Tag: Pizza Hut

I was, admittedly, a late bloomer when it comes to Pizza Hut. Between a VERY Italian father and great local pizza joints, Pizza Hut was reserved for classroom parties and that one friend’s house that had a thick layer of dust in their kitchen from non-use.

I liked it fine, but it was just never part of my childhood. As an adult, it’s become a fairly common staple of my diet. Between the ease of getting it and some late in life rebellion against my Dad, it has become a once a month meal for me. While I usually stay within my same order, the large banner advertising the return of The Edge Crustless Pizza caught my attention.

The Edge isn’t a new item but a rerelease of a product that debuted in 1997. Described as a “tavern style, cracker thin crust pizza,” it sees the toppings go all the way to the edge (get it, like the name?), making each slice 100% covered in toppings. It’s cut into squares, aka “party cut,” giving you 16 pieces. The tavern style was actually created in Chicago, which was news to me as I only thought of the deep dish style as the only popular pizza from Chicago.

When you order, you are given an option of four recipes: Ultimate, Carnivore, Vegetarian, or Pepperoni Lover’s. For what it’s worth, it appears like you can change the toppings once you select one of the recipes, but for the sake of trying it as it’s presented, I went with the Ultimate. The Ultimate includes pepperoni, Italian sausage, green peppers, onions, and Roma tomatoes.

The first thing I noticed was the branding of The Edge on the box. Upon opening it, the consistently comforting smell of Pizza Hut pizza filled the room. However, looking at it, I noticed an issue immediately: the lack of sausage. After debating if I should get it fixed, I decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. There were more than enough toppings to judge it fairly, and (after trying it) I can say the sausage most likely wouldn’t have moved the needle much in either direction.

Even though I knew it would be a thin crust, it was still shockingly thin. Despite its thinness, it stood up very well. There was a good balance of the sauce, cheese, and toppings that worked with the crust making each bite balanced in flavor and crispiness. The box bragged of a “garlic & herb seasoning” sprinkled on top, but was inconsistently present.

Beyond the missing sausage, my only other criticism was the pieces themselves. Technically, it is 16 pieces, but it’s more like “12 normal size pieces and four random bits.” Oh, and because it’s thinner, I could easily polish off a whole one which is incredibly dangerous.

Overall, it’s a nice change of pace, but nothing I’d make a regular order. It dawned on me how this will be a nice summer pizza. It’s light, so you don’t feel heavy after eating half of it, but it satisfies that pizza craving. The Edge is only around for a limited time, so I’d try it sooner than later.

Purchased Price: $12.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 “slice”) 180 calories, 10 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 680 milligrams of sodium, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein.

What is the Pizza Hut Detroit-Style Double Pepperoni Pizza?

It’s a Detroit-style deep-dish pizza topped with classic pepperoni, Pizza Hut’s new crispy cupped pepperoni, a layer of cheese that goes all the way to the edge of a crispy, caramelized crust, and two streaks of the chain’s new vine-ripened tomato sauce.

How is it?

Well, it tastes like a pepperoni pizza.

Although some of its flavors are slightly different than any of The Hut’s other pepperoni-topped offerings because of the smaller pepperoni and the sauce’s position.

The cup pepperoni slices are noticeably spicier than the standard flat pepperoni. Those that aren’t drenched with sauce also provide some crispiness. As for the new sauce, being on top of everything makes its flavors stand out. It’s sweet, but even more acidic. Its placement can be troublesome because there isn’t any sauce under the cheese, unlike most pizzas. So there’s a good chance you might take bites that are sauce-less, which taste okay but aren’t optimal.

Just like its box says, the edges are crispy and cheesy, and the inner crust is light and airy. But the crust, when tasted on its own, is bland. Thankfully the toppings layer extends to the edges, so there’s no honkin’ huge flavorless end crust to deal with.

Anything else you need to know?

I hate it when pizza forces me to do homework.

It’s not the “you won’t get any pizza until you finish your homework” forcing. With this Detroit-style Double Pepperoni Pizza, it’s the “I have to fact check whether the pizza is supposed to look that way” forcing. Because I’ve never seen a pizza with two thick tomato sauce streaks painted on it.

