Tag: Pizza Hut

As I was going through the options to order my Pizza Hut Beyond Italian Sausage Pizza online, I thought about getting an order with half regular Italian sausage and half Beyond Italian sausage to compare.

But then I thought, “How will I know which is which if they’re supposed to be alike?” Also, I thought, “Why would I do this?” It’s not as if I don’t know what Pizza Hut’s Italian sausage tastes like. I’ve eaten my current body weight in it over my lifetime, so I’m pretty sure I know what it tastes like. So I went all in with the meat substitute.

The pizza features Pizza Hut’s usual cheese, sauce, and crust, but it’s topped with Beyond Meat’s plant-based Italian sausage. The meat substitute company has planted it plant-based flag in several fast food products over the past two years from Dunkin’, Carl’s Jr., and Del Taco.

After picking it up, the first thing I noticed was how it didn’t smell like a Pizza Hut pizza with Italian sausage. Even during my trip home in an enclosed 2003 Toyota Corolla and after peeling back the box’s lid when I got home, my nose couldn’t sense the familiar aroma of spices.

While it lacks the aroma that accompanies Italian sausage, it certainly looks the part. I could even see dried rosemary peeking through some of the chunks. Wait. Is that dried rosemary or a tiny sunflower seed?

Update: I have been told on Twitter that it’s a fennel seed.

As for the flavor, I found the plant-based Italian sausage to be noticeably less flavorful than The Hut’s regular Italian sausage. All the right seasonings are there, but at 70-80 percent potency of the regular version’s flavor. But if I wasn’t someone who has eaten my body weight Pizza Hut Italian sausage, I probably wouldn’t have noticed a difference, especially when it’s swimming on top of cheese and sauce.

What was even more noticeable was the texture of the sausage substitute. Compared with the regular stuff, the pieces were slightly dried out after being in Pizza Hut’s proprietary super ovens. Also, and I don’t know if this has anything to do with what I mentioned above, the plant-based sausage seems a lot less greasy.

Despite the lack of aroma, being less flavorful, and having a slightly dried out texture, I enjoyed the Pizza Hut Beyond Italian Sausage. I guess all those issues aren’t complete dealbreakers to me. Although I recognize that for some (or many) of you, they might be.

How I feel about this is the same as how I feel about the Impossible Whopper. It’s not as good as the original, but it’s good enough that I’d order it again. At this time, I don’t expect plant-based meats to equal the real stuff, but I do expect it to come close, which this does.

Purchased Price: $16.99*
Size: Large
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Not available at time of publication.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

Click here for our previous fast food reviews.

I once had a dream that Pizza Hut here in the U.S. offered a pizza with large crispy mozzarella sticks as the end crust. When I woke up and wiped away the drool from my mouth, which ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT happen all the time, I realized it was all a dream, and the bodily fluids stopped coming out of my mouth and started rolling down from my eyes.

Pizza Hut’s Mozzarella Poppers Pizza is not the pizza of my salty dream. Instead of edges that are entirely made of crispy, breaded cheese sticks, the large pizza has 16 1.5-inch mozzarella-filled squares plopped onto and baked with the regular crust, and spaced out so that there will be two of them on each of the eight slices. The menu item also comes with two containers of marinara sauce for dipping.

It doesn’t take much effort to pop off the poppers from the pizza, which doesn’t have the iron grip that’s shown in promotional photos. Their breaded exteriors are seasoned with garlic, onion, parmesan, parsley, basil, and oregano, and they have a subtle crispiness. Thanks to the seasonings, I could eat them without dipping them into the sauce, but they taste better with it.

The cheese wasn’t gooey, and it tastes similar to what’s in the chain’s original Stuffed Crust. If you’ve had a mozzarella stick, you know what you’re getting here.

Now, you could eat the poppers and end crust separately, leave them attached and eat them with the rest of the crust, or, if you don’t eat that part of a pizza, remove the cheese-filled squares and let the remaining bread rot forever in the hell where all the other discarded pizza crusts go to burn into charred lumps that’ll never be eaten. Sorry, remembering another dream I had.

