10 Frozen Pizzas You Should Keep Out Of The Cart

Considering the wide array of options consumers have when it comes to store-bought frozen pizza, it's not surprising that there are a few stinkers in the mix. Despite the fact that even frozen pizza is notoriously difficult to screw up, there are a few varieties that just didn't understand the assignment. Given the fact that there are so many good choices on the market, it's hard to understand what makes a brand end up at the bottom of the list — or, it was hard until Chowhound decided to take a good look at what makes a frozen pizza worth skipping.

As it turns out, there are all kinds of things that can ruin a good pizza. Cloyingly sweet sauce, rubbery cheese, mediocre crust, and bland toppings are all guilty in the case of the brands on this list. Some of them possess just a few of these flaws, but then there are others where they all show up to wreck the pizza party. Frozen pizza fans beware — here are a few brands that you should avoid during your next trip to the grocery store.

Make no mistake, the late Paul Newman was an absolute legend when it came to the silver screen. When it comes to the Newman's Own brand of frozen pizza, however, Butch Cassidy is firing blanks. On the plus side, proceeds generated by Newman's Own products go to great causes that benefit children around the world. That said, the pizza itself has quite a few issues.

Right out of the box, it's easy to see this pizza is going to be a rough ride. The cheese is sprinkled haphazardly, leaving large gaps of sauce, which is an anomaly regardless of the pizza's quality. Once it comes out of the oven, the cheese distribution hasn't changed much, leaving whole slices of cheeseless pizza. Whether the slice has cheese or not, the flavors are bland, and the textures are gluey. The crust has a vaguely saltine composition, but it doesn't really taste like anything, which is another strike against it.

Considering the fact that the Home Run Inn helped pioneer Chicago's lesser-known tavern-style pizza, its frozen options are a bit of a mess. On the surface, it looks like it's going to be a decent frozen pizza, but there are all kinds of problems once it comes out of the oven. Perhaps the biggest offender on the list is the crust. Something about the way it's compressed and then frozen leaves an unwelcome deposit of sour, seemingly uncooked dough beneath the surface. It's weird to be sure, but it's also a bit unprecedented, as similar flaws just don't seem to happen in other brands on this list.

Even if the crust wasn't so strange, there's still a good chance Home Run Inn would be on the list. While it does have a good amount of cheese on the pie, the quantity is ruined a bit by a profound lack of flavor. Instead of filling your mouth with a nice bite of melty, salty, cheesy goodness, all you really get is a bland wad of dairy. The same is true of the pepperoni, which were unsuccessful on both a textural and flavor level.

On the box, this Walmart brand seems like it's got a lot going for it. It's got a wood-fired crust, it's made in Italy, and it's topped with spicy soppressata and bacon. Considering the fact that there aren't a lot of Italian wood-fired options in the frozen pizza section, this should fill a necessary niche — but it falls achingly short of success. At some point in its travels across the Atlantic Ocean, the ingredients seem to have staged a coup on behalf of the pizza Napoletana consiglieri.

On the positive side, the Bettergoods crust is decent — maybe even better than decent — as it does have a distinct and pleasant flavor. As good as the crust is, It's promptly ruined by the other ingredients on top of the pizza. The soppressata has an overbearing cadence to its flavors as if they've been released from a long, cursed slumber. The bacon has also not taken kindly to being frozen, as it has become rubbery and aggressively seasoned. The cheese is too muted to do anything in the face of these two proteins, and the sauce just gets lost in the shuffle. Making an Italian frozen pizza is a gambit for sure, but Bettergoods doesn't come close to capturing the magic of traditional Italian pizza.

For the most part, Target's signature brand Good & Gather is a Target-grocery-section secret that has a lot going for it — until you get to the brand's frozen pizza that is. What's even more surprising is that this is a mid-budget frozen pizza which would imply a higher quality than some of its cheaper competitors. It's easy to forgive a brand that hinges on an economical price tag, but there's a sting with you pay the extra buck only to get completely let down.

Once the Good & Gather pizza comes out of the oven, it's a bit underwhelming even for a store's private label brand. Where the cheese, pepperoni, and crust are just okay, the whole pizza is saturated in a watery sauce that succeeds in wrecking the whole pie. When this happens, there's no escaping the thinned-out sauce and its equally diluted flavors. The cheese sinks into its grasp, the pepperoni's flavors become dull, and the crust becomes unpleasantly soggy.

