You Should Always Avoid These 12 Grocery Store Frozen Pizzas

Pizza is an American classic right up there with the hamburger. It's the perfect party food, and the customization options are nearly endless. Frozen pizza, however, is an animal all its own. It's not what you pick up for fine dining at home, but as a family meal, it's often extremely convenient. The frozen pizza dinner option is ideal for folks who are looking to enjoy quick, tasty grub that's easy to prepare.

No one expects a frozen pizza to revolutionize the pizza market, (unless you perform a little DIY magic on it), but is it too much to ask that it hits the spot after a long day? For some frozen pizzas, the answer is yes — it is indeed too much to ask. We're covering 12 frozen pizzas (or brands) that have left customers feeling grossly dissatisfied. They may be easy and convenient, but you'll wish these pizzas had never emerged from the oven.

Nobody wants to hate on Mama Cozzi, but if she doesn't up her pizza game, the rough reviews will keep rolling in. The box image promises pizza lovers a tender brown crust with gooey cheese and three kinds of delicious meat, baked to perfection. But while the baking aspect is up to the customer, it doesn't seem to matter what kind of oven this pizza goes in — the result is bad news. This pizza brand is a product of Aldi, a series of German-owned discount supermarket chains.

That explains the price of a Mama Cozzi's frozen pizza, which rings in anywhere from approximately $3 to $5, depending on which specific pizza you're buying. But while the price is reasonable, remember you get what you pay for, and some customers have been less than thrilled with their Stuffed Crust Three Meat experience. After trying it, one Redditor had this to say: "Crust was bland, sauce was bland, toppings were bland." Not much of an endorsement. Other comments in the same thread included sentiments like "Worst we've ever bought!" or "no sauce, very little cheese." The final comment in this thread is "Yuck real bad never buy again."

"Tony's Pepperoni" is fun to say out loud, but sadly for Chef Tony, the fun stops there. This box looks a bit like something you can find lurking beneath the flashier, higher-priced frozen pizzas. At least Tony's is dang cheap, ranging from $3.79 to $6.69. Sometimes, you aren't looking for a proper gourmet pizza experience, and that's where a frozen pizza comes in. But customers are still looking for more quality than Tony's is giving here.

A reddit customer said, "Frozen pizza for $5 is cool, but it definitely tastes like a $5 pizza. It's like a lower quality Red Baron. Crust is hard & dry, and sauce is too sweet." They go on to say they'll be buying Red Baron in the future. Well, score one for the baron (we'll get to him later). Another customer in the same thread said, "I know it's not quality pizza, but it's edible, it's cheap." Some customers described this pizza as nostalgic, remembering how they used to eat it when they were younger. But if you want the general assessment, Tony's Pepperoni is cheap and technically edible. Maybe go for a different brand next pizza night.

Here's a pizza that doesn't beat around the bush — Trader Joe's Spicy Meat Pizza has meat, and that meat is spicy. That's one straight-shootin' title, but for some reviewers, this frozen pizza made a straight shot from the oven to the trash. The previous pizzas we mentioned had lukewarm reviews at best, but according to customers, this Trader Joe's special is downright gross.

One Reddit commenter said, "Could not even choke down one entire slice." Along that same sentiment, another unhappy customer said, "I remember spitting this out." Another referred to the sauce, specifically, and that they couldn't do it. They said, "It tasted like maple syrup." That actually sounds like it could be some sort of specialty pizza flavor at a hip pizza restaurant. But when it's a flavor that jumps out at you from a frozen pizza that's supposed to taste like spicy meat, it's not a good thing. Others seemed to agree about the maple flavor, saying that, "The sauce is WAY too sweet on this one."

This pizza gets points for fun and style, but it's all in the presentation. Regrettably, Totino's creative mosaic party pizza is more fun to look at than it is to eat. The Totino's Party Pizza webpage philosophizes that while money doesn't buy happiness, it can still buy pizza, which is a close second. That might be true when you hit up a Pizza Hut, but bringing home a Totino's is a different story.

