Whether you’re having friends coming over or you just want to spice up a family dinner, pizza is always the perfect food choice. And if you’re too busy and need a quick solution, let us be your heroes and teach you how to cook frozen pizza the right way!
Apart from the obvious tips — “Read the package instructions!” — we want to assure you that not all frozen food has to end up a disaster.
Do you trust us when we say that you are only a few steps away from perfecting your skills in handling frozen meals? Life is busy, and there’s nothing wrong with choosing the easier path.
Here are the five steps on how to cook frozen pizza that tastes and smells delicious and has all the crispiness in the world!
1. Trust Yourself to Know How to Cook Frozen Pizza
It’s quite obvious that you don’t have to be super skilled and that your kitchen doesn’t have to be super equipped for you to get into cooking frozen meals. However, there are some tricks you want to arm yourself with, and this is the first one of them: trust yourself.
Kitchen confidence is a real thing. It gives you the ability to try new recipes and feel comfortable doing so. It is one of the most important things when it comes to cooking frozen meals, which often come out not as great as you hoped they would. So, trust yourself and keep reading for the following four tips!
2. Defrost When It’s Time
Should you defrost your pizza, and when should you do that? These are some of the most common dilemmas people have. While defrosting is not a mandatory step — some instructions will even advise you not to do so — we recommend you do not skip it.
If you start baking without defrosting, the top frozen layer will melt all over the toppings. That will result in a soggy crust and won’t taste enviable. But if you thaw your pizza before baking, it will taste even better, and you’ll get the oh-so-satisfying crisps.
The reason why some instructions state that you should skip defrosting is just because there’s a risk of contamination if you freeze already thawed dough. To avoid that, make sure to defrost it in your fridge overnight, and don’t freeze it more than once.
Related: How to properly freeze pizza dough!
3. Preheat the Oven
Follow the package directions to find out what temperature they recommend. Most will suggest a preheated oven at 425°F, but frozen pizzas require temperatures between 375 and 425 °F, and other packages will even insist on a higher temperature. Anyways, cold ovens and frozen food never go well together! High heat is your best friend here!
You might want to consider investing in a special pizza oven because it will speed up the whole process and make it easier too. This Ooni pizza oven has become one of the best-selling, award-winning brands today, and it bakes perfectly crispy pizzas in less than 60 seconds.
We know that some families or individuals can’t afford to buy those big, expensive pizza ovens. The brand we mentioned doesn’t take up the entire space in your kitchen or garden and is also affordable.
4. Prepare the Pizza
Don’t worry! The greatest minds will probably roll their eyes over this one, too. Even if your frozen pizza has all the toppings, there’s one more thing to consider before putting it inside the oven.
First of all, remove the pizza from the package (a plastic one or cardboard). We would never suggest cooking it in its original plastic package because your pizza will taste like, well, plastic. You surely don’t want that!
To ensure that your dinner turns out tasty and evenly baked, use a pizza stone or place it directly on the center rack. You want neither burned pizza (baked on top) nor a pizza with cold spots all over it (baked at the bottom). Right? Follow the golden “center rack” rule!
5. Put on Extra Toppings
Just when you thought there’s nothing more to do, now this? Do you like your pizza just the way it looks right now? Go ahead and bake it then!
However, remember when we promised to show you how to cook frozen pizza that tastes out of this universe? Ok, ok, we never said that. But, we want to show you that you can have a great experience while saving plenty of time.
Put on some extra toppings on top for extra spice! Any vegetables, leftover meat, olive oil, cheese, or sauce you enjoy — it’s your time to get creative!
Final Thoughts
When you’re unprepared, lazy, tired, or unmotivated to cook, go for this guilty pleasure, but don’t feel guilty. After all, you deserve it! Let’s summarize the steps for enjoying that delicious pizza!
- Trust yourself.
- Defrost in your fridge the night before, and never repeat the process.
- If you don’t have a pizza oven, preheat your oven at 425°F (if you are used to ºC you can do the conversion here).
- Remove your pizza from its original packaging, and place it on a pizza stone or directly on a middle rack if you’re not using a pizza oven. (We could add here that you shouldn’t forget your oven mitts!)
- Put on extra toppings, like vegetables, leftover meat, cheese, or sauce. And it’s time to get that pizza cutter rolling!
Everybody’s tastes and methods are different. While some of you wouldn’t enjoy this adventure, others might. Some will even call it a life-changing experience and begin to rely on it often, and others will never buy a frozen meal again.
If you don’t mind the soggy crust and can’t be bothered to defrost it, that’s ok. Do you choose not to put any extra toppings because you like the pizza just the way it is? That’s ok, too.
We’re all individuals. Our goal was to arm you with the best set of advice, and we hope we had a chance to do so. Feel free to experiment and let your individual taste and creativity take center stage. Good luck!
Related: How to reheat pizza?
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