10 Supermarket Frozen Pizzas, Ranked From Worst To Best

To many, frozen pizzas represent the end of a long workday or a college dorm all-nighter, but to me, frozen pizzas are reminiscent of my younger, carefree days after college, when it was just my partner and me, in our very first apartment together as a married couple.

With little money and less inclination to cook, we usually ordered a take-and-bake pizza from a local pizza chain or a frozen version from a discount grocery store nearby, pop it in the oven for 15 minutes, and devour it much faster than it took to prepare it.

These days, we're living a frozen pizza renaissance. There's no shortage of brands, styles, and flavors, ranging from "healthy" cauliflower pizza to the gooey, stuffed crust kinds, all vying for your attention in the freezer aisle. With so many choices, how do you know what tastes good versus what's simply marketed well?

I enlisted the help of my partner and my two kids to help me decide which of these pizzas are the tastiest. We tested out ten leading frozen pizza brands, all with different crusts and flavors. Here are our rankings, from worst to best.

Caulipower pizza claims to be gluten free, low calorie (700 per pizza) and stone fired, all of which are admirable traits. However, I found the pizza's extra-thin crust lacking in flavor and ingredients. On the whole, the pizza tasted so flat that I wondered where the mozzarella, Parmesan cheese, and tomatoes were. Were they somehow hidden underneath the crust? The cauliflower base was very bland and too cracker-thin to even call it a crust. I looked at my taste testers, and everyone agreed—this pizza, while seemingly healthy, does not live up to the hype.

Don't get me wrong—I love Newman's Own products. The salad dressings and coffee are excellent. Perhaps that is where the company should've stopped, for its Harvest Vegetable Pizza proved to be disappointing. For a veggie pizza, it didn't have a lot of vegetables except for a few bits of red pepper. While my family and I occasionally enjoy a vegetable pizza, this version's thin crust (like Caulipower's) did not impress. The overall consensus? Just okay.

Not only was California Pizza Kitchen's original BBQ pizza the most expensive ($9.49 at my local grocery store), but I could not taste the gouda or anything else beyond the barbecue flavor, which tasted more like one-note store-brand BBQ sauce. (Nothing against store brands, but I had higher expectations). This pizza was not ranked the worst because three out of four of us liked the barbecue flavor (guess who did not?) and at 290 calories per serving, it's one of the lighter choices for thin crust pizzas.

Despite its beautiful packaging, Amy's Cheese Pizza was very, very small. When I tried to cut it in half (something I like to do before baking a pizza) I discovered that it was hard as a rock. Sure, it was frozen, but even in comparison to other frozen pizzas, it took a lot of effort to cut this bad boy open. That was not a good sign, but I decided to push forward. While eating the pizza, I tried to appeal to my taste testers by stating that it was made from organic tomatoes and part-skim mozzarella cheese—and just look at the lovely packaging!—but they were undeterred in their description of the flavor. "Bleh," said my daughter. "Agreed," said my partner. My son simply nodded.

To me, store brands are a hit and miss. Some are great, while others leave something to be desired. Thus, I had low expectations for this frozen pizza from 365, the Whole Foods house brand. But this option was surprisingly good. In its frozen state, it had a plump crust and was easy to cut through. With beautiful cheese sprinkled on top that elevated itself once it was out of the oven, Whole Foods 365 Uncured Pepperoni Pizza was a delightful treat. At $5.29 retail, it's one of the most affordable options if you're in the mood for a simple pepperoni pizza with no bells and whistles. However, it is not the biggest pizza, so you'll need two of these to feed a group.

I've always been a fan of Freschetta's Naturally Rising Crust pizza. But I know I'm not the only one; its popularity was evident at my local grocery store, because there were none left on the shelf. I opted for the brand's Thin Crust version instead; the result was a golden brown, crispy crust, a light and airy bite (just like what the box says), with enough pepperoni to satisfy my kids. There was no gooeyness  to this pizza, but there was certainly a lot of flavor for a thin crust pizza. And at $5.79, Freschetta is still one of the most affordable frozen brands out there.

Screamin' Sicilian's Bessie's Revenge Cheese Pizza, featuring mozzarella and white cheddar, was an instant hit in our household. None of us could make the complaint, as we had with a couple other pizzas, that this pizza lacked cheese—this one had a "ridiculous amount of cheese," just as the package stated. What I loved almost as much as the pizza itself was the cartoon mustache and big mouth on the box. The brand is all about fun and bold flavor: We all loved the dollops of round mozzarella that seemed to stretch all the way to the ceiling. This cheese pizza truly delivered in terms of quality, taste, and price, not to mention packaging. I can imagine serving this at a kids' birthday party or a gathering with friends and it'll be a hit.

Upon first bite of Urban Pie's Uncured Pepperoni with Creamy Rosa Sauce pizza, my eyes grew instantly watery, not because it was spicy but because I could not believe that a frozen pizza can taste this good. Not surprisingly, these pizzas have been called the Holy Grail of pizzas by fans online. My kids and partner also echoed the sentiment. "Yummy!" my kids exclaimed at the same time. This pizza tasted like an amplified version of a thin crust pizza, or "thin" in disguise. The cheese and overall flavor packed a lot of punch, the the extent that I didn't notice the fact that it was thin crust until my partner pointed it out to me.

Eating a slice of Red Baron Pepperoni pizza reminds me of the greasy, saucy pizzas that I loved as a teenager. With 380 calories per serving and four servings per box, the entire pizza is over 1,500 calories, well above some others that we tasted. Regardless, Red Baron wins in our household because of its incredibly fragrant smell. It's the kind of pizza that would be served in a school lunch cafeteria, except better. Another bonus: the sauce did not overpower the cheese, which tends to happen with frozen pizzas. Lastly, you can't beat its price. At $3.99 per pizza (a big box, too!) you can't beat the quality of Red Baron's flavor—a true classic for all kinds of families.

Although DiGiorno sells a thin-crust version of its frozen pizza, I strongly endorse the Rising Crust Pepperoni Pizza. While sampling this brand, we were all rendered speechless. After several minutes of savoring this incredible pizza, my daughter finally asked, "How do they make it so good?" It might be that DiGiorno, being a frozen pizza veteran and all, simply knows the best recipe, or it might be that they know us—people who love thicker pizzas and who would, on any given day, give in to delivery. DiGiorno is the quintessential grocery store frozen pizza, and when you eat it hot out of the oven, it really is better than a typical delivery option. At six servings per pizza, it's the perfect size for a small party or, in my case, a family of four, to feel full and satisfied afterwards.