Oily mushroom goodness that slowly fades into cream of mushroom soup vibes with mystery onions. Probably won't get it again.
I'm a huge fan of the Archer Farms spinach and goat cheese traditional crust frozen pizza, so I figured I'd try the Mushroom & Truffle Oil Thin Crust Frozen Pizza. Plus it was even cheaper so if it's bad it's only 5 bucks!
The photo and ingredients on the front of the box definitely got my attention. If you read this blog you know my go-to is usually sausage and mushroom. I don't shy away from the squeaky squishy mushroom texture between my teeth - sorry if half of you just lost your lunch reading that haha.
Looking at the pizza still in the pack, only a couple of the mushrooms had broken loose and shifted, so it was off to a good start. I decided to follow the directions to a T and put it directly on the oven rack and not on aluminum foil. I'm pretty sure if you just put it on foil that isn't the same thing as a baking pan and it will basically be the same. But just in case, I put it directly on the rack... and had smoking globs of cheese on my oven coil in no time! Ok, not doing that again.
It looked pretty okay, I mean it's not going to be colorful because it's just mushrooms. The first few bites were oily and satisfying with earthy mushroom aroma and flavors and complex cheesiness from the combination of 5 different cheeses. Mozzarella, fontina, asagio, parmesan and romano. The cheese on top that browns during cooking is amazing but the sauce underneath is a little more bland.
Instead of a red sauce it had a white sauce. The front of the box said it was a "creamy truffle sauce" and the back of the box said it was "truffle Alfredo sauce" specifically. If you actually read the package you notice all kinds of things like this, with certain words used in some areas and not in others. For example, the toppings in that little box on the front are not even all of the toppings - and this comes into play in just a second.
So after the first few bites, the oily mushroom and exotic cheese goodness blurs into a less sophisticated cream of mushroom soup flavor with onion. Onion? It's weird, onion isn't even listed on the front of the box. I had to dig the box out of the recycling bin to confirm that I was indeed tasting onion. It has both onion powder and actual pieces of onion right there on top.
Half way through the pizza and the aftertaste was straight up Philly cheese steak. Onion and cheese. Some bites even tasted like French onion soup. Not bad but I probably wouldn't get again. For not even being on the front of the box, onion really steals the spotlight in a not so great way. There were like 6 pieces of onion, why am I tasting so much? It took me a minute to put my finger on it but I'm standing by my analysis that the aftertaste is Philly cheesesteak all the way.