Frozen Pizza Brands You Can Find At The Grocery Store, Ranked

Hunter Reis/Foodie

We’ve all been there — hungry, walking through the grocery store, quickly becoming overwhelmed by all the options. As you push your cart past the ice cream section, the thought of having a pint for dinner crosses your mind more than once — until you arrive in the hearty land of frozen pizzas. One of the quickest and easiest meals to make, frozen pizza has been around since the genesis of the TV dinner in the 1950s. In the seven decades since then, the quality of the meal and the science behind it has come a long way. Still, not all frozen pizzas are created equal.

Taking a look at aspects like size, structure, price, and of course taste, we’re ranking some of the most popular brands of frozen pizzas that you can find in your local grocery store. The options may seem limitless, but this handy guide breaks down the pros and cons of 10 frozen pizzas.

10. Kroger rising crust pepperoni pizza

Kroger is a major grocery company that spans over 35 states, but they haven’t mastered the frozen pizza game quite yet. Of the 10 pizzas sampled, this $5.50 store brand selection comes out on the bottom, which is evident before it even comes out of the box.

To Kroger’s defense, the box does show an accurate depiction of what the pizza inside looks like. The crust, even in the photo, looks visibly more pre-packaged than the rest of the pizzas — pre-sectioned off into little cardboard-like slices. Kroger has either rising or thin-crust pizzas, but this one didn’t rise very much after nearly 25 minutes in the oven.

The cheese has an almost plastic look and feel to it, despite the box’s messaging that it is made with real cheese. The only cheese ingredient listed is “low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese (cultured pasteurized part skim milk, salt, enzymes). It’s not very flavorful, but the sauce underneath does have a nice hearty marinara taste.

9. Tillamook three cheese pizza

I had high hopes for Tillamook, as the Oregon-based dairy cooperative excels in other grocery products like ice cream and cheeses. Unfortunately, its three-cheese pizza doesn’t reach the same quality of excellence.

Its pizza is certainly cheese-forward. Tillamook offers only a few flavor options: three cheese, three cheese supreme, cheesy uncured pepperoni, or cheesy BBQ chicken. The cheese on this pizza tasted better than many other brands and had a nice stringy pull when you bite into a slice. Before cooking, you’ll see big chunks of different colored cheeses that blend nicely in the oven. The ingredients list them as “low moisture whole milk mozzarella, Monterey jack, yellow cheddar cheese blend (cultured pasteurized milk, salt, enzymes, annatto [color]).” While Tillamook and many other brands use annatto to make cheddar cheese more of a vibrant orange, it is a natural dye that is made from seeds of the achiote tree.

The cheesiness of this pizza, though, doesn’t make up for the lack of flavor in the sauce or the dense, unpleasantly crunchy crust. The rest of the pizza seems like an afterthought to its famed cheese, and as one of the most expensive pizzas on this list at $11, Tillamook pizza might just not be worth it.

8. Red Baron four cheese pizza

You know what you’re getting with Red Baron, typically one of the cheaper options in the frozen pizza aisle. Though it’s on the lower end of our rankings, for less than $6 per pizza you’re admittedly still getting a pretty good bang for your buck.

There’s certainly a lot of cheese on the Red Baron four cheese pizza. It is, however, noticeably heavy on the parmesan. The taste and smell of this stinky cheese overpowers the mozzarella, cheddar, and provolone in the mix. The blend of cheeses don’t melt all the way through after 20 minutes in the oven, making for a final product that looks less than appetizing and has an inconsistent flavor throughout.

There’s not a ton of other ingredients underneath the cheese, either. The ingredients reveal that Red Baron uses a tomato paste instead of a sauce, making for a rather dry pizza without much depth of flavor. The company’s “classic crust” is incredibly thin, but still has a nice bite to it. Red Baron also sells a thin-crust pizza, but it’s hard to imagine a crust much thinner than this one.

7. Trader Joe’s Pizza Parlanno

While it’s easy to make a mistake while shopping at Trader Joe’s, the popular grocer does have plenty of pizza options with different sizes and toppings. The Pizza Parlanno, a supreme-style pizza with Italian sausage, uncured pepperoni, and roasted peppers and onions wasn’t bad, but didn’t pack a ton of flavor for a pizza with so many ingredients.

Pizza Parlanno is one of the smallest pizzas on the list, weighing 18.2 ounces. It cooks quickly, but won’t necessarily fill a family of two or three. It’s more of a personal pizza, but at $5.49 you can probably find something bigger and better for around the same price.

The crust is thin, but not super crispy. Leaving the pizza in for longer than the recommended 10 minute cooking time might solve that issue. The sauce is not super flavorful, and the ingredients show that they use just a simple tomato sauce instead of a marinara or something with more depth. Switching for something like a proper pizza sauce, or even a pasta sauce, would make a lot of difference in this mini meal. The cheese, a simple mozzarella, isn’t very gooey and doesn’t pack a ton of flavor either. There are lots of toppings included on the supreme, but they don’t seem to be the best quality. The pepperonis are thin and bland compared to pepperoni on other pizzas, and the sausages never look incredibly appetizing before or after cooking.

6. Newman’s Own

The best part of Newman’s Own pizzas is its philanthropy. Like all Newman’s Own products, 100% of the profits of these $8 pizzas go towards helping children in need. Weighing just 15.1 ounces, its pizzas aren’t particularly large or special, but its mission certainly is.

The second best part of Newman’s Own pizza are the spices. This selection had noticeably more seasonings — both in sight and taste — than any other pizza. You can see the flecks of Italian seasoning and oregano caught in the uncured pepperonis as they cup upwards in the oven, making for lots of flavor in every bite. Some of that flavor is marred by the excessive saltiness of the uncured pepperoni, though. There isn’t a ton of cheese on this pizza either, but the sauce and seasonings make up for it.

