Grocery Store Frozen Pizzas, Ranked

Butter and bread crumbs go into the dough, which is off the ingredient panel, and the cheese is whole milk mozzarella rather than part-skim. Out of the oven the stone-fired base is chewy at the rim, crisp underneath, and worth eating plain, which is the whole test here. The Holy Pepperoni buries it in spicy pepperoni anyway. Palermo's family of brands makes it, alongside Urban Pie.

Chicago's tavern style, and it bakes like one: thin, buttery, crisp right through to the center rather than just at the rim, cut into squares if you're doing it properly. The maker's page calls it the traditional pizzeria recipe, right down to the handmade Italian sausage, and the company runs restaurants alongside the frozen line. Get the Classic Sausage, piled on rather than scattered.

Detroit-style deep dish in a freezer box shouldn't work, and then the pan crust comes out fried-crisp underneath with cheese caramelized into the corners. Third because that base eats like bread, if slightly greasy bread. The Double Pepperoni earns its name off the ingredient panel, which lists sliced and diced pepperoni: cups on top, salty pockets below. Bake it on a sheet, never a rack.

Wheat gluten, yeast, DATEM and a dough conditioner sit in the panel, and they do what they promise: the rim puffs into genuinely good bread. The middle, under the toppings, sets soft and a little doughy, and that is what keeps it out of the top three. The 27.3 oz Rising Crust Sausage & Pepperoni is the default box, with pepperoni made from pork, chicken and beef.

Sauce is the argument here. The Rao's Homemade recipe uses vine-ripened Italian tomatoes and fresh basil, per the maker's page, tasting like tomatoes rather than sweetened paste. The same page says the crust is baked in a wood-fired brick oven; it bakes up thin and properly crisp, but it stays a vehicle rather than bread. Reach for the Pepperoni Frozen Pizza; the uncured slices curl at the edge.

Imported from Italy and stone fired, which shows up as a thin base that comes out of a home oven blistered and light. It holds crisp at the edge and goes slightly floppy under the sauce in the middle, hence sixth. The Stone-Fired Crust Margherita keeps its toppings restrained. Newman's Own sends 100% of its profits to help kids, a fact about the company rather than the pizza.

Tomatoes lead the ingredient panel, ahead of the flour, and that flour carries malted barley in it, a bakery move, which is why this base browns properly instead of drying out. It also stays soft enough that a slice sags in the hand, which is the ceiling on it. The Classic Crust Pepperoni is middling thickness, edge-to-edge pepperoni, nothing clever. Bake the whole thing at once.

Actually four cheeses, and the maker names them: mozzarella, white cheddar, provolone and parmesan. The rising crust does rise, but it sets doughy in the middle where DiGiorno's at least sets bready, and that gap is the whole distance between eighth and fourth. The Naturally Rising Crust Four Cheese takes extra toppings well. White cheddar is doing more work here than you'd guess.

Read the panel and two mozzarellas turn up: real low-moisture part-skim, plus an imitation mozzarella built from water, palm oil and casein. That blend sheets over the top rather than pooling. Nineteen minutes, says the maker's page, and the base comes out sturdy rather than crisp, firm enough to hold and never good enough to notice. The Pepperoni & Sausage Pizza is honest cheap food.

Eleven minutes is all the maker's page gives it, which tells you how little dough is under there. Cracker-thin, and it turns from crisp to scorched inside a minute, a base that dries out rather than bakes. The Original Thin Crust Pepperoni carries 100% real cheese and pepperoni made with pork, chicken and beef. Watch it closely and it's fine. Look away and it isn't.

Border case, flagged: the base is a split loaf, not a crust, so on a crust-first ranking it lands where a non-crust has to land. It bakes hard and crunchy and that is the best thing about it, being pepperoni, tomato sauce and cheese on crispy French bread, in the maker's words. Take the Pepperoni French Bread Pizza for One and use the oven, not the microwave.

Thin and golden is what the maker promises and, unusually for the format, roughly what turns up, but a vegetable base bakes to a crisp shard rather than to bread, so the stated axis puts it here. Three cheeses on top, mozzarella, romano and parmesan, under premium uncured pepperoni. Take the Uncured Pepperoni Cauliflower Crust over the veggie versions; the fat carries it.

A documented reformulation sits on the product page: the maker says the cheese is meltier than the previous recipe. Check the panel and the lead cheese is an imitation mozzarella of vegetable oil and potato starch. The base fries more than it bakes, then goes limp under that cheese, which is last place on the stated axis. The Pepperoni Party Pizza still lands at 1am.