After seeing that, I was off to Google to find out if Detroit-style deep-dish pizzas are really like that and because I’m using Google, to ensure I will see pizza-related advertisements on every website I visit for the next few weeks.

Well, it turns out my pizza geography knowledge is lacking.

But why is the sauce only on top? According to the box, it’s there to keep the crust light and airy. But I find that answer to be a bit strange because Pizza Hut’s Pan Pizza doesn’t need the sauce to be on top of everything to maintain its soft and fluffy crust, but I digress.

Conclusion:

This Detroit-Style Double Pepperoni Pizza is a slightly different tasting pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut. It’s not better than the standard Pizza Hut pizza. It’s also not worse. But it does look like what would happen if we told an extraterrestrial being visiting the Earth for the first time the components of a pizza and have it make one, but not tell it the order they usually go on top of each other.

Purchased Price: $13.99*
Size: N/A
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 slice) 330 calories, 17 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 720 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 14 grams of protein.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

Click here for our previous fast food reviews.

As I was going through the options to order my Pizza Hut Beyond Italian Sausage Pizza online, I thought about getting an order with half regular Italian sausage and half Beyond Italian sausage to compare.

But then I thought, “How will I know which is which if they’re supposed to be alike?” Also, I thought, “Why would I do this?” It’s not as if I don’t know what Pizza Hut’s Italian sausage tastes like. I’ve eaten my current body weight in it over my lifetime, so I’m pretty sure I know what it tastes like. So I went all in with the meat substitute.

The pizza features Pizza Hut’s usual cheese, sauce, and crust, but it’s topped with Beyond Meat’s plant-based Italian sausage. The meat substitute company has planted it plant-based flag in several fast food products over the past two years from Dunkin’, Carl’s Jr., and Del Taco.

After picking it up, the first thing I noticed was how it didn’t smell like a Pizza Hut pizza with Italian sausage. Even during my trip home in an enclosed 2003 Toyota Corolla and after peeling back the box’s lid when I got home, my nose couldn’t sense the familiar aroma of spices.

While it lacks the aroma that accompanies Italian sausage, it certainly looks the part. I could even see dried rosemary peeking through some of the chunks. Wait. Is that dried rosemary or a tiny sunflower seed?

Update: I have been told on Twitter that it’s a fennel seed.

As for the flavor, I found the plant-based Italian sausage to be noticeably less flavorful than The Hut’s regular Italian sausage. All the right seasonings are there, but at 70-80 percent potency of the regular version’s flavor. But if I wasn’t someone who has eaten my body weight Pizza Hut Italian sausage, I probably wouldn’t have noticed a difference, especially when it’s swimming on top of cheese and sauce.

What was even more noticeable was the texture of the sausage substitute. Compared with the regular stuff, the pieces were slightly dried out after being in Pizza Hut’s proprietary super ovens. Also, and I don’t know if this has anything to do with what I mentioned above, the plant-based sausage seems a lot less greasy.

Despite the lack of aroma, being less flavorful, and having a slightly dried out texture, I enjoyed the Pizza Hut Beyond Italian Sausage. I guess all those issues aren’t complete dealbreakers to me. Although I recognize that for some (or many) of you, they might be.

How I feel about this is the same as how I feel about the Impossible Whopper. It’s not as good as the original, but it’s good enough that I’d order it again. At this time, I don’t expect plant-based meats to equal the real stuff, but I do expect it to come close, which this does.

Purchased Price: $16.99*
Size: Large
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Not available at time of publication.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

Click here for our previous fast food reviews.

I once had a dream that Pizza Hut here in the U.S. offered a pizza with large crispy mozzarella sticks as the end crust. When I woke up and wiped away the drool from my mouth, which ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT happen all the time, I realized it was all a dream, and the bodily fluids stopped coming out of my mouth and started rolling down from my eyes.

Pizza Hut’s Mozzarella Poppers Pizza is not the pizza of my salty dream. Instead of edges that are entirely made of crispy, breaded cheese sticks, the large pizza has 16 1.5-inch mozzarella-filled squares plopped onto and baked with the regular crust, and spaced out so that there will be two of them on each of the eight slices. The menu item also comes with two containers of marinara sauce for dipping.

