We Tried Oprah’s New Cauliflower Crust Pizza, and We Have Feelings
The newest release in Winfrey’s food line, O, That’s Good!, is frozen pizza with a crust that’s one third cauliflower
In 2017, Oprah Winfrey made the long-inevitable leap into your kitchen, releasing a line of prepared foods called O, That’s Good!, which includes soups, sides, and pastas. Now, Winfrey is taking on one of the most popular (and controversial) foods in America: pizza. On Wednesday, the lifestyle mogul introduced a new line of frozen pizzas featuring crusts that are made of 30% cauliflower, and we tried them all in one sitting. We don’t feel amazing.
A collaboration between Kraft Heinz and Winfrey, the new O, That’s Good! frozen pizzas come in four flavors: uncured pepperoni, five cheese, supreme, and fire-roasted veggie, and they’re available nationwide at a suggested retail price of $6.99. Each pizza’s crust is 30% cauliflower, which teases the cauliflower crust phenomenon without fully committing to a gluten-free, all-vegetable base (which, by the way, you can make here). And, the pizza does some good; according to Kraft Heinz, ten percent of profits will be donated to anti-hunger charities.
Only 30% cauliflower means that the crust tastes like, well, a normal frozen pizza crust, with a bit of a cauliflower smell and a somewhat dense texture.
“Pizza is a favorite, fun and easy food to share with family and friends,” Winfrey said in a statement. “I am always looking to add a nutritious twist to my foods, so we made part of the crust in my new pizza with cauliflower while maintaining that classic, cheesy pizza flavor you and your family love.”
We tried all four pizzas, and our conclusion is this: They taste like standard frozen pizzas, and standard frozen pizzas are pretty fun to eat. If you didn’t know there was a “twist of cauliflower,” you wouldn’t pick up on it. Our two favorite flavors were the supreme—topped with veggies, sausage, and pepperoni—and the veggie. The more stuff on top, the better. The biggest qualm we had was that the crust was a bit dry and bland, with a tough texture. So we repeat: The more stuff on top, the better. I ate two slices of the supreme and have no regrets.
From a nutritional perspective, the pizzas aren’t much healthier than other frozen pizzas you’d find at the store—a fifth of a pie lands between 280 and 330 calories, with roughly 700 mg of sodium. So why incorporate just a bit of cauliflower into the crust, rather than going all in and selling a truly healthy “pizza?” Maybe they decided America wasn’t ready for true cauliflower pizza, which is pretty far removed from actual pizza.
As one colleague pointed out, “There’s no such thing as inedible frozen pizza,” and that certainly applies here.
