Product Review: Totino's Crisp Crust Party Pizza

Lately we've taken to having frozen pizza every Sunday night. My husband and I hanker for a veggie pizza, so we usually have DiGiorno's Spinach, Mushroom and Garlic Rising Crust Pizza.

However, on pizza night my sons prefer cheese. Totino's Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza has come in very handy to satisfy their cravings. We tried both the Cheese and Three Cheese varieties.

The best thing about this pizza is that it's cheap. At only $.98 at Wal-Mart, I count this pizza as being the next best thing to free. The cooking instructions are extremely simple to read and follow. You can bake it for twelve to thirteen minutes at 450 degrees directly on the rack for a crispy crust, or bake it for fifteen to sixteen minutes on a cookie sheet for a softer crust. I usually bake it on a round pizza pan, which achieves a crispy crust despite what it says on the package directions.

One downside to this product is that it's a little lean on the cheese. I purchase shredded mozzarella cheese in large packages, and keep it in the freezer for this reason. I can then just add a little bit of cheese so that it will come out just right. It also suffers a little from the "cardboard crust" that plagues many cheap frozen pizzas. Reducing the cooking time and using a sheet seems to help. The texture of the crust really wasn't a problem for my sons, who positively loved this pizza.

Totino's Original Crisp Crust Party Pizza is surprisingly nutritious. The serving size of one half pizza, which my sons can put away easily, has twelve grams of protein, 20% of the RDA for calcium, 8% of iron and 10% of iron. With the cheese I add, it's even higher.

Like most frozen pizzas, the sodium is rather high, at 760 mg, or 32% RDA, per serving. It also has 15 grams of fat, 3.5 of which are saturated, and another 3.5 of which are trans fat. I would say that if you are on a low sodium diet, or are watching your fat intake, this isn't the best product to get. However, for healthy people with a normal weight I think it's fine as a once-a-week indulgence.