Taste test seeks ultimate pizza rolls

Growing up, after-school snacks usually meant peeled or sliced fruit, the most common form of “I love you” I received from my Chinese immigrant mother. But her gesture went mostly unappreciated because every now and then, I’d instead find pizza rolls in the tiny conventional oven, its soft ticking increasing my level of excitement until an obnoxious ding indicated that the golden brown pockets with a pool of lava-hot “pizza” filling inside were ready. I almost always burned my mouth, but I didn’t care — it was always worth it.

Among the most popular brand of pizza rolls is Totino’s, which was originally a take-out pizzeria in 1951 before its frozen-pizza branch was acquired by Pillsbury. Pizza rolls were developed by Jeno Palucci, who took his experience developing canned Chinese American foods and applied it to Italian food, creating a frozen egg roll product with pizza ingredients, like cheese or pepperoni. The pizza rolls were sold to Pillsbury in 1985.

Personally, I think the result is more similar to a fried or toasted ravioli a la St. Louis. Nowadays, pizza rolls come in a variety of flavors — cheese, triple meat, combination, pepperoni, sausage and supreme. There are even pizza rolls stuffed with nacho cheese. The convenient snacks are so popular that they’ve inspired “SNL” skits, apparel and memes.

Pizza is America’s favorite food, said Mike Kostyo, a trendologist at Datassential, which conducts food industry market research of more than 3,600 foods and flavors. Eighty-nine percent of consumers say they love or like pizza and it scores in the 100th percentile for every single demographic, including age, gender and income level.

“That overwhelming popularity is why you see so much flavor and format innovation, which includes offering up pizza in snackable forms like pizza rolls,” Kostyo wrote in an email. “Americans also love to snack, with 96 percent of us having had at least one snack in the past day, and the average person having three to four snacks.”

When cooked correctly, they’re crispy on the outside and sweet and savory on the inside. They’re almost too easy to pop in your mouth and it’s not uncommon to find yourself eating more than you intended.

While Totino’s may be the most popular in name, we wanted to find out if there were other brands that made a better product. We sampled six brands of pizza rolls that you can find in the frozen section at your local grocery store. This taste test was a blind tasting, meaning participants did not know what brand of pizza rolls they were tasting. We tried to prioritize the combination flavor.

Each pizza roll was cooked in the oven according to its package instructions. We bought pizza rolls from Aldi, Jewel-Osco, Mariano’s, Cermak Fresh Market and Target, and the prices listed are what they are priced normally, without any promotions or discounts.

See the results below, listed from worst to best.

6. Feel Good Foods Uncured Pepperoni Bites

By using a cauliflower crust, Feel Good Foods tried to make pizza rolls healthier. Our tasters hated them. “It looks like a bloated, stuffed pig part,” one participant said. “Yuck.” Many complained that the bites were too doughy and felt raw, even though the snacks were fully cooked. “It’s nearly a crime. I’m angry,” one taster concluded. $4.99, 7 ounces, Target.

5. Totino’s Pizza Rolls

It was a surprise to see this well-recognized brand fall so far behind the rest of the pizza rolls we tried, but tasters complained that the tomato filling was bland with an unpleasant artificial note. Many of Totino’s rolls burst open while cooking, even though they were cooked according to the package instructions. The only saving grace for Totino’s was its crunchy crust. “This is just gross,” wrote one taster. “I hate this pizza roll with all my heart. My breath smells like garlic and disappointment.” 24.8 ounces, $5.79, Cermak.

4. Annie’s Pizza Poppers

Annie’s also suffered from weak seams, with many of the rolls bursting open in the oven. Participants disliked the rolls’ tough texture and complained that they were overly oily, smelled like fake sausage and reminded them of lunch meat taco filling. “I would eat it but it’s not like a thrilling option,” wrote one participant. The snacks also lacked cheesiness and the filling was mostly sauce. 5 ounces, $3.49, Mariano’s.

3. Mama Cozzi’s Pizza Snacks

This Aldi-brand pizza roll smelled like “adolescence and video games,” and reminded tasters of frozen pizza, although sentiments were split on whether that was a positive or negative thing. While one taster said Mama Cozzi’s Pizza Snacks were “like eating the box that once held a pizza” others said the crust had a “whole wheat vibe” that they enjoyed, plus a good crust-to-filling ratio. 45 ounces, $5.39, Aldi

2. Signature Select Pizza Snacks

Even though Signature Select snacks were described as Mini-Wheats sans frosting, tasters liked these pizza rolls for the crunchy crust, true tomato-sauce-with-oregano flavor and golden brown appearance with crispy bubbles. “It smells like the inside of a well-loved Chuck-E-Cheese,” wrote one taster, and another said, “(it) does actually taste like pizza.” 45 ounces, $7.49, Jewel-Osco.

1. Kroger Pizza Snack Rolls

With a bubbly crust and golden brown color, Kroger’s pizza rolls not only looked good, but tasted good too. They were bursting with a sweet and savory sauce and showed a clear presence of herbs. Tasters praised the rolls for their crust-to-sauce ratio and described them as convincingly pizzalike. $2.99, 20 ounces, Mariano’s.