It doesn’t take much effort to pop off the poppers from the pizza, which doesn’t have the iron grip that’s shown in promotional photos. Their breaded exteriors are seasoned with garlic, onion, parmesan, parsley, basil, and oregano, and they have a subtle crispiness. Thanks to the seasonings, I could eat them without dipping them into the sauce, but they taste better with it.

The cheese wasn’t gooey, and it tastes similar to what’s in the chain’s original Stuffed Crust. If you’ve had a mozzarella stick, you know what you’re getting here.

Now, you could eat the poppers and end crust separately, leave them attached and eat them with the rest of the crust, or, if you don’t eat that part of a pizza, remove the cheese-filled squares and let the remaining bread rot forever in the hell where all the other discarded pizza crusts go to burn into charred lumps that’ll never be eaten. Sorry, remembering another dream I had.

If you like to eat crusts, I’d recommend leaving the poppers on to make it a little more tolerable, because the bread directly underneath them gets a little moist, probably due to the heat between them.

I have to admit the dough the poppers are sitting on with my pizza looks a bit undercooked when compared with the golden brown mozzarella poppers, but its texture and taste was fine while eating. Okay, the taste was super dull, but thankfully the two marinara containers have enough for the poppers and most of the remaining end crust. But it would be less boring if the poppers are left on.

As for the non-crust side, I ordered a modified Supreme, and it tasted like a…Pizza Hut Supreme Pizza. SURPRISE!

Overall, Pizza Hut’s Mozzarella Poppers Pizza is a bit ho-hum. The poppers themselves are a nice appetizer when dipped in marinara, but if you do that to all of them, you’re left with a crust that’s more bland than usual.

Of course, that could’ve been avoided if the edges were only mozzarella sticks or if the poppers were a topping. Yes, poppers as a topping was from another dream.

Purchased Price: $21.99* (Supreme)
Size: Large
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 slice – Supreme) 460 calories, 23 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 990 milligrams of sodium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 20 grams of protein.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

When I learned about Pizza Hut’s Stuffed Cheez-It Pizza, my jaw dropped. My mouth was so agape with astonishment that an entire Stuffed Cheez-It Pizza square could’ve fit into it.

Visually, it’s impressive. It has a Cheez-It cracker crust. It comes in a sweet Cheez-It themed box that I’m going to add to my collection of fast food packaging that my wife will ask me to throw away a month from now. And, the pieces are shaped like GIANT Cheez-It crackers. Pizza Hut did a great job at making them look like the beloved snack, even doing the rigid edges and hole in the middle. And, might I say, they look extra toasty.

Each pizza comes with four pieces that measure around three inches. It’s available with either cheese or pepperoni and cheese, and comes with a marinara dipping sauce. I went with the meat and cheese option.

When I pulled back the lid, a Cheez-It aroma plume rose from the packaging and shot up my nostrils as if I was huffing a box of the crackers. As for the flavor, the cheesy goodness that we all know and love, unless you love Cheese Nips, comes through in the crust. However, that Cheez-It taste is more prevalent along the edges, but much less so towards the middle. The edges also provide the most crunch. It’s not as mouth vibrating as the actual crackers, but it’s a pleasing chomp.

The cheese and pepperoni filling isn’t bold enough to take away the spotlight from the Cheez-It crust. To be honest, I’m not sure it enhances the flavor in any way. Plus, its texture was not what I was expecting. I thought the cheese would ooze out somewhat. The filling is so dense that there’s no oozing or stringy cheese; it’s a congealed combination of cheese and pepperoni, which is a little weird when looking at a cross section of it. It looks like fatty raw meat.

At first, I questioned the addition of marinara because I didn’t think the cracker’s flavor would come through with the sauce. Thankfully, it still does, and it surprisingly tastes okay with the crust’s flavor, but it’s not tasty enough that I’m going start replacing spaghetti noodles with Cheez-It crackers.

Pizza Hut’s Stuffed Cheez-It Pizza is something I’m happy I tried, but I wouldn’t purchase it again. Pizza is in its name, but to me, they seem more like super fancy cheesy breadsticks. Also, because the filling is so dense, it got a little too rich for me while in the middle of eating a second piece. But, if you love Cheez-It crackers, it’s something you should get one time because it’ll be neat to experience the snack in an unusual form.

Purchased Price: $7.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 square) 240 calories, 15 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 430 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.