Canned Ingredients That Will Make Frozen Pizza Even Better

Adding artichoke hearts to pizza isn't just delicious; it makes historical sense. Italians are avid artichoke consumers, eating them stuffed, braised, and roasted. This thorny delicacy is intimidating to clean from its freshly picked iteration. When purchased already prepared in a can, they become perfect little nuggets to add to salads, dips, and as a pizza topping.

We recommend using a frozen white pizza, a meat pizza, or vegetarian pizza as a base. While you can get halved artichoke hearts in a can, we recommend the quartered variety. These smaller pieces have more surface area that will get exposed to the heat of your oven, which enables them to begin crisping up a bit. This will give them a delectable nutty flavor. Before you add them to your pizza, drain and pat them dry to ensure you eliminate any excess moisture that can make your frozen pizza soggy.

Mushrooms on pizza is not exactly a novel idea. It is a common ingredient thanks to the intense umami-forward profile of these fantastic fungi, which can amp up the flavor of virtually any dish. That said, canned mushrooms may be better for pizza than fresh mushrooms. Mushrooms tend to leach a lot of moisture as they cook. Fresh mushrooms on a pizza will swamp the pie and make it soggy.

Canned mushrooms are typically cooked before the canning process, making them less likely to drown your pizza. Since frozen pizza bakes rapidly, you will not have to worry about your mushrooms becoming rubbery in the baking process. Rather than using plain button mushrooms, try stocking up on seasoned mushrooms or assorted wild forest varieties. These have a more intense flavor and better texture. Again, do not skip draining and patting your mushrooms dry before adding them to your frozen pie.

Another controversial topping for pizza is anchovy. These little fish can pack an umami punch on top of a frozen pizza, transforming it to a new level. The key is understanding how to use them and which kind to purchase.

Contrary to popular belief, good anchovies shouldn't have an aggressively fishy flavor once cooked. The best ones are typically sourced from the Mediterranean and brined in olive oil. They should be plump, not emaciated, and you should always drain, rinse, and dry them before adding them to your frozen pizza.

To fully appreciate anchovies, avoid frozen pizzas with aggressively salty ingredients, like lots of meat or parmesan cheese. A simple margherita is where anchovies will provide the best flavor. As the anchovy begins to bake, it'll yield an almost sweet, salty flavor that'll complement the tomato, mozzarella, and basil.

For the uninitiated, chipotles are dehydrated smoked jalapeños. These often get canned in an adobo sauce, a condiment made of smoked chilis, tomatoes, garlic, onions, vinegar, and spices. Chipotles are distinct because they have a unique earthiness balanced with a hint of sweetness that helps to mitigate their heat. This flavor profile is what makes it an ideal frozen pizza topper.

While peppers are common pizza ingredients, chipotles can confer a spiciness that accentuates meat, vegetarian, or Southwestern pizzas without overwhelming them when used in moderation. You will want to drain the chipotles from the adobo sauce, but don't rinse them. We recommend chopping them finely and spreading them evenly across the pizza for the best flavor. A couple of peppers should be more than adequate to cover a standard 12-inch diameter frozen pizza.

Putting tuna on pizza isn't as foreign as you might think. If you look at the etymology of the word marinara, it means sailor-style, signaling its popularity with Italian seafood merchants. Italy is not the only country known for adding fish to pizza. Germans have a particular affinity for canned tuna on a pie called thunfisch pizza.

We recommend using tuna canned in oil versus water, as the brine can make the tuna a bit acrid. Look for varieties that have been sustainably sourced and that aren't preserved with too many additional flavorings, like balsamic or garlic. Let the tuna shine on its own. Although you can add canned tuna to a vegetarian pizza, it pairs best with fewer ingredients, like a margherita. Don't forget to drain the tuna and crumble it into flakes atop your frozen pie.

Despite its name, water chestnuts bear no relation to the tree nut. They are root vegetables indigenous to Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands. These tubers thrive in moist climates, like rice paddies, marshes, and ponds. Their corm, or root base, has a distinctive crunchy, moist texture, ideal in stir-fries and salads. Their flavor is slightly nutty with a delicate sweetness.

You can obtain canned water chestnuts in whole or sliced forms. We recommend keeping the sliced variety on hand to add to an Asian-inspired frozen pizza. Begin with a vegetarian or supreme pizza base. Drain, rinse, and pat the water chestnuts dry before adding them to your pie. Even after heating, they will retain a quintessential toothsome bite that can confer textural interest to your frozen pizza.

Many pizzas are made with a tomato-based sauce or marinara, so putting them on a pie isn't revolutionary. That said, we are big fans of canned fire-roasted tomatoes. We keep these on hand for myriad recipes, from homemade sauces to soups and stews. They are slightly less acidic than plain canned tomatoes and have a delightful smokiness that helps impart a distinct flavor balancing out any added sweetness.

