The Vegetable Pizza Red Flag You Need To Watch Out For

Grabbing a slice from your local pizza joint can be a risky move. Not all pizza joints are created equal; some will make pizza fresh, others will leave pizzas sitting out under hot lamps for hours on end, resulting in mushy, soggy slices. With vegetable pizza in particular, it is important to take note of certain visual cues to determine if a slice is going to be worth getting.

Vegetable pizza that has been left out for too long can result in the vegetable toppings becoming mushy or dried out. As such, be sure to take a good look at vegetable pizza before buying it, as the visual appearance of toppings can be a good indicator of freshness. Keep an eye out for overly wet or dried out toppings in particular.

Taking the time to get a good look at your pizza before buying it can help you avoid red flags at pizza shops as a whole. When it comes to vegetable pizza specifically, freshness is the key, so if a pizza looks like it's been sitting out, give it a pass. Chances are it won't taste great and the texture will be less than desirable.

Beyond freshness, there are other issues that could be bringing down your vegetable pizza experience at pizza shops. Fortunately, all of them can be spotted simply by looking. Another major sign that vegetable pizza might be less than ideal is the number of toppings on the pizza. If you see a vegetable pizza that looks overloaded with toppings, chances are the dough might not be thoroughly cooked through and will be weighed down and soggy as a result.

Whether or not the vegetables are in season can also affect the quality of the pizza. Even though vegetables can be grown year-round in greenhouses, produce will taste better when it is at peak freshness. Last but not least, take a look at how thoroughly cooked vegetables are. Some vegetables require pre-cooking before being added as a topping due to size, water content, or thickness; for example, vegetables like potatoes likely won't cook properly just on the pizza alone while vegetables like corn will cook just fine.

One of the easiest ways to avoid these issues is to choose pizzerias that can make pizza fresh to order; at the very least, try to spot pizza joints that rotate out their pizza pretty regularly so you have a decent chance of getting a fresher slice. If possible, watch what the cooks are doing too; if a pizza joint has a visual angle in which you can watch how your vegetable pizza is being made, you can pick up on some of these warning signs before buying a slice.