Frozen pizza is widely known as one of the most convenient dinner options out there. There’s not much you have to do except removing the plastic, stick it in the oven straight from the freezer, and set a timer. But what this type of pizza makes up in time and effort, it severely lacks in flavor and quality. No matter what brand you get, frozen pizza almost always seems to have that same soggy cardboard texture and waxy cheese taste.
The good news is that, if you’re not ready to kick your frozen pizza habit, there’s a way to upgrade the stuff so it won’t taste quite as much like, well, frozen pizza. According to Kitchn, the key here is getting the temperature right. And that’s not just the temperature of the oven, but the temperature of the pizza itself when it goes into the oven.
The instructions on the pizza box warn you not to thaw it to avoid contamination, but that’s precisely what’s setting you up for failure. Thawing the pizza beforehand yields significantly better results. What’s more, Giordano’s confirmed it’s perfectly safe to do so, as long as you put the pizza in the oven as soon as it’s fully thawed. But don’t go just yet, as there’s a bit more to the process.
Bake it like the pizzerias do
Nothing compares to the authentic, freshly baked pizza from an actual pizzeria. There’s no denying that frozen pizzas don’t even come close. What makes commercial pizza that much tastier is the type of oven used in the process, specifically the kinds of temperatures it reaches. As Cooking Light reveals, pizzerias typically cook their pizzas at about 700 degrees Fahrenheit, sometimes taking those temperatures even higher.
Now, most household-grade ovens don’t get nearly as hot, but you can get pretty similar results if you use the same flash-baking method that the pros do. Simply set your oven to its highest bake setting and leave your pizza in for five to eight minutes.
Make sure your oven isn’t in broil mode or that you let your pizza bake for longer than eight minutes, as it can go from golden-and-crisp to burned-to-a-crisp pretty quickly. For results that are even more pizzeria-like, Cooking Light recommends using a preheated cast iron pan or a pizza stone. By the time you remove your store-bought pizza from the oven, it’ll hardly resemble the frozen brick you took out of the box.
