The Not-So Starving Student—Make your Frozen Pizza Gourmet

The Not-So Starving Student—Make your Frozen Pizza Gourmet

For hungry AU students looking for a cheap way to have a nice, fully-loaded pizza, there is an economical way to make it yourself.  Recently I had a craving for pizza but the pizza place was charging me $2-3 dollars per topping (and they gave me so little last time).  Luckily, I found a cost effective way to spice up that frozen pizza and I’ll share it with you.

DIY Gourmet Pizza

Start with a frozen pizza as a base.  I picked up a deluxe Delissio pizza from my local grocery store, so you know it’s not delivery.

The toppings on there are fairly sparse as you can see, but for about $4, it was a good start.  I also got the thin crust which comes in a square instead of a circle.

However, I decided to add some items I love including:

Onions – I picked up a small 3lb bag (came with about 6 of them) for $3.  I only needed one, but I can use the rest for other cooking.

Olives (personal preference) – I really like olives on my pizza but some people may not.  If you don’t, you can skip to the next step.  They were sold out of the sliced ones, so I picked up a can of whole pitted olives and sliced it myself.  I did not use the whole can so I can use some of the olives for a Greek salad later.

Sausage – Time to add some meat toppings.  They had a sale on smoked sausage for $1, so I picked one up and sliced it myself.

The pizza is looking quite full, but still has room for a little more

Extra cheese – I found a block of cheese in my fridge.  It wasn’t shredded so I had to shred it myself.  I put about a ¼ block into the pizza.

The box recommended I put it in the oven at 400F for 20 minutes.  I had extra toppings on there so I’ll add an extra 5 just to be safe.

And now here is the lovely DIY gourmet pizza.  It cost me less than $10 and about 5 minutes of prep plus 25 minutes of cooking (and the time is comparable to delivery).

Frozen Pizza = $4.00

Onions (⅙ of a $3 bag) = $0.50

Can of olives = $1.50

Sausage = $1.00

¼ block of cheese $2.00 (estimated)

Total pizza cost = $9.00 and its way better than delivery.