How To Make Frozen Pizza Taste Restaurant-Quality Without Any Extra Ingredients Or Tools

There are tons of simple steps to transform your frozen pizza crust, or improve a whole boxed pie by adding oodles of extra toppings. But sometimes these supposed hacks become so involved that they defy the point of heating up a convenience food to begin with. But there is an even easier way to send a so-so frozen pizza careening to the elevated tier of pretty good. And all you need to do is crank up the heat.

The oven at your local pizzeria, Italian restaurant, or corner slice shop is incredibly hot. We're talking temperatures that range from 700 to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. So the notion that you'd get anywhere near the crisp finish that only the pros can achieve at something closer to a manufacturer's recommended 400 degrees will only end in disappointment. It's also one of the reasons that those same frozen pizzas perform so well in a high temp home pizza oven. Maximizing your kitchen oven's temp, which typically tops out at 500 degrees Fahrenheit, can have a similar effect.

Now, you obviously won't preheat your oven to 500 degrees and continue on like you would at the regular temperature. And this might take some trial and error, so plan to err on the side of caution so you don't end up wasting a whole darn dinner. Being that heat is your main ingredient and most important tool in this case, preheat your pizza stone or baking sheet, too. Position it on your oven's lowest rack to ultimately get that crust closer to the fire.

If the instructions on your frozen pizza box call for something like 12 minutes at 400 degrees, and you want to crisp it up at 500 instead, start checking for doneness at what would have otherwise been the halfway mark: six minutes. Flip on the lightbulb and spy it through the window if you can, which will help keep that precious hot air from escaping. It will probably need a couple more minutes to finish, but incremental checks on your first fired pizza effort, even if you do have to open the door to be sure, will allow you to just leave it alone next time. Done right, a higher-temperature bake is also one of the best budget-friendly hacks to elevate frozen pizza.