Another Walmart private label brand, Great Value, offers a rising crust pizza that also falls a bit flat. Rising crust pizza has come a long way since DiGiorno entered the scene back in 1995, but Great Value's take doesn't stick the landing. The problems start when you first remove the pizza from its packaging. The circumference of the pie is perfectly round, which isn't a good look for pizza. It needs a bit of imperfection, a bit of roughness around the edges. Otherwise, it's too easy to remember how mass-produced these suckers are.

Even though this pizza missed the mark on many other levels, the Italian seasonings sprinkled across the top add a nice, herbaceous touch. Outside of that, it's a bit of a mess. The crust did indeed rise, but it never quite escaped the raw dough texture that can sometimes occur with the rising crust variety. Even upon subsequent trips back in the oven, the crust never quite reached the appropriate level of toothsome texture that you want in a pizza.

You know you're in the bargain section of the frozen pizza aisle when you start seeing the shrink-wrapped pizzas that don't come in boxes. There are a few of these brands around, and some of them are perfectly serviceable, but Jack's isn't one of them. It's a brand that does get by on its price tag, as it's really not that good once it comes out of the oven. Its crust, sauce, and toppings are mediocre, but it's the cheese that really does Jack's wrong.

It's sporadically placed all over the pizza so you don't get even coverage. When the cheese melts across the pie, this usually isn't a problem. But Jack's is a good example of pre-shredded cheese not always melting properly, which is an issue for several reasons. Most importantly is that it doesn't give you a properly balanced bite, but there's just something off-putting about a cheese that maintains its same size and shape after being baked.

On the Tony's pizza box, there's a jab at Jack's saying that Tony's has 25 percent more pizza than its competitor. While that is true, the increased size doesn't mean much if you can't punch up the flavors a bit. In fact, Tony's and Jack's share a lot of similarities when it comes to flavor and cheese consistency, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Tony's might have the overall edge over Jack's, but the victory is hollow considering how mediocre Tony's pizza is.

In addition to capturing the majority of Jack's flaws and putting them on 25 percent more pizza, Tony's sauce is extremely cloying. A bit of sweetness in a pizza sauce is okay, but this stuff might as well be straight ketchup. It's also not very thick, so in the end you're getting a lot of thin, super-sweet sauce on your pizza. It's always a shame when this happens because there is nothing to prevent that cursed flavor from spreading to the other ingredients. 

Thanks to Costco's legendary food court, the store's name has become synonymous with good pizza. With that in mind, you'd think Costco's own Kirkland brand of pizza would be a decent pick. The reality of the situation is that Kirkland's is one of the worst frozen pizzas that Costco sells. It may be a good deal with just over thirteen bucks getting you four pizzas, but you're better off going with the two-pack from Motor City Pizza Co., Costco's more expensive but better frozen pizza option.

Like many other pies on this list, the Kirkland pizza simply struggles with a lack of strong flavors. The pepperoni ratio is good, but the meat itself doesn't pack much flavor. There's a good quantity of cheese, but it lacks salt. The sauce and crust seem content to just sit on the sidelines and hope you'll like what you see. In a store where good, fully cooked pizza is just a few feet away, there's really no reason to put Kirkland brand pizza in your Costco cart.

Red Baron is the type of frozen pizza that is terminally suffering from an overly burnt crust. It's a problem that persists among different Red Baron options, but it was something that wasn't duplicated with any other frozen pizzas. Even if you cut down on the pizza's time in the oven, the crust always seems like it was slightly charred before it hit the freezer. This strange phenomenon does give the crust a pleasant crunch, but it also happens to retain the flavor of burnt dough.

It's an odd characteristic in the field of frozen pizza as the crust tends to get as done as you want based on your oven timing, but the slight char is present nonetheless. It's too bad because the pizza's other characteristics are decent. This pizza has good, thick pepperoni, nicely flavored cheese, and a sauce that retains its thickness throughout the cooking process. With each bite, however, the charred flavor of burnt pizza crust is inescapable.

It's true that Totino's has been in the frozen pizza game since the beginning, and it's also true that the brand has totally leaned into its economic sensibilities. The sad truth about Totino's is that it leaves so much to the imagination. The quantity is lacking, the cheese is rubbery, the sauce is watered-down, and the cuboid pepperonis are mini salt bombs. It's really no wonder we ranked it the worst store-bought frozen pizza. Totino's does have the clout and nostalgia factor to maintain a spot in the hearts of frozen pizza fans, but close examination reveals a pizza that simply doesn't deliver.

While there's a good chance Totino's has always been bad, it seems like things have been downhill ever since its pizzas changed from round to square. Something about the new toaster oven-friendly shape makes it feel like you're somehow getting less pizza for your buck. Considering the success of the far superior Totino's pizza rolls, it's a wonder that this brand has even continued its frozen pizza line.