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.