Good tasting frozen pizza is so important to me that I once thought I had found “the one” when a guy I was dating started breaking down why a particularly famous brand of frozen pizza he made for us just wasn’t as good as it used to be. Unfortunately, the relationship ended, but the love of picking frozen pizzas did not. In the years since, I’ve eaten and critiqued my way through a multitude of frozen pizzas.
So it should come as no surprise that my heart soars when there are chefs — actually three! — espouse equally strong feelings about my favorite frozen ‘za. It’s almost as amazing (and rare!) as seeing a real bald eagle, a double rainbow, or the phenomenon of me renewing my car registration on time. Even if the Frozen Pizza Guy and I didn’t make it, knowing that the chef of a Michelin-starred restaurant agrees with my taste in pizza makes it all worth it in the end.
The best frozen pizza, according to the chef
The current favorite among the chefs I interviewed is none other than “Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza, 100%,” says Chef Jeff Strauss of OyBar in Los Angeles. “As a kid, as a stoned teenager, in college [I’d eat it] frozen, like it wasn’t even cooked, eating it like pizza ice cream.”
Chef Wylie Dufresne of Stretch Pizza in New York (and now-shuttered wd~50 Michelin star) says he’s always been a fan of Stouffer’s French bread pizza, long before he got into the game himself. “There’s a lot of work that goes into making great frozen food,” says Dufresne. “It’s so impressive how crispy and crunchy the pizza is when it comes out of the oven.”
The distinct crispiness of the French bread’s crust giving way to an airy center is also what stands out for the America’s Test Kitchen cast member, food stylist and author of an upcoming cookbook Food Gifts, Elle Simone Scott. “This is the OG pizza of my life,” says Scott. “My uncle Pierre used to make them for me and my cousins as a snack after school. We would scour the pantry for other fun things to add as toppings. The flaky airiness of French bread is one of my favorite food sensations, even now.”
Each of the chefs says that while they are more than capable of making a great pizza from scratch, every now and then they’ll pick up a box of Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza. Some, of course, add a few torrents.
“I didn’t do this when I was a kid,” Dufresne says. “But if I made one these days, I’d dress it up with lightly spiced arugula and red onion. [And] well, everything is better with a fried egg.”
Buy it: Stouffer’s French Bread Pepperoni Pizza, $9.94 for 34.25 ounces (6 pizzas) at Walmart
Are you #TeamStouffer’s too? Tell us about it in the comments below.
This post was originally published on The Kitchen. See it there: We asked 3 chefs to name the best frozen pizza, and they all said the same thing