I couldn’t help but yell those four words and rip off South Park when I saw the DiGiorno Three Meat Pizza Pizza Dipping Strips. As you can imagine, this frightened my fellow shoppers in the frozen food aisle and caused them to scurry themselves and their shopping carts away from me.
That was not the first time I yelled the words “Pizza Hut did it!” in public while looking at a DiGiorno product. I also did it when I discovered DiGiorno’s Pizza and Wyngs, DiGiorno’s Pizza and Breadsticks, and I do it whenever I see DiGiorno’s Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza. It’s as if Pizza Hut is DiGiorno’s R&D Department.
DiGiorno’s Pizza Dipping Strips is made up of 12 pull-apart strips of pizza and comes with a container of marinara sauce and another of garlic dipping sauce. I picked up the Three Meat Pizza one, but it also comes in Pepperoni and Four Cheese varieties. The three meats are sausage, pepperoni, and beef.
Even though they were connected by just crust, the dipping strips weren’t super easy to pull apart. Or maybe I’m as horrible at pulling than a one-legged ox. After burning my fingers trying to split the strips apart, I decided to break out my pizza cutter.
I prefer DiGiorno frozen pizzas over Red Baron, Tombstone, Totino’s, Freschetta, and a few others, so it’s no surprise I enjoyed the pizza part of the Pizza Dipping Strips. I think DiGiorno’s tasty pizza sauce is what sets it apart from other frozen pizzas, but I also think their crust is a bit too thick. Another slight issue I had with the dipping strips is the amount of pepperoni. Each strip had just one lonely slice of pepperoni. Although, I will admit this is easy to fix by stealing the pepperoni from other dipping strips when your fellow eaters aren’t looking.
What about the dipping sauces? Well, let me just say, one is better than the other and they’re quite watery.
Preparing the dipping sauces is more complex than baking the pizza, which is pretty much just stick pizza in oven, take pizza out of oven, and enjoy. The steps to get the sauces ready are: place sauce packets in hot tap water for 4-5 minutes, tear open packets, squeeze each sauce into separate microwave-safe bowls, heat one sauce for 20-30 seconds in the microwave, heat the other sauce for 20-30 seconds in the microwave, and enjoy.
The garlic dipping sauce is not very garlicy. If you enjoy the garlic sauce from Domino’s or Papa John’s, this DiGiorno garlic sauce will disappoint. Its garlic flavor is mild enough that I would not be afraid to make out with someone after eating it. Despite my not so glowing words, I have to say the garlic sauce is better than the marinara dipping sauce, which has very little flavor at all. As I mentioned earlier, I like DiGiorno’s pizza sauce, so I’m disappointed their marinara sauce is dull.
If there’s one positive thing I could say about the sauces, it would be that each packet has a lot of sauce. When other eater weren’t looking, I was not only stealing their pepperoni, I was also double, triple, and quadruple dipping into both sauces. And despite all of that unsanitary dipping, there was still a lot of sauce left.
The DiGiorno Pizza Dipping Strips is a good idea, although an old idea, but the sauces bring everything down. I do like the idea of pull apart pieces and would like to see DiGiorno do that with their regular round pizzas.
I would also like to see DiGiorno’s combine pizza with cinnamon sticks, much like Pizza Hut does with their $10 Dinner Box. Oh wait, it’s already happened.
Pizza Hut did it!
(Nutrition Facts – 2 dipping strips – 360 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat*, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 880 milligrams of sodium, 39 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 15 grams of protein. Marinara Sauce – 2 Tbsp. – 20 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 125 milligrams of sodium, 5 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein. Garlic Sauce – 2 Tbsp. – 60 calories, 7 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 300 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 0 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)
*uses partially hydrogenated oil
Item: DiGiorno Three Meat Pizza Pizza Dipping Strips
Price: $6.99
Size: 34.2 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Pizza is good. Pizza in strip form is easier to eat than pizza slice form. Stealing pepperoni. THREE MEATS! Lots of dipping sauce. Pizza is easy to prepare.
Cons: Garlic sauce isn’t very garlicy. Marinara sauce is bland. Would’ve liked more pepperoni. Having your pepperoni stolen. Getting caught double, triple, or quadruple dipping. Copying Pizza Hut.