What's the best frozen pizza?

We’re going to pick up one of those soon.

Some Instagram account I follow went to Expo West and tasted lots of frozen pizza. He said this was the best. I’ve never seen them in any grocery store but you can buy online. I’m sure if they were at Expo West we’ll see them In a year or two at high end stores like Bristol or Gelsons

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Genio della Pizza is per their web site sold at Epicurus Gourmet and LA Homefarm in LA. No retailers yet in the SF Bay Area.

I saw it at one of the markets in the Ferry Building when I was up there in March…

$19 Massa was light and crunchy, similar to the Costco “Detroit” but three times the price.

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Looks pretty good! 3x the price? Deal killer.

It’s at our local grocery store, but if I wanted a frozen pizza on short notice I’d drive to Trader Joe’s instead.

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I can’t find what I’m sure is here about TJs flatbread ‘pizza.’

I let it thaw. Used the pizza steel, 500 for 40 minutes, 2 minutes under broil and we threw the prosciotto (can’t spell this for the life of me!). Once again that steel is the be all and end all.


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500° F for 40 minutes? How does a pizza withstand that kind of heat for that long?

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Oops. Sorry. Preheated the stone at 500 for 40 minutes (usually it 550 for 45 minutes). Then put the pizza in, checked at 6 minutes and then at 8 minutes switched to broil for 2 minutes.

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Something to try: Gino’s East 38-oz. deep-dish, currently on sale at Safeway (so likely Vons as well) for $8.

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I’ve had the frozen Gino’s a number of times. There’s one in the chest freezer in the garage as I speak.

It’s perfectly good. The ingredients are devoid of super-industrial-type stuff. Flour, oil, salt, tomatoes, spices, cheese. Gino’s itself is a slightly smaller player in the classic deep dish pizza scene, but this frozen iteration is quite nice. The crust is crisp on the outside, tender within.

I’m getting pretty good at homemade deep dish. But if I don’t want to go through all the trouble of making the dough, letting it rise, prove overnight, mixing up a batch of sauce, slicing my own mozz (because I can’t find presliced full fat mozz here at a reasonable price) etc, throwing one of these in the oven will def. scratch the itch.

Verdict: :+1:

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I took the instruction “avoid spillage, place foil on rack below pizza” to mean put the pizza on a piece of foil, but I’m sure what they mean is to put foil on the rack below the one the pizza’s on. So the crust was crisp only near the edge and it was a bit of a hassle peeling all the foil off.

Tasty but the pizza’s only about an inch deep rather than the usual two, so the balance is off, too much starch relative to the filling. Needed more sausage. Couldn’t see or taste the mushrooms. Nevertheless, not bad for $8 ($4 a pound). I might try one of the other varieties while they’re still on sale and see how much better it is not cooked on foil.

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Looks better than the insanely crappy deep dish pie I got from Gino’s East here in Sherman Oaks the ONE time I tried them.

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I think Gino’s, much like Al’s Beef and Portillo’s and Nancy’s Pizza, partnered with some big branding corp to expand from the greater Chicago area, and unsurprisingly ran into quality control and supply chain issues.

It’s rather sad that the best Chicago-style pizza you can get in SoCal is NOT one of the bigger Chicago players, but that’s how it is…

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Best Chicago-style deep-dish pizza in LA?

I tried another Gino’s East, this time the sausage, pepperoni, and bacon, and did not bake it on foil. The crust was crunchy all the way across, but it had the same lack of balance as the other one, too much crust and not enough meat.

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Thanks for the suggestion. The <$5 three cheese punches way above its weight. Add hormel cup n crisp pepperoni and I’ve paid way more for less.

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Did I or anyone mention California PIzza Kitchen which we’d never had. It’s thin crust. I THINK this is the one we had.

Cooked it on our pizza steel (of course). It was really tasty and we’ll have it again.

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Have you seen THIS:

Just bought a package, and they are considerably spicier than the original. I’m going to try them on a $2 piece of crap frozen pizza on Sunday…

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