If you introduce a Freezer Meal Frenzy staffer to a new frozen pizza, there’s a good chance they’ll want to rush home and try it out as soon as possible. That’s exactly what happened today — we were at our local Trader Joe’s and we spotted the Trader Joe’s Pizza Parlanno. We knew that it needed to be reviewed as soon as possible.
You might be asking yourself, “What the heck is a Parlanno?” We asked the same question, and despite our feisty Googling, we didn’t come up with an answer. It seems like it’s either a word that Trader Joe’s made up (it’s one letter off from the Italian word parlano), or else it’s a family name. Perhaps someone with the surname Parlanno was in charge of creating this pizza. As in, “That Joe Parlanno, he really knows how to make a tasty pizza!” We don’t really know.
This is one of those pizzas that needs to be cooked directly on the pizza rack. We typically use some sort of baking sheet or stone when cooking a pizza, but we decided to follow the instructions this time. (To see the full cooking instructions, check out our package scan at the bottom of this article.)
Despite all the fancy words on the package (the mysterious word parlanno and the Trader Giotto’s sub-branding), this is really close to what you’d expect from a traditional supreme pizza. It’s got pepperoni, sausage, roasted peppers, and onions. We’re sad to say there are no mushrooms here — what initially appeared to be mushrooms ended up being darkly cooked bits of roasted green bell pepper.
Per the instructions on the box, we cooked this for an extra minute to get a crispier crust. Note that we didn’t find it to be overly crispy, except at the very edges. The middle of our crust was still pretty soft.
Of all the toppings, it’s the pepperoni that stands out the most. It has a potent flavor that almost overpowers everything else — this was definitely designed for lovers of pepperoni. The other toppings are pretty much what you’d expect. Nothing here is going to blow your mind — this is a pretty average supreme-style pizza (as we said earlier).
We do have a nitpick: this pizza is a bit light on sauce. We tend to like saucier pizzas, and this is not one of them. If you’re like us in this regard, you might be better off trying the DiGiorno Pizzeria! Speciale Supreme Pizza instead of this one. However, if you don’t like a ton of sauce, this might be the pizza you’ve been looking for.
According to the box, one quarter of a pizza is considered a serving. We think that’s bogus — you’ll probably eat half of this in a go. That means the 330 calories and 620 mg of sodium will become 660 calories and 1,240 mg of sodium. You don’t even want to know the numbers for a full pie!
The Trader Joe’s Parlanno Pizza is quite alright, though we can’t really say there’s anything special about it. It’s hard to beat the price (we paid $4.99 for our pizza), but other than that, this is pretty much what you’d expect from a frozen supreme pizza. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Trader Joe’s frozen pizza, check out our package scan below.
I really liked it, no complaints from me and will buy again.
Half of one of these and half a bag of TJs Spicy frozen wings, plus a couple of cold TJ beers makes a great meal.
This is my favorite frozen pizza from Traders. Sausage, onion, and peppers. I don’t miss the mushrooms.
The pizza parlanno is good, however, it sticks to the edges on the pizza pan even after a coat of olive oil.