When you want something convenient and cost-effective, there’s nothing quite like frozen pizzas. They’re available any time, heating them is the easiest thing in the world, and you save on so much washing up. The ultimate lazy night in.
Kirkland frozen pizzas are a great option, being both budget-friendly and tasty. But what’s the best way to prepare them? Let’s look at Kirkland pizza cooking instructions.
General Information Regarding Kirkland Pizza Cooking Instructions
Getting great results from frozen pizza starts with choosing a quality brand, and you can hardly get better than Kirkland.
Costco puts the cooking instructions for their Kirkland signature pizzas on each pizza, which is a handy feature if you only have a couple left and want to dispose of that bulky box they came in. But although these Kirkland pizza cooking instructions aren’t terrible, there are ways to get much better results.
However, the first part of the official Kirkland pizza cooking instructions should definitely be followed. Remove all the packaging from the pizza. You don’t want to put plastic into something that gets hot and release toxic fumes.
Putting cardboard in is also not advisable, as it can easily auto-ignite at the temperatures used to cook pizza, causing a fire in your oven, and potentially a house fire.
The cardboard layer also slows down the cooking process and deprives you of a crispy crust. Moreover, anti-grease chemicals on the cardboard may be toxic and impart horrible flavors to your pizza.
You can cook the pizza with just the toppings it comes with, and if that’s how you like it, then don’t let anyone stop you. But if you’d like to shake things up, add other ingredients (such as garlic, extra cheese, oregano, chili oil, hot peppers, or ham, among many options) to transform your pizza into something truly special.
Kirkland Pizza Cooking Instructions for Conventional Ovens
It’s a common complaint with frozen pizzas cooked in conventional ovens that the crust is way too soggy. To prevent this problem, begin by carefully poking some holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork or similar implement.
Do this carefully: you don’t want to knock your pizza to the floor accidentally. Then put it into the oven on the lowest rack. Don’t use aluminum foil, and don’t use a baking tray (the official instructions are on the money in this regard). Simply stick that pizza straight onto the rack so that the heat can get at it from all around.
Very often, sauce, grease, or cheese drips onto the bottom of the oven and makes a mess. Place a baking tray under the pizza to catch such drippings. An oven sheet on the base of the oven is another great choice and it’s so easy to remove and wipe clean.
Using a Pizza Baking Stone
Alternatively, if you have a proper baking stone, preheat your oven with the stone in it, and defrost or microwave the pizza so that it’s about room temperature. When the oven reaches the right temperature, slid the pizza onto the stone and let it bake.
The huge amount of heat stored in the stone and its porosity that draws moisture out of the crust helps to crisp it beautifully.
But be sure to warm that pizza up before putting it on the stone. Pizza baking stones are made of special ceramics that don’t take kindly to drastic temperature fluctuations. Putting a frozen pizza onto a hot stone will damage it (cause small cracks) or result in it splitting completely.
One problem with this method is that you must thaw the pizza before cooking it to protect your stone. But frozen pizza dough and cheese formulations are designed to cook from frozen. Thawing can negatively affect the quality of the crust and how well the cheese melts – it’s probably best to save that stone for special occasions.
Heat Settings for a Conventional Oven
Speaking of heat: the official Kirkland pizza cooking instructions say to preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit and cook the pizza for 12 to 15 minutes.
However, if you crank that oven right up to around 550 degrees Fahrenheit, you can get a lovely crisp crust on your pizza. Preheat for about ten minutes before you begin cooking. Decreasing the heat after a few minutes will let it cook evenly.
Just be sure to keep a close watch on it: it will cook a lot faster than the instructions on the box say, so pull it out before it has a chance to burn (somewhere between the eight and ten-minute mark).
When the crust is nicely golden, and the cheese is properly melted, it’s time to get it out of there. Brushing a bit of oil onto the crust beforehand also helps crispness and color.
Kirkland Pizza Cooking Instructions for Air Fryer Users
Cooking frozen pizzas in air fryers helps ensure an ultra-crispy texture, as the convection heating moves hot air all over the food inside the basket.
You may be puzzled by the notion of Kirkland pizza cooking instructions for an air fryer because the diameter of the pie may be greater than that of the air fryer basket. But, as it turns out, there is actually a straightforward hack to deal with this problem: slice the pizza before cooking it.