If you like to eat crusts, I’d recommend leaving the poppers on to make it a little more tolerable, because the bread directly underneath them gets a little moist, probably due to the heat between them.

I have to admit the dough the poppers are sitting on with my pizza looks a bit undercooked when compared with the golden brown mozzarella poppers, but its texture and taste was fine while eating. Okay, the taste was super dull, but thankfully the two marinara containers have enough for the poppers and most of the remaining end crust. But it would be less boring if the poppers are left on.

As for the non-crust side, I ordered a modified Supreme, and it tasted like a…Pizza Hut Supreme Pizza. SURPRISE!

Overall, Pizza Hut’s Mozzarella Poppers Pizza is a bit ho-hum. The poppers themselves are a nice appetizer when dipped in marinara, but if you do that to all of them, you’re left with a crust that’s more bland than usual.

Of course, that could’ve been avoided if the edges were only mozzarella sticks or if the poppers were a topping. Yes, poppers as a topping was from another dream.

Purchased Price: $21.99* (Supreme)
Size: Large
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 slice – Supreme) 460 calories, 23 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 990 milligrams of sodium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 20 grams of protein.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

When I learned about Pizza Hut’s Stuffed Cheez-It Pizza, my jaw dropped. My mouth was so agape with astonishment that an entire Stuffed Cheez-It Pizza square could’ve fit into it.

Visually, it’s impressive. It has a Cheez-It cracker crust. It comes in a sweet Cheez-It themed box that I’m going to add to my collection of fast food packaging that my wife will ask me to throw away a month from now. And, the pieces are shaped like GIANT Cheez-It crackers. Pizza Hut did a great job at making them look like the beloved snack, even doing the rigid edges and hole in the middle. And, might I say, they look extra toasty.

Each pizza comes with four pieces that measure around three inches. It’s available with either cheese or pepperoni and cheese, and comes with a marinara dipping sauce. I went with the meat and cheese option.

When I pulled back the lid, a Cheez-It aroma plume rose from the packaging and shot up my nostrils as if I was huffing a box of the crackers. As for the flavor, the cheesy goodness that we all know and love, unless you love Cheese Nips, comes through in the crust. However, that Cheez-It taste is more prevalent along the edges, but much less so towards the middle. The edges also provide the most crunch. It’s not as mouth vibrating as the actual crackers, but it’s a pleasing chomp.

The cheese and pepperoni filling isn’t bold enough to take away the spotlight from the Cheez-It crust. To be honest, I’m not sure it enhances the flavor in any way. Plus, its texture was not what I was expecting. I thought the cheese would ooze out somewhat. The filling is so dense that there’s no oozing or stringy cheese; it’s a congealed combination of cheese and pepperoni, which is a little weird when looking at a cross section of it. It looks like fatty raw meat.

At first, I questioned the addition of marinara because I didn’t think the cracker’s flavor would come through with the sauce. Thankfully, it still does, and it surprisingly tastes okay with the crust’s flavor, but it’s not tasty enough that I’m going start replacing spaghetti noodles with Cheez-It crackers.

Pizza Hut’s Stuffed Cheez-It Pizza is something I’m happy I tried, but I wouldn’t purchase it again. Pizza is in its name, but to me, they seem more like super fancy cheesy breadsticks. Also, because the filling is so dense, it got a little too rich for me while in the middle of eating a second piece. But, if you love Cheez-It crackers, it’s something you should get one time because it’ll be neat to experience the snack in an unusual form.

Purchased Price: $7.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 square) 240 calories, 15 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 430 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

It was a surprise to me when I heard Pizza Hut was “repairing” its Pan Pizza recipe, changing the type of cheese and, more important, utilizing a new baking method meant to “enhance” the crust’s flavor. I really didn’t know people even had a problem with it.

Recently, I went to the neighborhood Pizza Hut down the street from my house and ordered, for myself, a Personal Pan Pizza, making sure from the pizza-barista that they utilize this new process at about a fourth the size, just like they do their full-size. Confirmed and comfortable, I ordered one with pepperoni. The smell of the baking pizza floated about the small building, enticing me in a way the Hut never had before.

