Best frozen pizza do-over: This time it’s a home run for Chicago’s own

It turns out, readers have some Big Pizza Feelings.

After last month’s ranking of the top-selling frozen pizza brands was published, comments poured in with recommendations and endorsements of beloved brands that didn’t make the cut for our sampling, sometimes accompanied by enthusiastic praise and testimonies about how long readers and their families had considered them favorites.

We were intrigued, so we decided to try a handful of these reader suggestions for ourselves. Our initial test was based on market research showing top-selling pizzas. But for this one, we analyzed the comments and looked for the most-mentioned brands. We identified the top five and set out to test those, along with the winner of our initial test, DiGiorno’s Classic Crust. As we did the first time, we selected a simple cheese version of each brand to keep the comparison as apples-to-apples as possible. (Many comments simply mentioned the brand itself without identifying a preferred style.)

To bake the pizzas, we followed the instructions on the package, adhering to the exact time when specified and using visual cues when offered a range. And again, we conducted a blind test in which eight of our colleagues were given six samples without knowing what brands they were tasting. They gave each a score of 1 to 10, taking into account appearance, flavor and texture, meaning each sample had a possible high score of 80 and a low of 8.

The results of our initial test were reinforced — tasters still gave DiGiorno high marks. But the people had spoken, and they were not wrong: The brand with the most mentions in our comments section easily beat out all the competition in the second test.

It seems we have a new favorite pie, and we have readers to thank.

Here’s which reader-favorite frozen pizzas rose and which ones fell flat:

6. Amy’s Cheese Pizza

Score: 29

Several tasters deemed this entrant “bland,” but it was the crust — “spongy” and soft, according to our panel — that really doomed it in our rankings. “Like soft white bread from an industrial loaf,” according to one. Perhaps you would get more mileage out of one of the brand’s vegetable-topped pizzas, which some readers recommended from this long-standing vegetarian brand.

(Price: $9.16/13 ounces at Walmart)

5. Rao’s Brick Oven Crust Five Cheese Pizza

Score: 38

It is generally accepted canon around here that Rao’s makes the best jarred marinara sauce you can buy. (It won not one, but two blind taste tests.) And so the brand’s poor performance in this test was a disappointment. Tasters liked the visual evidence of herbs (it was one of only a few in the bunch to have flecks of green indicating some fresh produce had been involved in its production), but it was the cheese that did it in: The strands did not melt fully by the time the crust browned, leaving an unappealing mass. “Like a thick curtain of rubber,” complained one taster. But it had some fans. “A chic little slice,” said one. “Generous with the cheese and herbs.”

(Price: $12.69/18.3 ounces at Target)

4. Motor City Pizza Co. Four Cheese Detroit-Style Deep Dish Pizza

Score: 42

This brand is known for its Detroit-style pies, which are far heftier and more focaccia-adjacent than the others in the group. People liked its “thick,” “puffed-up” base. But there might have been a cheese-distribution issue at play, with a couple of tasters noting that their slices were unevenly sprinkled with cheese and others complaining that the amount of cheese was simply lacking (“Sparse on the cheese!”). We’d be interested to try the pepperoni version of this brand, which several readers recommended.

(Price: $7.99/26.17 ounces Pepperoni at Jewel-Osco; Four Cheese out of stock)

3. Newman’s Own Thin & Crispy Crust Four Cheese Pizza

Score: 45

Tasters liked that they could see and taste the variety of cheese on this pie from the company known for its do-gooding ways (“a bouquet of distinct cheese,” including “heavy notes of parm”), which one said gave it an “elevated” feel. But the sauce was a little lost, and tasters also wished it had a deeper color instead of the “pale” visage it offered up.

(Price: $7.59/16 ounces at Target)

2. DiGiorno Classic Crust Cheese Pizza

Score: 49

This freezer-aisle staple brand was the champion of our initial taste test, and it performed well again in Round 2. Colleagues liked the three-part harmony of crust, cheese and sauce. Each component got good marks on its own — the base was appealingly crisp, the sauce flavorful, and the cheese offered a rare “pull” — and they were deemed to be deployed in a satisfying way. “There’s a good ratio of all the components,” as one said. “DiGiorno has figured out food science on frozen pizza,” as one of the commenters on the original story summed it up.

(Price: $4.67/19.1 ounces at Walmart)

1. Home Run Inn Cheese Classic Pizza

Score: 65

What’s that sound? Oh, just the crown getting knocked off our initial winner. This brand — which began as a chain of pizzerias in the Chicago area — ran away with top honors in this test. Near-universal raves from the panel focused on its cheese coverage, such as “brown and crispy,” “very bronze on top” and “all the way to the edge,” as well as its thin crust. The cracker-y base layer, which the company describes as “tavern-style,” might not be for everyone, but our panelists were fans of the way it formed layers, almost like a laminated pastry such as a croissant.

Several tasters noted a bit of oil on the surface, but rather than turning people off, it seemed to lend this an “authentic” vibe. Overall, this pie — which was also the weightiest of the bunch at 27 ounces — was the clear star. According to one panelist: “a very sexy slice.”

(Price: $6.99/27 ounces at Jewel-Osco)