When putting these on a frozen pie, we recommend doctoring up a white pizza or a non-tomato-based option. Though it may seem wasteful, a lot of excess moisture is added to these cans, so drain them to help concentrate the meat of the fruit. Once you have done this, you can spread the tomato chunks over your pie before baking it. Instead of the tomato being one of the stars, it becomes a supporting player, making it a more nuanced show.

One of the salads we repeatedly go to combines pears with gorgonzola, prosciutto, and candied nuts. The idea of this grouping balances flavors as well as textures, which easily translates to a pizza. Pears have a subtle sweetness and a tender texture that can become almost creamy when heated. This makes them popular fruits for baking and poaching. The key is to choose the right kind.

When selecting canned pears, choose the sliced variety packaged in pear juice from concentrate rather than syrup. This will eliminate any cloying residual sweetness. We recommend using these atop a frozen white pizza with strong cheeses or a meat pizza with cured salami and pepperoni. You will want to avoid a vegetarian pizza or something with too many ingredients. Don't forget to drain and pat your pear slices dry before distributing them onto your frozen pizza.

Pizza con patate, or potato pizza, is a classic combination that can often be found in Rome. This pie is rustic, hearty, and inexpensive to manufacture. Though the original utilizes thinly sliced potatoes doused with copious quantities of olive oil to produce a crispy top, there is no reason why you couldn't recreate this hearty dish using a frozen pizza and canned sliced potatoes.

Though you could start with a basic margherita crust, it is more common to see potatoes on a non-tomato-based pie, like a white pizza. When selecting the type of canned potato to keep on hand for this dish, sliced may be traditional, but you could also use the diced variety. The key is to drain and thoroughly pat dry these potatoes to remove excess starch and moisture and encourage browning on top of the frozen pie.

The precedent for carrots on pizza has a couple of different sources. Adding shredded or julienne carrots atop a Thai pizza is par for the course. You could also incorporate thinly sliced carrots onto a Mediterranean-inspired pizza with goat cheese using a similar methodology to a potato pizza. When drizzled with oil, the carrots will caramelize in the oven, browning them and giving them a distinct sweetness.

To recreate this to some extent with a frozen pizza, we recommend either beginning with a white pizza or using a barbecue chicken pizza base. The white would work for the Mediterranean iteration, while the chicken would be a suitable facsimile for the Thai pie. To not overwhelm the other flavors of the pizza, we'd use canned diced or julienne carrots. Once drained and dried, these will have a better chance of caramelizing in the time spent in the oven.

For those wanting more heat than a canned green chile but not as much as a chipotle in Adobo sauce, canned sliced pickled jalapeños are the perfect solution. Unlike green chiles, which are roasted, and chipotles, which are smoked, jalapeños are pickled as is, giving them a bit firmer texture and a brighter pepper-forward flavor. Because of this texture, canned jalapeños can be consumed raw or cooked. They are common in salads, atop burgers, nachos, and a Southwestern-inspired pizza.

To use them on a frozen pie, we recommend a meat lover, vegetarian, or barbecue chicken pizza as a base. As usual, the jalapeños must be drained, rinsed, and dried off before using them on your pizza. The amount you use depends on your tolerance for heat. That said, we recommend being somewhat judicious with how densely you pack them so they don't overwhelm the other ingredients.

Though smoked salmon pizza became famous when added to the menu at Wolfgang Puck's original Spago restaurant, as we have already noted, fish and seafood on pizza are not new. That particular pie resembled a bagel and lox with capers, red onions, dill cream, chives, and obscene amounts of sevruga caviar. Adding smoked salmon to a frozen pizza won't be this posh.

You will want to use canned smoked salmon. This is usually hot versus cold smoked, like lox. Search for sustainably sourced wild salmon that is canned in oil versus water. We suggest using a white pizza, margherita, or vegetarian frozen pie as a base. Drain and flake the salmon before distributing it evenly atop your pizza. The smoky, salty, slightly sweet flesh of salmon will elevate your pie to a gourmet delight.

While adding beets to a pizza may scare some folks who worry about converting their frozen pie to something resembling a crime scene, these earthy, slightly sweet root vegetables are good for you and add a flavor that may surprise you. The key is to use plain sliced canned beets rather than pickled or Harvest beets. The pickled variety will add too much acidity and a strong vinegar taste that can overwhelm other flavors on your pizza.

We recommend starting with frozen spinach goat cheese or a white pizza base. In this case, draining and patting the sliced beets dry is critical. The more canning liquid you can remove from the beet slices, the less likely it will be to leach onto your pie. Distribute the beets evenly across the pizza without moving the pieces too often, which will leave a trail of red beet juice behind.