It's a bit dramatic, but this customer took to Reddit to announce that the party pizza might "be the end of a five-year relationship." It sounds tragic, but it's understandable — the picture they include looks less than appetizing, especially by contrast with the perfectly baked delights pictured on the Totino's website. Maybe something happened along the lifespan of this particular pizza product, because another customer replied to the review thread, saying, "I used to love these back in college when it was round and came in a box." But they go on to describe the modern version as "inedible." Not all the reviews were completely negative, but to end on a summary note, one customer described the pizza as, "Good for the price I guess, but really just tastes like sadness."

Poor Mama Cozzi's second appearance on this list is another cheesy fiasco. This time it's the cheese-stuffed crust that promises to please the palate, but not even the impressive statistic of "2½ ft. of cheese" in the crust can save this pie from the precipice of customer dissatisfaction. On Reddit, one customer in particular was deeply dissatisfied with their experience eating this pizza, and they were not afraid to go into detail. They said that "this pizza was terrible." They plead with other Redditors to "please stop recommending mama cozzi products until they change the crust."

What's wrong with the crust? Evidently, it's like "eating a loaf of bread." They also said that, despite the name on the box, "the crust was not stuffed at all." Another customer agreed, saying that Mama Cozzi's Stuffed Crust Pizza is "absolutely garbage." This is probably not the flavor most pizza eaters are looking for in a pie. Some commenters had positive things to say, but the most balanced take was that certain Mama Cozzi's pizzas are better than others. They said that while the stuffed crust entries were lackluster, "me and my fiancé have enjoyed the rising crust."

This is a warning to all customers who might find themselves lured to a sub-par dinner by the siren song of the Screamin' Sicilian. The box art on the pizza is pretty wild, but style and unique presentation don't always equate to good pizza. A Reddit customer took up the bullhorn and announced that, while they had been excited for this frozen pizza, "it was super bready." They added that "something is off with the sauce. It was "too sweet."

A pizza only has so many ingredients. Dough, cheese, and sauce are the core of this American classic, which means that if even one of those pillars is not on point, the whole meal suffers quite a bit. Overly sweet sauce can spoil an otherwise good pizza, and one longtime customer lamented that it's "hard not to notice how much they have cheapened their ingredients' quality." Other customer complaints from this thread mentioned problems like cheeses that "melt and burn at different temperatures," and how the pizza "used to be super good" until the company started cutting costs. Someday, perhaps, Bessie's Revenge could return to its former glory. But that day is apparently not today.

Some Chuck E. Cheese customers may fondly remember cramming delicious restaurant pizza into their mouths between arcade games. But childhood nostalgia is not enough to warrant trying a second slice of Chuck's frozen rendition. When baked to golden, crispy perfection in the Chuck E. Cheese kitchen, these pizzas are a guilty, calorie-heavy pleasure. When they come frozen from the grocery store shelf, though, customers seem pretty unhappy with the result.

In a video review on Reddit, this customer was not impressed after his first bite. He compares the crust to cardboard, saying "It's not the best frozen pizza I've ever had." He does also say that this pizza could be a winner if they fix their crust, and then he ends on a note of doubt, suggesting that he misremembers the original pizza being good "back in the day." In the same thread, another unhappy customer agreed, saying that Chuck E. Cheese "was many things but never a chef." Someone else countered that the in-restaurant pizza, which they had eaten recently, "was way better than this as frozen can never compare." Whether the restaurant version is good or not, the consensus seems to be that the frozen version is one to avoid.

Even a famished grave robber would be disappointed to exhume the Tombstone 4-Meat Pizza. Tombstone may have put out some fun ads back when the brand was establishing itself, but the taste of this frozen pizza is a memory best left buried. One of the biggest names in frozen pizza, Tombstone has produced a solid variety of pizzas over the years. Traditionally, they have opted to skip the box, meaning you could spot them on the shelf by the round shape of the pizza in its plastic wrap. Lately, they have decided to embrace the box as a way of presenting themselves in a new light.

But a reputation for sub-par pies is hard to shake. One customer on Reddit said that the 4-Meat was "not awful but low-quality and bland." They mentioned being overwhelmed by the taste of "cheap sausage" that cancelled out the flavor of the other meats. They also complained that, "Crust was cardboard like and sauce was one note." This is an issue that seems to dog some other frozen pizzas too. Another customer said that Tombstone has "a special place in my heart for being like $5." At least it's affordable. But as for flavor and quality, maybe look elsewhere.