Brought to my table — that was fully emblazoned with Wing Street logos, natch — I opened up the adorable miniature pizza box and, after snapping a couple of pictures, gently pulled a small slice from the somewhat larger pie, the new cheese stringing across the box like it was being filmed for a recent commercial campaign.

Full steam ahead, I bit into the pan pizza; the cheese was notably different right from the start — a bit more heavy than usual and with somewhat more of a fuller bite — it was definitely an improvement on the old recipe. Using a part-skim mozzarella cheese, there seems to be far more of it, making it a wonderfully cheesy mess. The tomato sauce, additionally, melded very well to the cheese, pairing together like some well-worn partners in pizza-esque crime.

But, and this was what made it for me, the crust tasted absolutely new and improved. The buttery richness of the baked dough made me want a loaf of this as a crispy bread, with maybe the aforementioned melted cheese as a cruel dipping sauce of sorts. Can we get on this idea, Pizza Hut?

While the calorie count, even for a Personal, is quite loaded at 610 calories, it might be worth it on a special cheat day just to desperately try these modern improvements in the pizza-making abilities of Pizza Hut, no matter how long you’ve been away from or how often you likely go to the Hut. Cómpralo ya!

Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: Personal Pan Pizza
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 610 calories, 26 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1260 milligrams of sodium, 69 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, and 25 grams of protein.

When it comes to junk food nostalgia most of my flashbacks are of the sweet variety. Dunkaroos, Surge, and WWF’s Hulk Hogan cereal always pull me back to the simpler days, but there are a few savory items that I look back on with glowing glee as well. 3D Doritos tend to be at the top of most older millennial’s junk food wishlists, and I personally loved the Taco Doritos that seemed to vanish sometime in the early 2000s.

But recently, very recently, in fact, I was wondering what the hell happened to Pizza Hut’s P’Zone. For a company aligned with Taco Bell and known for making zany limited time items, I couldn’t understand why the company’s financially friendly twist on the calzone disappeared years ago without a proper farewell.

Suffer no more, the giant Hot Pocket of meat and cheese that I fell in love with as a stoned teenager in smoky basements is back, and it got a bit of a facelift.

The most immediate difference is in the appearance of the outer crust. While the 2019 P’Zone has the same shape and general size of the original, it’s covered in a toasted orange Parmesan that immediately evokes an asiago bagel. The original P’Zone was garnished with traditional pizzeria-style parmesan sprinkles and parsley, which sat nicely atop of golden brown dough. The new iteration still looks good, but it’s not the same as the one I fell in love with, and I just have to learn to let go.

The bagel experience doesn’t end with appearance. When I bite in, I wonder if I’m sitting inside of a Noah’s at 8 a.m. or on my couch with remote in hand at 8 p.m. The parmesan’s funky intensity stands out, but almost to a fault as I find it to be a bit distracting. When you pair the distinct sharp cheesiness with the bread’s pretty prominent fluffiness, the 2019 P’Zone does feel a bit more like a bagel than a pizza.

The P’Zone was never as loaded as a true calzone, which tends to be thicker and taller and oftentimes a knife-and-fork situation; whereas Pizza Hut’s take is much more of a finger food with a flatter profile. The toppings inside, although not extremely dense, are good and present enough to bring the pizza pizazz I’m looking for.

Taken as it is the P’Zone is good but a bit underwhelming. However, when dunked into the generously sized cup of marinara sauce, it’s damn good. The pizza sauce brings some poppin’ acidity and moisture that makes the ‘zone taste much more fresh, engaging, and something I want more bites of.

While it isn’t quite as sensational as I remembered as a stoned teenager, I can’t help but be excited about the return of the budget-friendly and filling option at Pizza Hut. In the scope of chain pizza restaurants Pizza Hut isn’t really on my radar unless I’m craving its stuffed crust, but even then Little Caesars does an admirable job at a lower cost.

That being said, the P’Zone being back, as an apparent permanent addition to the menu, ensures I’ll be back at The Hut before the end of the year, and the buzz of its return is sure to lure many other early 2000s nostalgia hunters through its greasy shop doors in no time.

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1/2 P’Zone) 460 calories, 16 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1170 milligrams of sodium, 60 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 19 grams of protein.