I Tried Every Frozen Pizza at Costco — Here’s What I Thought of Each One

Pizza, pizza, along the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?

When it comes to frozen pizzas, chances are you have your favorite and don’t really spare a glance to other options, because why would you venture from what you know is good? There are too many bad options lurking out there, ready to ruin your frozen pizza and Netflix night with a mushy crust, bland sauce, or rubbery cheese.

As for me, Costco’s gluten-free pizza is my one-and-only frozen pizza. (Even though I usually do eat gluten!) I never even noticed they had much of anything else when I loaded up my cart with these yummy pies. But we tackle tough questions here at Kitchn, and when the question arose as to which Costco frozen pizza was the best, I was willing to pit my top pick against the rest of the offerings from our favorite warehouse store.

Aside from having the biggest bulk packages you’ve ever seen, Costco is known for having limited options. Just one type of ketchup, for example. And yet the warehouse store still has a half-dozen different frozen pizzas. (A decent amount!) I decided to try them all. Here’s what my socially distanced taste testers and I thought of each one.

This was my biggest surprise, because I don’t even generally like pepperoni pizza. But I was wowed by the flaky, buttery crust; the sauce, which hit just the right balance of sweet and savory; the decent cheese coverage; and, as one taster said, “awesome pepperoni!” It scored generally high, with just one low score of 6 that asked “Where’s the cheese?” I’d take this over a mass market pizza delivery chain any day, and it’s $3 (!) and no doorbell to freak out the dogs.

This one’s no surprise to me. We usually go through the three-pack once a month and it always hits the spot with its crisp and mildly sweet crust, savory sauce, and happy melding of four cheeses. What did surprise me was the vehement reaction to it from a few taste-testers. It got more below-7 scores than above, and the people who disliked it really disliked it. Meanwhile if you liked it, you really liked it. Like anything, pizza’s a matter of preference, so I’m bucking the crowd consensus on this one, with a very close second place.

Read more: The Gluten-Free Costco Buy I Always Have in My Freezer — Even Though I’m Not Gluten Free

Gluten-free, non-GMO, and basically smothered in veggies, I gotta be honest, this pizza didn’t sound like a crowd-pleaser. But it was the only one to get more than one perfect 10 score in our taste test (with two, plus a 9 and an 8). “It’s my favorite cauliflower thing,” one judge said (which makes me wonder if she’s had the miracle that is Trader Joe’s cauli gnocchi).

For me it breaks an important Rule of Pizza, which is vegetables belong only on top, not in the crust. Crusts are for dough, and this one tasted decidedly of cauliflower, so it was my least favorite. But because it was so popular with our testers, it lands third.

This pizza earned both a highest and a lowest score among tasters. It was among my least favorites, with its thicker, somewhat mealy, and too-sweet crust that one taster called “squishy,” while another deemed it “fluffy and delightful.” But it earned a couple of rave reviews, so I’ve placed it fourth.

This was the most run-of-the-mill pizza in the bunch, earning a bunch of 6 scores, with a couple 5s and 7s and one outlier 9 (because the taster liked the spice on the sausage). As for the rest of us, it wasn’t actively offensive, just utterly unmemorable. I’ve never had pizza from a gas station, but I kind of imagine this is what it would taste like.

This sad little pizza got three ratings of 3, the rest were 4s to 6s (with a stray 8 from one fan who thought the crust was “crispy and firm in all the right ways!”). I mean, any pizza that claims to be microwavable just isn’t going for the heights of craftsmanship, so none of this comes as a surprise. And something has to come in last, after all!

Do you have a favorite frozen pizza at Costco? What is it?