We assume that most people know Annie’s for their boxed mac and cheese, but we don’t know if this is a regional thing or even a matter of personal experience. Perhaps boxed mac and cheese is just Annie’s midwestern niche, and because we were introduced to the brand through this niche, it’s what we know them for. We’re willing to admit that our own experience isn’t universal.
In either case, Annie’s does a whole lot more than mac and cheese. Maybe you’re surprised by this, and maybe you’re not. We were honestly a bit surprised to see them dabbling in pizza rolls, though, so we decided we absolutely needed to check out the Annie’s Three Cheese Pizza Poppers, which is what we’re doing today.
There are three cooking methods listed on the box: conventional oven, toaster oven, and microwave. We decided to go with the conventional oven here, because that seems like the best one (and the one that Annie’s prefers, since they listed it first on the box.) If you want the full cooking instructions for all three methods, simply scroll down to the bottom of this review and check out the package scans.
Cooking these is actually a little bit weird, because they don’t ever turn golden brown. We cooked ours until the filling exploded out, and even then the shells were surprisingly light in color. That does seem to have a little bit of impact on the flavor, as the shells come out tasting a little doughy.
Of course, it’s what’s inside that counts, and we really love what Annie’s did (or at least tried to do) with the filling here. Instead of a saucier filling (think Totino’s), Annie’s really loaded these up with cheese. Every bite is loaded up with mozzarella to the point where it becomes the main flavor of each pizza popper. While we really appreciate the effort, we do have to admit that the cheese itself does taste a little bit weird, and there’s not enough sauce to cover that up. These are still quite good, but the flavor is a little bit weird if you’re expecting Totino’s-style pizza rolls.
According to the box, you should expect to find about 11 poppers inside, but ours actually contained 16. We don’t know if the employees at Annie’s were just being super generous the day they packed our box, or if you can normally expect there to be 15 or more poppers in a box, but we have to admit that this made us happy.
What made us even happier is that the full box is a serving size, and that serving size contains about 320 calories. We expected 320 calories to be the amount for a four-bite serving, so we were surprised to learn that this number covers the full box. Then again, our box contained almost 30% more than advertised, so we assume that had some measure of impact on the calorie count here.
The Annie’s Three Cheese Pizza Poppers aren’t perfect, but we think they’re lovable all the same. While the cheese tastes a little strange and the shells don’t seem to cook properly, these still end up tasting really good. We love how generous the cheese portion is, despite the odd taste, and we can certainly see ourselves picking these up again in the future.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for these frozen pizza poppers, check out our package scans below.