Newman’s Own isn’t joking when it says “thin and crispy crust” — these bake almost like a Brooklyn-style slice of pizza. Though the size of the pizza does account for a quick 10-minute baking time. The crust is still unpleasantly chewy despite how thin it is. It buckles under the weight of the thick pepperonis, making for a floppy slice of pizza.

5. DiGiorno hand-tossed pepperoni pizza

DiGiorno is a frozen aisle staple, and the most popular brand of frozen pizzas in the United States. They have seemingly the largest selection of flavors and styles of pizza of all the brands considered, and are readily found in grocery stores across the country. While its original hand-tossed pizzas probably aren’t the best the company has to offer, especially when compared to its more expensive croissant or stuffed-crust lines, they’re still a pretty decent choice.

DiGiorno offers a thick pizza that, while not large in diameter, is still hearty enough to feed more than two people for a price of around $8. Its hand-tossed pizzas are dense and have a soft, sweet, and chewy crust. DiGiorno is generous with the tomato sauce, but not so much with the cheese or toppings. There was more than one slice that didn’t contain any pepperoni at all and some where the mozzarella cheese is all but falling off, and we certainly didn’t try to glue it back on.

4. Amy’s cheese pizza

Of all the pizzas sampled, Amy’s is one of the healthiest — and smallest — of the bunch. Made with organic tomatoes and wheat flour, this 13-ounce pizza tastes like an elevated version of one you would eat back in elementary school.

This brand relies on higher-quality ingredients than many of its competitors, giving it a more distinct and natural flavor. The tomato puree made from organic tomatoes makes for a hearty, tangy sauce. The crust is the most memorable part, though, and feels more like a fresh pizza than a frozen one. The taste of wheat really sticks out once you get to the crust, which has a nice chewy finish.

The pizza is certainly more saucy than cheesy, leaving an almost-wet texture in the middle of the pizza that tastes good but doesn’t look amazing. Amy’s pizzas tend to have a shorter ingredient list than many other brands, but the only cheese listed is part-skim mozzarella cheese (pasteurized part-skim milk, culture, salt, enzymes). This is similar to many of the other one-cheese pizzas on this list, but Amy’s uses much less. For $10 per pizza, you shouldn’t have to sprinkle on extra cheese before cooking.

3. Whole Foods four cheese pizza

The 365 Whole Foods Market frozen pizza is another small one, weighing only 12.5 ounces, but coming in at almost half the price of Amy’s. Its thin-crust-four-cheese pizza also uses wheat flour, but with a mixture of mozzarella, fontina, Parmesan, and provolone cheeses.

Though it smells strongly of Parmesan, the four cheeses blend beautifully and melt fully after just 10 minutes in the oven. The cheese has a satisfying stringy pull, which is exactly what you’re looking for when biting into a slice of pizza. This variation could have used a bit more seasoning, a little Italian herbs or basil would go a long way. The box recommends sprinkling the pie with olive oil, but the pizza is rather oily by itself upon taking it out of the oven.

The thin-crust pizza was a bit sweet and chewy, but still had a better crunch to it than most of the other thin-crust pizzas. Whole Foods market also has rising crust pizzas, which are slightly larger and more expensive than its $5.99 thin-crust variants.

2. Freschetta naturally rising crust Canadian bacon & pineapple pizza

One of the cheapest pizzas on this list happens to be one of the best. Pizza with pineapples can be polarizing, but Freschetta has a plethora of different flavors as well as a gluten-free line. The Freschetta brand isn’t as popular as some others on this list, but it definitely should be.

Packed with toppings on every inch of the pizza, Freschetta is the largest on the list at 27.51 ounces, over a whole pound of pizza, for just $4. It comes in a more durable plastic case than the rest of the sampled pizzas, showing that they put as much care into the packaging as they did into the food.

The toppings on a Freschetta pizza – yes, including pineapple and Canadian bacon — look and taste of a better quality than many of the other pizzas on this list. The Canadian style bacon is think and flavorful, and the pineapple still juicy despite having been frozen. While most other pizzas simply use mozzarella, Freschetta also utilizes a bit of Parmesan, which isn’t overpowering, but helps provide a nice pull to the cheese.

The dough is thick and sweet, tasting almost like cornmeal. The crust at the end is airy and has a delightful chew to it that you don’t often get with frozen pizzas. Like Amy’s, you can taste the dough that went into making this frozen pizza.

1. Screamin’ Sicilian Holy Pepperoni pepperoni pizza

The first thing you notice about Screamin’ Sicilian, and what makes it top our list of the best frozen pizzas, is the generous heap of toppings and ingredients. The pepperoni and cheese are plentiful, span the entire length of the pizza, including on top of the crust.

The one downside to Screamin’ Sicilian is that the pepperonis are rather oily, leaving little puddles on the pizza once it’s taken out of the oven. After patting it down with a napkin a few times, it makes for a perfect frozen pizza. The pepperonis are thick and have a bit of a spiciness to them, and there isn’t an inch of the pizza not smothered in them. These pizzas only use mozzarella cheese, but they use a lot of it. The copious amount of cheese and toppings mix well with the seasoned tomato sauce, making the pizza warm and hearty when it’s all melted together.

Though covered in melted cheese and oil residue, the crust itself is sturdy enough to hold up the weight of the pepperoni easily. Biting into a slice, you feel the softness of the cheese meet the crunchy bottom crust for a perfect bite of frozen pizza. It’s one of the more expensive pizzas on the list at $10.50, but it’s certainly worth the price.