but that’s our general complaint about Neapolitan-style pizzas.
Pizza Parlano from Trader Joe’s. The Trader features this pie proudly on his website and several readers recommended it, but it’s a hard pass for us. Crust and toppings have the mediocre taste and texture of the frozen pizzas that prompted our original outrage, in spite of “Italian sausage, uncured pepperoni, roasted peppers & roasted onions”. Actually, we think the inclusion of green peppers may be a key to the frozen pizza problem as they turn watery when heated up.
Artisan Style Crust Pizza: Pepperoni with Mushrooms and Black Olives from Aldi’s. Really good sharp flavors, especially the black olives, on a crust that was neither too crackery or too bready. Readers had recommended several Aldi’s pizzas, but our local store was out of most of them. We also tried:
Carolina Inspired BBQ Thin Crust Pizza from Aldi’s. The most cracker-y crust of any we tried, but redeemed by a generous and juicy topping with a sweet barbecue flavor. A lesson to other makers who keep their toppings light because they think the thin crust won’t stand up to thicker layers of cheese and sauce.
A surprise in our supermarket pizza case!
Semidried Tomato & Brie Pizza from Price Chopper. A sleeper! We found this in the freezer case in our local supermarket alongside other thoroughly mediocre pizzas with the PICS house brand. The toppings were juicy and flavorful and the crust was just right; wouldn’t be upset to be served this at a pizzeria. Sadly, this is the only “Artisanal Hand-Crafted” pizza in the case. The awkward title (and the fact it is not included in the pizza listings on their website) suggests some marketing experimentation at work. We hope it is successful because we would buy more pizzas like this one.
