Trader Joe’s Pesto Pizza

As you may have read in my Pizza Dough post I am a bit of a pizza geek. I routinely make pizza from scratch or buy the Trader Joe’s Pizza dough and roll my own. But sometimes, even that isn’t quick enough if I am in a hurry. So, I pick up some of these Trader Joe’s frozen pizzas and keep them in the freezer for those occasions. A while back I went on a pizza buying spree and bought a bunch of them and for this, I decided to try the Trader Joe’s Pesto Pizza from the frozen section.

Frozen pizzas are generally just OK for me. They are OK in a pinch when you have nothing else to eat and you want to just throw something in the oven and 10 minutes later start eating! I was intrigued by this pizza because it was vegetarian and Becky doesn’t always like to eat a lot of meat and if the pizza looked anything like the picture on the box this was definitely something Becky would eat! It seemed to be a little lighter without a tomato sauce, but having pesto as the base and tomatoes and cheese on top and it looked like a sprinkling of broccoli (?) on top too. Broccoli on pizza? What’s next? I guess anything goes on pizza these days!

So I warmed up the oven and took the pizza out of the box and wrapper. I looked at the front of the box when the oven was warming up and noticed it said “Made with Organic flour and vegetables”. Hmmm… I guess the olive oil and cheese are nonorganic? Trader Joe’s if you are going to have 90% of the ingredients as organic and you drop the ball on two of the ingredients? Oh well, it probably doesn’t affect the way the pizza tastes.

The oven is warmed up and I pop the pizza in there. Wait the usual 8-10 minutes. I didn’t use a stone for this pizza. In fact, I never use a pizza stone on these frozen pizzas. I find that it can dry out the crust and slow down the baking process. Better to just stick them right on the rack or on some aluminum foil if you are worried about the mess. I have to say that this pizza when it’s fully cooked might win the prize for “The product that most resembles the picture on the box”! It looks great!

You know what? I didn’t taste half bad either! I don’t know how they did it, but those tomatoes didn’t turn to mush when they baked on the pizza. The pesto sauce wasn’t too much. Many times pesto on a pizza can be a little oily but they seemed to have put down a really thin layer. The pizza is topped with pesto sauce, then tomatoes, then some cheese, and then a sprinkling of broccoli. It is all very appealing to the eye. I really enjoyed it!

The only downside for me is that there wasn’t enough cheese. There is never enough cheese on these frozen pizzas. Cheese is probably the most expensive ingredient they put on them so they always cut back. I would sprinkle a little Quattro Formaggio on top just because I like cheese!

As I said, I really enjoyed this Trader Joe’s Pesto Pizza. If you are looking for a vegetarian option on a frozen pizza then this might be it for you. I am going to rate this pizza 8 Bells!