Then proceed to cook the slices in the air fryer instead of cooking the entire pizza in one piece. Ensure that you don’t overcrowd the air fryer basket, as doing so tends to result in uneven cooking or undercooked slices. Instead, put only a single layer in, and cook the slices in batches.
Of course, if you have an air fryer with a large basket, you can skip this step. The larger air fryer models have racks, and you may be able to cook two or three pizzas in one go, which is great if you’re catering for a crowd.
Heat Settings for an Air Fryer
Always pre-heat your air fryer before cooking the pizza, as you would preheat a conventional oven. It should take around 4 minutes to preheat the air fryer and about twice that time to cook the pizza. You don’t have to defrost the pizza beforehand when using an air fryer.
You may need to increase the cooking time by about 50 percent and ensure the pizza has reached the right temperature (according to your device’s manual). Official Kirkland pizza cooking instructions say to cook it at 425 degrees Fahrenheit in a conventional oven; this can be reduced to 400 degrees in an air fryer.
Dealing With Differences Between Air Fryer Models
Every model of air fryer is different in capacity and temperature settings – you will need to do some calculations to make instructions for other types of oven (or even another model of air fryer) work for your particular device.
Your air fryer’s user manual should help you do the necessary conversions. If it doesn’t, or if you’ve misplaced your manual, try doing an internet search for an online oven-to-air fryer conversion calculator. You should start cooking at around 660 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius).
The cooking duration also varies, depending not only on the model of air fryer you have but also on the foodstuff in question. Consult your manual or check online.
Using Oil in an Air Fryer
If you’re going to use an oil or fat to heat frozen pizza in your air fryer (to stop it from sticking to the basket and give it a deeper golden color), choose one with a neutral taste and high smoke point (also known as the burning point).
Choosing oils with low smoke points has two undesirable outcomes: your food will taste burnt, and it increases the trans fat content; these fats are known to cause heart disease and cancer.
As a general rule, saturated fats have higher smoke points than unsaturated fats – but there is so much variation that checking any oil you plan to use beforehand is the wisest option. Coconut oil is a good workhorse cooking oil.
There’s no need to use a lot of oil in an air fryer when cooking pizza – there’s already plenty of fat in the pizza!
Kirkland Pizza Cooking Instructions for Your Grill
You may simply want to avoid an already hot kitchen being made hotter by having an oven going. Or you may have some friends over. Either way, midsummer is a time when cooking frozen pizza in the oven isn’t the option of choice.
Instead, head out to your deck, turn on your grill to high heat for at least 15 minutes, and get ready for a crispy, charred crust and smoky taste that offers a depth of flavor similar to that imparted by a wood-fired oven. When the grill is hot enough, dial down the temperature to medium or medium-low, and put the frozen pizza on the rack.
Close the grill’s lid and let the pizza cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Crack the grill from time to time to check that the bottom of the base isn’t burning, and turn it to compensate for uneven patterns of hot and cool spots in your grill.
Once the crust is crispy enough for your liking and the cheese starts to bubble, lift the pizza from the grill with heat-resistant tongs, slice it, plate it, and dig in.
Using a Smoker Instead of a Grill
You can use a smoker to cook frozen pizza pretty much the same way as on a grill, with two differences. A smoker uses indirect heat, so there isn’t the same risk of overcooking or burning the base. It also uses wood chips to create smoke that adds a smoky depth to food, plus other flavors that depend on the type of wood used.
Kirkland Pizza Cooking Instructions for a Cast-Iron Skillet
If you have a cast-iron skillet, you know how useful they are for everything from cooking perfect omelets to whacking intruders over the head before tying them up with your hair.
Even if your name isn’t Rapunzel, you’ll get great results cooking frozen pizza in a proper cast-iron skillet. The metal holds heat well, imparting that crispy deliciousness we seek in pizza. For best results, apply a bit of oil to the bottom of the pan before cooking.
Crank the heat up as high as you can, set the skillet on the stove plate, and let it get good and hot. Then put the pizza in, and let it cook from the bottom up, keeping an eye that it doesn’t burn.
Final Thoughts
Kirkland pizza cooking instructions are as simple as A, B, C, but don’t be afraid to get creative! Add extra toppings, change up your cooking method, and enjoy an easy feast!
