DiGiorno's Heartichoke Pizza Review: It Was Love At First Bite

While the variety of DiGiorno branded products is vast, the frozen pizza manufacturer keeps up a high level of quality. It's also not afraid to make some audacious moves and create some truly original pies. DiGiorno is attempting to elevate the frozen pizza to a special occasion food. Similar to how DiGiorno's Thanksgiving pizza was full of surprises, a product launching for a small window of time in 2025 looks to be just as festive.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, DiGiorno is making up, and customers are baking up, an edible lark called the Heartichoke Pizza. That name is a portmanteau which combines the pizza's two most prominent and alluring features — its heart-shaped crust, making it a pizza for lovers, not just pizza lovers, and its  artichoke hearts topping (among other ingredients). While DiGiorno sent The Takeout this early Valentine's Day gift, that did not factor into our taste test. And here we go — everything you need to know about this specially-shaped and specially-created Valentine's Day delicacy.

Coming in at a size roughly that of a medium-sized pie obtained at a chain pizzeria, the DiGiorno Heartichoke pizza is too much food for one person, but just the right size for two to enjoy as a light meal that won't bog you down for hours the way that thicker-crust-based pizzas with meats loaded on top have a tendency to do. This is a medium-thickness pizza, topped with a gentle but flavorful creamy and smooth garlic sauce, and an assortment of vegetables that maintained their freshness through the freezing process.

On top of a garlic-laced crust and its garlic-forward sauce, DiGiorno adds a moderate helping of mozzarella cheese. And then atop all of that — the sauce and cheese combine during baking to create a substantial, Alfredo-like blanket — come the thinly sliced or finely chopped vegetables. The clumps of spinach remain bright green and tangy alongside flaked off slices of pickled artichoke hearts — the inspiration for the pizza's "Heartichoke" name — and diced tomatoes. The latter act as a sweet counter to the savory chunks of creamy and salty ricotta cheese.

Immediately upon opening the box and cutting into the plastic pouch containing the DiGiorno Heartichoke Pizza, I was hit with a pleasant wave of garlic. That smell intensified after I put the thing in the oven. Garlic winds up the most dominant flavor here, doing a lot of work in the creamy and luxurious white sauce that lightly coats the medium-thickness DiGiorno crust that tastes and feels fresh-baked. Some garlic salt in the crust works as a foundation that meshes well with the toppings. Still, for a pizza that celebrates Valentine's Day, and all the kissing that goes along with that, the famously bad breath-triggering heavy use of garlic is a curious choice.

This item is called the Heartichoke Pizza, and so there are a few thin slices of artichoke hearts scattered about the pie. I could've used some more, particularly because they impart such delicate flavor in small doses, but the pop of green makes the pizza visually appealing. Also, because you eat with your eyes first, the red and white color scheme evocative of Valentine's Day plays out nicely in the form of diced tomatoes, sweeter and more flavorful than what one usually encounters in the cold winter months, and lots of cheese. The blend of pizza-style mozzarella with big, easily caramelized hunks of ricotta work together to get a cheese structure that's firm but also soft that softens the kick of the garlic in the sauce below.

While entries from DiGiorno's line sit high on a ranking of supermarket frozen pizzas, the company's heart-shaped Heartichoke Pizza will not be available in stores. Sold for just a handful of days in February 2025 as a limited-time-only offer in advance of the heart-centric, Valentine's Day holiday, the Heartichoke Pizza will be sold exclusively on DiGiorno's website. Even then, it will only be for sale on certain days at certain times. As it's fun to order heart-shaped foods on Valentine's Day, to purchase this one interested pizza lovers must visit DiGiorno's online e-commerce store on February 4, 6, 11, and 13, and only after 12 p.m. Eastern time on each of those days.

In keeping with the Valentine's Day theme, the DiGiorno Heartichoke pizza will be sold at the very low price of $2.14. That's a clever reference to 2/14, or February 14 — Valentine's Day. Speedy shipping, and to keep the product frozen in its substantial transit, will be an additional charge, although DiGiorno does offer free shipping on orders that exceed $75. But there is a purchase limit on the Heartichoke Pizza — the company is allowing just one per customer, in part because the item is designed to be split by a couple as part of their holiday celebration.

Via its public relations firm, DiGiorno sent me a sample, free of charge, of its heart-shaped Heartichoke Pizza for review in advance of the February 2025 rollout and promotion of the item. I examined the item as a frozen entity and after cooking, observing the presentation of the ingredients and taking special note of the novelty — it really did resemble the common artistic rendering of a heart, both before and after baking in a standard electric oven at the specifications suggested on the box. My assessment took into account taste — both of the individual ingredients and how they worked together — as well as adjacent properties like smell and mouthfeel. I compared its quality relative to other frozen pizzas, particularly DiGiorno pizzas, which offer a unique crust that isn't too thick but also isn't too thin. Texture of toppings, cheese, sauce, and crust was also considered.

All that leads to the point that the Heartichoke Pizza is a notable, playful entry in the otherwise staid world of frozen pizzas, and split between two people, would make for a fun treat as part of a couple's home-centered Valentine's Day celebration.