We’re big Rao’s fans here at Sporked. Their high-quality, pleasantly oily marinara topped our list of the best marinara sauces you can buy at the grocery store, and Rao’s pizza sauce came in a close second in our pizza sauce ranking. Because the universe is occasionally good to us, Rao’s is now selling a trio of frozen pizzas slathered in their famously savory, herbaceous sauce.
Do Rao’s frozen pizza pies carry on the brand’s legacy of greatness? We ordered all three and tossed them in the oven to find out.
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I firmly believe pretty much all pizza is good pizza (even bad pizza is good pizza), but frozen pizzas can certainly run the gamut from delicious to disappointing. I’m pleased to report that you can file Rao’s Five Cheese Pizza under delicious. The crust around the edges rises nicely, but the bottom is thin and firm like a restaurant-style pie. But the best part might be the sauce-to-cheese-to-crust ratio. This pizza is covered in a lot of gooey, stretchy cheese (mozzarella, fontina, provolone, parm, and Romano), but there’s enough of the tangy, savory sauce to balance out the sheer volume of dairy. Trust me, you want one of these pizzas in your freezer the next time a craving hits. (And I personally love a plain pizza because you can top it however you want—mushrooms and onions for me!)
Visually, pepperoni is definitely the star of this meaty pizza, but once you take a bite, you’ll discover plenty of sausage and bacon squirreled away amid the gooey cheese. For meat lovers, Rao’s Meat Trio is an excellent pizza. That iconic Rao’s sauce takes a little more of a back seat here since the meats are so salty and flavorful, but if you want something good and greasy and slightly egregious, this is the pie for you.
Rating:
9/10
Sporks
New Product
Rao’s Brick Oven Crust Fire Roasted Vegetable Pizza
This veggie-topped pie has the same excellent crust and bright, tangy sauce as Rao’s other two new frozen pizzas, but this was our least favorite, mostly because oven-cooked frozen vegetables tend to release a lot of water. I don’t know anyone who likes a watery pizza. The mushrooms, onions, peppers, and tomatoes on this pie taste good by virtue of being fire roasted, but if you want a veggie pie, I think you’d be better off buying the Five Cheese and topping it with our own fresh veggies.
Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks.
Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown.
What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction.
Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home.
Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.
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Gwynedd Stuart
Tyler Bowers
Justine Sterling
