Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic & Pesto Pizza with Deep Fried Crust

Having never been a Trader Joe's employee, I cannot confirm with absolute certainty if this would be the case or not, but as an avid shopper for years I can almost assuredly claim that it is: When checking out at the register, the employee running the register must absolutely see one product you're buying and exclaim "OMG have you ever had this? It's literally the best _____ I've ever had!"

Sure, maybe they're being super friendly brand ambassadors trying to make an easy natural conversation, but it's happened way too many times to be coincidence. Can any employee confirm? 

This is mentioned in reference to the new Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic & Pesto Pizza with Deep Fried Crust because while checking out, not just my cashier exclaimed this about this pizza, but two others I walked past as I was walking out. It kinda helps that they know who I am and want to say Hi and wondering what new thing I'm picking up for the blog...but when one of them, whose opinion you generally trust, exclaims "it's one of the best pizzas I ever had!", I follow with a clarifying question of "Pizza pizza or frozen pizza?" and she assuredly states "Pizza. Period.", well, it kinda gets a mind a-wanderin' and a tummy a-growlin'. 

The selling point here, obviously, is the crust. That makes sense. It's the single most important component of any pizza...by far. And I've heard  of deep fried pizza crust but have never actually had it, so I think this is a somewhat natural, unbiased opinion: the deep fried crust is amazing. I've grown so used to (and tired of) the usual frozen pizza cardboard crust that, to have something so light, so crispy outside, so soft and chewy inside (like chewing on a cumulus cloud) it was amazing. This...from a freezer box and my oven, with literally no effort on my part? Amazing! I love it!

However...

Making this only one time so far, I'm not sure if this is an everytime occurrence or not, but during baking the crust puffed up to deflated soccer ball size. Literally, I had a 5 inch tall pizza mound baking. Cheese and pesto slipped off, dropping to the oven floor, making the smoke alarm obnoxiously blare like some dumb kid with subwoofers driving down the street. Relatedly, the toppings also rearranged themselves, making them not quite as uniformly spread out as before. My lovely bride and I shared a pie, and we each only got about two, maybe three smallish bites of pesto on our portions. 

That's a shame, because it truly was the only downside to the deep-fried pizza. That classic pesto, beefed up with some cashews? Awesome, herbaceous, and lively. All four cheeses- burrata, mozzarella, provolone and parmigiano reggiano? All present and delicious, could use more of the reggiano, but then again I almost always think that. Plenty of good roasted garlic too, which coincidentally is our personal pizza topping of the month - we make homemade pizza almost every week and have ben plopping that atop our like mad. This stuff is great.

At $5.99 for a smallish pie, it's a good enough value. it says three servings per pizza, which sounds slim to me. Half a pizza and some veggies or side salad sounds like a much more appropriate dinner. And yeah, it's still frozen pizza, so there's much healthier things out there (looking at you, fat and sodium), but c'mon now. So happy with the pizza, it's definitely taken the crown of my favorite TJ's pizza. Still can't beat our homemade though. Double fours. 

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Roasted Garlic & Pesto Pizza with Deep Fried Crust: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons  


 

9 comments:

  1. I think TJ's should sell the deep fried crust by itself as a blank state and we can dress up whatever we like. I really like this crust which is unique.

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  2. If you gently stab the top layer of crust before baking, would that stop the inflation?

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  3. Just wanted to say that I've been reading the blog for years and you all deliver every time. I honestly just read it now for the writing and less for the product reviews. With that said, I may have to try this pizza now as you, like all true lovers of pizza, judge a pizza on the merits of its crust.

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  4. Ohh this is SO GOOD! I want to go buy five more.

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  5. We didn't have any topping disaster with ours.

    Fried pizza crust is fantastic, and the execution of this frozen one is honestly nearly as good as a pizzeria. I am astounded that frozen pizza can be so good. Some other topping choices would be great too, but seriously this thing is miraculous.

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  6. Loved this- the only thing I would do to enhance the experience next time is have a tomato based sauce to dip it in.

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  7. Fairly recently I finally acquired an Air Fryer and have been obsessed with trying different dishes in it. It sounds like this pizza might be an excellent candidate for the Air Fryer. Has anyone tried it?

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  8. This pizza is so small!!! Maybe I'm just cheap, but I thought the box looked kinda small for $6. And then I took the pizza out. 😂 This better be some damn fine gourmet pizza.

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