Here's The Best Store-Bought Pizza Crust You Can Buy

The convenience of store-bought pizza crust is unmatched. Simply load it up with sauce and cheese to make a classic pizza pie, fold it over to create a calzone, or slather it in garlic butter to transform it into an aromatic round of garlic bread at lightning speed. But which brand of store-bought crust is the best? After an extensive taste test, our money is on Mama Mary's thin and crispy crust, which mimics the key features of a classic New York slice when it comes to texture and taste.

Taking the top spot in our list of 10 store-bought pizza crusts, ranked worst to best, Mama Mary's offering was super-crispy and the outer rim of the crust was as crunchy as a cracker. However, it was also able to withstand the weight of the pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni we scattered on top; it retained its structure and didn't become floppy. Most importantly of all, the flavors were on point — the crust had a complex, buttery quality teamed with a hint of chewiness, lending it body and balance.

The instructions on the packet call for the crust to be brushed with olive oil prior to spreading on the sauce, which provides extra opportunity to maximize flavor and crunch. For example, you could easily sub a basic olive oil for an infused garlic, chili, or herb oil to elevate the simplicity of the crust in seconds and imbue it with an inviting aroma.

Unlike some of the other pizza crusts we taste tested, Mama Mary's discs of rolled-out dough are partially baked before they're packed. This stops the yeast from developing as the crust sits on supermarket shelves. Each pack of 7 inch crusts contains three bases, which means you can make a trio of individual style pies with different toppings (you can freeze any crusts that you don't use immediately as refrigerating them can harden their surface. Simply thaw before use). Alternatively, you can purchase the larger 12 inch size, which includes two crusts per packet.

On the other hand, the worst pizza crust in our ranking was Pillsbury classic crust because it was tricky to work with and had a sweet taste. This pizza dough comes in a tube so we had to roll it into a ball and press it out by hand into a round. However, despite attempting to flatten the dough out for 15 minutes, it was simply too tough to manipulate. Moreover, when combined with the natural sweetness of our pizza sauce it had an almost dessert-like flavor. In our opinion, you'd be better off selecting Pillsbury's thin and crispy pizza crust instead, which was stretchy, easy to roll out, and had a hint of savory, buttery flavor — or you could press the dough into the holes of a muffin tin to make mini deep dish pizzas.