Frontera Sausage and Roasted Pepper Pizza

December 18, 2007 | Reviewer: Abi

Frontera Sausage and Roasted Pepper Pizza Price: $4.29 on sale
Serving: 1/3 Pizza, 5.3oz.
Calories: 300 per serving
Fat: 13%, 9g
Cholesterol: 6%, 20mg
Sodium: 24%, 580mg
Protein: 15g
Carbohydrates: 11%, 34g
Fiber: 9%, 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Points

Frontera says: I lived above a pizza joint once — in Oaxaca, Mexico. Every evening, the aroma of yeasty golden crusts mingled with tomato…and chiles and cilantro. It was pizza for sure, but pizza with a delicious Mexican spirit. Back in the States, my homemade pizza sauce started tasting a little like salsa. Toppings explored New World territories. The crust had the satisfying crispness of a traditional stone-fired oven. And a new pizza was born — Frontera Pizza.

Chef Rick Bayless

Abi says: I’ve seen Chef Rick Bayless’s books at Target, flipped through them, and thought to myself ‘Mmmmm, that looks like a tasty recipe for grilled salmon and avocado salad.’ It was this memory, combined with the bright, enticingly designed pizza box that led me to make a drastic dinnertime mistake.

Mr. Bayless may be a nice guy and he might look eerily like one of my grad school profs, and he might even be a terrific chef when it comes to fresh, seasonal, authentic Mexican food. But all of these qualifications are for naught when it comes to frozen pizzas.

Frontera’s Sausage and Roasted Pepper Pizza features chicken chorizo sausage, red onion and roasted peppers. This combination of ingredients should be a homerun in my partially-Mexican household. I am a person that wants taco trucks at her wedding (I’ll explain some other time), so wouldn’t I adore a product inspired by authentic Mexican pizza (whatever that means)? Instead of adoration, I’ve got a whole lot of confusion. The sausage is slightly spicy, but features none of the kick I expect from real Mexican chorizo. Additionally, the sausage in unevenly distributed across the pizza, leading to some slices that feature only the even more disappointing grayish (formerly red) onions, green peppers and waxy white cheese.

George and I ate a few slices of the pizza, but focused mostly on our side salads, delicious creations that involved fresh red onion, avocado and Oscar Mayer Ready to Eat Bacon. Usually, George devours the several leftover slices of pizza later in the night as a snack or during the next day as a between-breakfast-and-lunch snack. Instead, we both stared at the leftover pizza for a few seconds and agreed that it wasn’t worth saving for later.

I need to stop buying pizza at Whole Foods. It is either expensive (even when on sale) or disappointing (worst crusts) or both (paying a lot for bad crust). This pizza was the unstar of last night’s dinner. It was monochromatic, bland, and no match whatsoever for a simple salad.

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2 Responses to “Frontera Sausage and Roasted Pepper Pizza”

Paula on December 19th, 2007

I am yet to find a really good packaged pizza. I eat them sometimes when I couldn’t be bothered cooking but they are never very appetizing.
Ginia on December 20th, 2007

Hell ya, taco trucks! Forget partially-Mexican household — that comment wins you entry into the esteemed True Blue Mexican club. I can only one-up you by vowing to have both taco trucks AND mariachi bands at my wedding someday. … anyhoo, it’s too bad about the pizza, I would think Rick Bayless would churn out a mighty fine pizza. And how hard is it to ruin pizza? Answer: Mighty hard.

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