Hy-vee take and bake pizza review

Description

This isn't your ordinary takeout or your ordinary pizza for that matter. Hy-Vee take & bake pizzas are made with fresh ingredients, come in a variety of crust styles, and are equally good for lunch, late-night, and of course, breakfast.

Look for the collection of take and bake pizzas and flat breads at your local Hy-Vee.

1. Cheese!

   Our take & bake pizzas are made with whole milk mozzarella cheese sourced from some of the best cheesemakers in Wisconsin. That's what gives our pizza the pull it deserves around the dinner table.

2. Crust

   It all comes down to the crust, literally. Which is why we developed something for everyone. From traditional hand tossed to thin to Tuscano gourmet cracker-thin, and even our gluten-free version, we've a crust to match any kind of craving.

3. Family-Size

   Choose from a medium 12-inch pie to share with 2 or 3 ... Or, opt for the family-size 16-inch large pizza for 5 or 6 people (or 2 or 3, depending on how hungry you are).

4. Breakfast

   So long, snooze button. Nothing gets us out of bed faster than thin-crust sausage or bacon breakfast pizza with eggs and an extra cheesy sauce.

5. Flavors

   Three-cheese, beef, sausage, pepperoni, meat cravers, supreme, Canadian bacon ... our ready-to-go take & bakes come in an assortment of family favorites.

6. Flat Bread

   Our take & bake collection is not just for pizza. We also have six different flavors of flatbread to choose from. For appetizers, sides, or the main meal, flat breads always add a good variety to the mix. Plus, the baking instructions could not be easier:

   Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
   Remove wrap from flatbread. Slide off cardboard directly onto oven rack.
   Bake 8-10 minutes, until cheese is melted or crust is golden brown.
   Slide back onto cardboard. Cut and enjoy.

SaveComments

While I am brand-loyal to a lot of grocery items, no store-bought pizza ever impressed me enough to demand such devotion. No frozen or take-and-bake pizza seemed to satisfy my needs. If it was gonna be a pizza night, it had to be from my local pizzeria. But then I heard my fellow Kitchn editors talk about the Mama Cozzi’s brand of pizza at Aldi.

Apparently, they’re so good, they tend to sell out early on Friday nights because shoppers know what’s up. This lore had me wondering: Are these pizzas significantly superior to the saucy slices of every other grocery store? I had to find out. I bought one of every take-and-bake pizza that my local store had on offer. Turns out, they absolutely are! These pizzas are great and I’m officially loyal now. Two really stood out as clear winners — let’s take a look.

How I Tested the Aldi Take-and-Bake Pizzas

I rolled my cart to the refrigerator section of my local Aldi and loaded it with every take-and-bake pizza on the shelves. I also picked up pizza-adjacent products like the cheesy bread sticks and flatbreads. All in all, I had 12 pizzas in contention for Aldi’s best.

Note: Aldi also regularly releases limited-edition “Aldi Finds” pizza varieties, but because those flavors can be here one day and gone the next, they were not included in this taste test.

In order to taste each flavor at the same time (while still hot!), I cut generous slices from each pizza and arranged them on a rack over a baking sheet. Package instructions call for baking directly on the rack, but because I wasn’t baking the whole pie, this seemed a safer bet to keep cheesy drips off of the bottom of my oven. The pizza slices were baked at the temperature specified on the box (375°F to 425°F), according to the prescribed time range.

Best Take-and-Bake Pizza at Aldi: Mama Cozzi’s Extra-Large Pepperoni Pizza

I was totally blown away by how good this pizza is. At 16 inches, this extra-large pizza is big enough to feed a crowd (or a gaggle of growing kids). The proportions of crust-to-sauce and cheese-to-toppings are spot-on. And while this variety features a trio of cheeses, the pepperoni is the true star, cupping and crisping as it bakes. The crust is crisp and rises slightly in the oven. Pro tip: I suggest baking the pizza on a pizza stone or steel or baking it in the lower third of the oven to encourage browning.

Buy: Mama Cozzi’s Extra-Large Pepperoni Pizza, $3.99 for 16-inch pizza

Best Gluten-Free Take-and-Bake Pizza at Aldi: Mama Cozzi’s Veggie Cauliflower Crust Pizza

This cauliflower crust pizza rivals the original Mama Cozzi’s pizza. The crust not only tastes great, but it also crisps up beautifully (cauliflower crust pizzas can sometimes be limp and flavorless). It is topped with a three-cheese blend and an abundance of roasted mushrooms, red onion, and red, green, and yellow bell peppers. And for those keeping score, this pizza isn’t low-carb but it is gluten-free.

Buy: Mama Cozzi’s Veggie Cauliflower Crust Pizza, $6.79 for 12-inch pizza

Do you love Aldi’s take-and-bake pizzas as much as we do? Tell us about your favorite in the comments.