Digiorno made a name for itself with their famous slogan, "It's not delivery, it's Digiorno." In other words, it tastes so good you'll think it was delivered from a pizza restaurant. The problem is that the greatest similarity between Digiorno and restaurant-delivered pizza is the pricing. You'd think that would mean similar quality and value, but a Reddit customer uploaded a picture of his hand hovering over a frozen Digiorno pizza for size comparison, and the pie looks really small. One commenter quipped, "It's not delivery, it's disappointment."

When you pay for a whole pizza, it would be nice to get something that looks like it's not designed for a small child. Another customer lamented that "at [Digiorno's] price, [you] might as well get delivery." Dubbed by some as part of the "shrinkflation" problem, tiny pies are a complaint that recurs again and again throughout the thread. One person even complains the pizzas don't fill up a standard pizza oven pan. One customer notes that Domino's has better prices. A little research reveals that their small pizza clocks in at $8, whereas a smaller-sized Digiorno will run you about $5-$8. So it's not that Digiorno is bad, but the price per slice just seems way off here.

Named after a highly skilled German WW1 pilot (who looked nothing like the mustachioed guy on the box), Red Baron is among the more inspired brands on this list. But in terms of flavor, the Classic Crust 4-Cheese does not boast a record half so decorated as its company's namesake. A customer took to Reddit with the following report on their Classic Crust 4-Cheese experience: "It was fine. The crust was average, it had an okay amount of cheese and sauce." It's not what you would call a glowing review, but at least it's not terrible. That said, when you buy pizza for dinner, are you really looking to eat something described as just "fine?"

One popular comment mentions the superiority of a different Red Baron offering, the Brick Oven Crust Pepperoni Pizza. Others seem to agree, another commenter saying that Red Baron ought to "retire the regular [pizzas] and switch everything to the brick oven style." So this is another frozen pizza that is honestly not bad, but it's also not great. So if you're a hankering for Red Baron, reviews indicate you'd do best with a brick oven crust pizza. Unless you enjoy mediocre pizza.

This is another entry on our list that applies to the entire brand. And contrary to what you may expect, California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) is, reportedly, not terrible. In fact, some people seem to rather enjoy pies from CPK. But all things considered, there's more to a pizza than flavor. On Reddit, a customer praised the brand's flavor as "delicious" but decried its overall value. They noted that the pies range from $7-$9 (a little on the pricier side for frozen pizza), but that they're "far less filling than a normal pizza."

Compared to Red Baron, says the reviewer, CPK pizzas have thinner crust, and they're more expensive. On the other hand, another customer in the same thread says that these pizzas make for a great dieting option: "I love eating half a pizza for 500 calories." That may be a plus, but it's a rather specific reason to opt for this brand of frozen pizza. Another reviewer on Find Me Gluten Free finds $9.99 to be "ridiculously expensive" for a frozen pizza, and this is doubly true for a pie that doesn't fill you up. So maybe this is a decent choice for dieters, but for everyone else, check out a different brand instead.

Sabatasso's singles are fun little miniature pizzas, each one about as substantive as a slice from a normal-sized pizza. But some customers advise that you think twice before popping one of these singles into the microwave. Natalie, a reviewer from Costcuisine, reports that these pizzas are "a little artificial and cheap tasting." After inspecting the ingredients, she warned readers the pizzas contain palm oil shortening, sugar and soy, which may be a no-go for some consumers. She thinks that overall, these pizzas would appeal more to kids than adults due to their fun miniature size. She also says that there's "not a lot of sauce" to be found in each pizza, and that the cost is a bit much given the low quality of Sabatasso's.

A reviewer on Reddit agrees, saying that the pizzas are "terrible," and that their quality is on a level with pizzas from a school cafeteria. While Sabatasso's singles might be good for kids, as for adults, the consensus is to stay away. One other customer from the thread added their two cents, saying they'd tried Sabatasso's and "wasn't a huge fan ... not worth buying again."