Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Pizza Review

A couple of days ago I stopped by Trader Joe's to pick up something that I could eat for dinner that would be quick and easy to prepare. I looked in the frozen foods aisle and saw the BBQ Chicken Pizza and decided to try it.

Price of
Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Pizza

The pizza is 13oz and costs $4.99.

Claims for
Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Pizza

The claims on the box say this pizza is classic American pizza as only Trader Joe's can make it. It starts off with a hand-stretched crust that's been baked in a wood-fired oven that's been drizzled with a sweet-smoky BBQ sauce. Then whole milk mozzarella, smoked gouda, fire roasted onions, cilantro and char-grilled chicken breasts are added.

Ingredients in
Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Pizza

The ingredients in this pizza's crust are wheat flour, water, salt, sunflower oil, and yeast.

The BBQ chicken contains chicken breast meat, water, and a seasoning made from sugar, tomato powder, salt, citric acid, caramel color, spices, chili powder, beet powder, onion powder, and garlic powder. It also contains modified potato starch, salt, and natural smoke flavor.

The whole milk mozzarella cheese contains pasteurized milk, salt, rennet, and enzymes.

The BBQ sauce contains water, tomato paste, vinegar, tomato puree, sugar, modified cornstarch, molasses, crystalline fructose, glucose syrup, salt, dextrose, onion powder, garlic powder, caramel color, acetic acid, spice extract, cumin, allspice, cinnamon, cardamom, and natural smoke flavor.

And the smoked gouda contains pasteurized milk, cultures, salt, enzymes, annatto, red onion, and cilantro.

Nutrition Facts for
Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Pizza

A 1/3 serving of the pizza contains 340 calories, 120 of which are from fat. There are 13g of fat, 5g of saturated fat, and 0g of trans fat in the serving. It contains 30mg of cholesterol, 670mg of sodium, 39g of carbohydrates, 2g of daily fiber, 10g of sugar, and 19g of protein.

It contains the 6% DV of vitamin A, 4% of vitamin C, 15% of calcium, and 10% of iron.

Taste of
Trader Joe's BBQ Chicken Pizza

I've had a couple of BBQ chicken pizza's over the years and I've usually liked them, so I had high hopes when I popped this pizza into the oven. But I was really disappointed. The crust was just awful. I think it ruined the whole pizza for me. I don't mind eating a wheat crust, but this one was just way too dry and hard. It had no flavor and tasted like cardboard.

I baked this pizza for about 10 minutes as directed and within that time the BBQ sauce had dried out a little. But I could still taste the sweet and tangy flavor and it, along with the cheese & onions were good. But they were drowned out by that awful crust. The pizza needed a lot more sauce since the crust is so dry. And the strips of chicken breast were thin and sparsely thrown on so it didn't make much of an impact either.

This was a small pizza, slightly bigger than a personal sized one. Normally I can't eat an entire pizza this size by myself, so I shared it. But because this pizza wasn't very greasy and didn't have a lot of meat, eating half of it didn't feel me up that much. It could feed two people as a snack but if you're really hungry one person can easily eat this one pizza alone.

In the End...

The flavors of the pizza's toppings are good, but the dry crust just drags it down. There also needs to be more cheese, more sauce and more chicken. If I was really in the mood for a frozen BBQ chicken pizza Trader Joe's wouldn't be my first choice, but if Trader Joe's was the only option I had then I'd try it again. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.