If You're Not Using Your Pizza Oven For Frozen Pizzas, You're Missing Out

The possibilities for enjoying frozen pizza can be as vast and varied as the varieties in existence themselves. Many of us keep a couple kicking around for when we've forgotten some key dinner ingredient, work or happy hour runs long, or cooking plans otherwise go awry. Preheat, unbox, maybe redistribute any errant toppings, and you've got several tasty slices in about 10 minutes. 

Then there are the tips, hacks, and frozen pizza upgrades. Even something as simple as a drizzle of hot honey or a brush of garlic butter can go a long way in elevating a pre-made pie, not to mention intermediate improvements like cooking it in a cast iron skillet. But the next level of frozen pizza advancement is hiding in plain sight: preparing it in your pizza oven.

Whether you're working with a massive outdoor monster in your sprawling suburban backyard or a comparatively teensy indoor kitchen type, you needn't reserve the appliance and its improved heat distribution for those special nights when you're elbows deep in homemade dough. Instead, pop a frozen pizza in a pizza oven for an extra delicious and crispy savory pie.

You shouldn't expect to follow the same steps for a frozen pizza versus fresh and achieve the same or even passably successful results. One perk of a pizza oven is its ability to run at a much higher temperature than the gas or electric one in your kitchen. That enables scratch-made pies to finish in a fraction of the time it takes for a frozen one to cook, while also improving the pizza's texture. But you'll want to set the special oven a bit lower when cooking a frozen pizza, somewhere between 350 and 450 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the crust (lower for thinner, higher for thicker). Lest you're wondering what the point is in this case, your pizza will still benefit from the improved heat distribution, just to a lower degree, literally. Cooking your pie on a pizza screen, like this one from New Star Foodservice, will aid in this aim even further and help avoid scorching the crust's bottom.

From there, your frozen pizza will probably take as long to bake as the manufacturer's instructions indicate. Again, while those terrifically hand-tossed and lovingly sauced, scratch-made pies are finished in the blink of an eye, your frozen pizza is, you know, frozen. Until you've perfected your pizza oven's optimal frozen pizza time and temp, check on its doneness about five minutes early and then every couple of minutes after until the edges are a nice golden brown and it's cooked through the center.