Red Baron Deep Dish Singles Pepperoni Pizza Review
Why eat frozen pizza? As an active guy, I don’t always have the time to prepare an authentic meal out of fresh ingredients. I need my Calories now so I can get on with life. Sometimes this means making compromises. Sometimes this means eating frozen pizza.
Red Baron Deep Dish Singles frozen pizza comes in several flavors, including pepperoni, cheese, supreme, and meat-trio combination.
The Man On The Box: Manfred Von Richthofen
Manfred Von Richthofen, also known as the Red Baron, is among the most interesting figures in history. Leader of Jasta 11 “The Flying Circus”, he had 80 known air combat victories in World War 1, making him the top ace of the war.
Eschewing the vain culture that existed among some pilots of the time, the Red Baron was repeatedly chastised and once imprisoned for calling himself an “airplane driver” instead of “pilot”. He was feared for unforgiving, unfair, and fatal ambushes. He fought until his death.
Despite the infantile representations in cartoons and at the grocery store, make no mistake: Manfred and his brother Lothar were not to be trifled with.
Red Baron Deep Dish Singles Nutrition
Despite the name, one package of Red Baron Deep Dish Singles actually contains two fully independent deep dish pizzas. At 430 Calories each. . . I’m definitely eating both of them. Enough said.
As you might expect, each Red Baron Deep Dish Single is a little heavy on the salt. At one gram of salt per deep dish it’s not likely to be recommended by your cardiologist. Personally I don’t believe in a low-salt diet so this isn’t an issue for me. Surprisingly, Red Baron is an alright source of iron and protein.
The ingredients list is long. Like most American convenience food, this stuff is heavily processed. When faced with an overwhelming ingredients list like this one, I like to skim and just note the “Ingredients Of Interest”:
- Enriched Flour
- Pepperoni Made With Pork, Chicken, and Beef
- Tomato Paste
- Palm Oil
- Vegetable Oil (Soybean and/or Canola Oil)
- Sugar
- Hydrolyzed Soy and Corn Protein
- Defatted Soy Flour
On the plus side, this pizza contains more food oils than sugar. Additionally, this appears to be real sugar — not high fructose corn syrup. Foreigners may be surprised to hear this but this nearly qualifies as a health food compared to what we normally eat (and especially compared to what American children are fed in school).
Nonetheless this pizza will serve you best as a part of a healthy diet with a controlled level of carbohydrates as well as additional sources of omega 3 fatty acids to balance out the soy, canola, and palm oils present in this product. You may also be interested in Equate Daily Fiber. No judgement here!
Red Baron Deep Dish Singles Pizza Microwave Instructions
Red Baron Deep Dish comes with instructions for microwave as well as conventional oven instructions. To be honest I have never prepared this product in a conventional oven.
Equipped with a metallic composite cripsing insert, Red Baron Deep Dish Singles are optimized for microwave oven cooking. In my budget-oriented 600 Watt microwave, each pizza cooks perfectly in the maximum time, 3 minutes and 30 seconds. In the 1100 Watt microwave at my vacation cabin, they come out a little toasty at the minimum time: 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
The package contains ample warnings that the pizza is hot after being heated.
Best Single Serving Frozen Microwave Pizza?
So how does this compare to, say, DiGiorno? Well, opinions vary, but the fact is that Red Baron is substantially better than DiGiorno, store brands, premium brands, or any other variant of single serving frozen pizza. Frankly it doesn’t make sense to buy anything else regardless of the cost.
The key advantage is that Red Baron actually tastes like pizza. Not plastic. It’s not a “pocket” or a “bite” or some other euphemism invented by a marketing team. It is simply a miniature pizza that has been optimized to minimize distribution costs and to be cooked in a microwave. Perfection.
Speaking of cost, I routinely pay about $1.67 per each Red Baron Deep Dish Single ($3.33 per box of two). There is no better or more cost-effective convenience pizza than Red Baron Deep Dish Singles.
