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COPYRIGHT 2002 Consumers Union of the United States, Inc.
When we last tested frozen pizzas in 1997, only a few exhibited the kind of quality that would make them acceptable substitutes for the real thing. Since then, manufacturers have introduced more products with innovations such as crusts that rise and bake in the oven and novel toppings such as chicken. These days, you'll find a number of frozen pizzas that are more than decent in quality--indeed, some are comparable to pizzas offered by the national chains.
That's what we concluded after taste-testing more than 30 frozen pizzas (cheese, pepperoni, and "gourmet" chicken versions) plus seven pies from four leading national pizza chains.We also tested another supermarket route to pizza, using a Boboli nonfrozen, ready-made crust and Boboli sauce plus packaged mozzarella cheese.
Some highlights of our findings:
* If you want very good frozen pizza, reach for the rising crusts. When we rated pizzas in 1997, the only brand of rising-crust pizza included was DiGiorno, which was introduced by Kraft in 1995. It topped our Ratings of supermarket pizzas in that report. This time, we tested eight kinds of frozen cheese and pepperoni pizzas with crusts that rise and bake in the oven; all were judged very good and finished at or near the top of the Ratings.
Freschetta Bakes & Rises pizzas led both the cheese and pepperoni categories, closely followed by DiGiorno Rising Crust. Both brands had a traditional Italian-style crust (similar to good, slightly chewy Italian bread) and a nice balance of crust, cheese, and sauce flavors. The Freschetta pepperoni pie was deemed comparable in quality to the best of the chain pepperoni pizzas we tested. It worked out to be a bit cheaper per serving, too.
* For nicely cooked crusts, forget the pan. We often got better results with oven-rising-crust pizzas when we baked them directly on the oven rack, as called for by the "crisper-crust" directions noted on most packages. When we baked some of the pizzas on a cookie sheet or foil--or when we placed foil on the oven bottom to catch dripping cheese--the crust was often partially undercooked, even if we kept the pizza in longer than the time specified on the box.
* The "diet" pepperoni pizzas we tested save you some calories and fat, but they didn't taste as good and were more expensive than most. Opting for one of the very good nondiet pepperoni pizzas and shaving calories elsewhere from your diet might be a more-appealing alternative. Or skip the pepperoni pizzas and choose a cheese or chicken version instead; on average, they had fewer calories and less fat than the nondiet pepperoni pizzas.
* Most tested brands were consistent across categories. If you like a brand's cheese pizza, you can generally expect the same quality in its pepperoni counterpart.
PROBING THE PIES
Trained panelists sampled 17 cheese and 12 pepperoni supermarket pizzas (all frozen except for the Boboli crust and sauce). The lineup included pizzas with various types of crusts, from traditional Italian-style versions to ones resembling white bread, pastry (think biscuit or pie crust), or crackers; some crusts were stuffed with cheese or sauce. We tested one pizza whose label states that it is made with organic ingredients and two that market themselves as diet food. The panel conducted a less formal evaluation of five frozen pizzas with unusual chicken toppings (see "Going Gourmet" on page 42). In addition, we sent an expert consultant to evaluate pepperoni pizzas from four national chains: Domino's, Little...
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