We’ve probably been eating pizza a bit too often here in the Freezer Meal Frenzy offices, but it’s hard to resist the siren song of that delicious, cheese-covered meal that we adore so much. We’ve recently been trying the Bellatoria line of frozen pizzas, so it doesn’t look like this pizza trend will end anytime soon.
With the Bellatoria line, we find ourselves looking over the more basic pies, such as your standard pepperoni or sausage, and going for the more ambitious offerings. We recently tried the Sunday Brunch Sausage Scramble Pizza, for example, and we thought it was quite good.
Today, we’re still bypassing the classics to check out the Bellatoria Chicken Carbonara Pan Pizza. We’ve tried Bellatoria’s thin crust, so we’re curious to see how they handle pan-style crust — especially since they’ve apparently trademarked the phrase: “Tender on the inside. Crisp on the outside.”
This is a pretty easy pizza to bake. Simply preheat your oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit, discard the packaging, and pop the pizza in for 16 to 20 minutes. The instructions say to place it directly on the center wrap, but we always use a baking sheet. Today was no exception.
Right away, we should say that the “Tender on the inside. Crisp on the outside” phrase is apt. This crust has more crisp than we were expecting, but that crisp stays mostly toward the outside and bottom. The inside is still soft and warm and lovely.
This pizza eschews the classic red sauce, replacing it with a creamy garlic alfredo sauce. It’s a very tasty choice, which brings all the toppings together in a way that’s quite satisfying.
The chicken is better than we were expecting it to be. It gets a little dry on the outside as the pizza cooks, but it still tastes great and every piece still has a tender, juicy inside. Then, of course, comes the bacon, which is generously applied and appropriately delightful. The contrast between that slightly sweet bacon flavor and the savory, creamy alfredo sauce is a real pleasure.
This has the mozzarella you’d expect, only it’s enhanced by asiago and parmesan to really complement the alfredo sauce. Our only complaint about this cheese is that we wish there were more of it.
Bellatoria considers 1/5 of a pizza to be a portion, and that meager portion size contains 300 calories (90 from fat) and 890 mg of sodium. That doesn’t seem too bad until you start doing some basic math. A full pizza contains 1,500 calories (450 from fat) and 4,450 mg of sodium. You certainly won’t be eating a full pizza in a sitting, but it’s reasonable to assume you’ll be eating more than 1/5 of it. We cut this pizza into eighths, and our reviewer was satisfied after eating three pieces. This would be slightly less than double the recommended serving size (3/8 = 15/40 and 2/5 = 16/40, for those who want to check our math on that).
The Bellatoria Chicken Carbonara Pan Pizza is a fantastic frozen pizza for those looking for something a little off the beaten path. We’re surprised by how good each of the individual components is here, and we’re delighted by how they all come together to make a lovely whole. Nice work, Bellatoria, you’ve really won us over with this one.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Bellatoria pan pizza, check out our package scans below.
