Battle of the frozen pizzas! I tried two different brands of vegan pizza; Amy’s No Cheese Roasted Vegetable Pizza and Daiya Deliciously Dairy Free Margherita Pizza with their new cheese recipe. Cost wise these two products were about the same, though Daiya was on sale for about $8 and the Amy’s was about $10. Seems like a lot to pay for a frozen pizza that serves one person, but hey I’m lazy and this is an easy solution!

First up was the Amy’s. I’ve never had a no cheese pizza before so I was a little worried, but the flavour was great even without the cheese. The sauce was not a traditional tomato one which I think made all the difference, it was more of a balsamic semi-sweet glazey-type of sauce that I thought was really delicious. I personally felt the actual product looked very little like the gourmet vegetables pictured on the box, but that’s what you get with frozen so I can’t complain about that very much.

^ Here it is in it’s frozen state and after cooking. The vegetables are definitely a lot more pulverized looking than the cover image, but the taste was still good so I’ll allow it. The crust on this one was not gluten free which also means it was actually good (ha). I’d give it about an 8/10 overall, with deductions for the small smattering of smushed looking veggies, ever so slight sweetness that I wasn’t expecting from something I would eat to satisfy a savory craving, and for, sadly, the lack of cheese. It’s just not a “real” pizza without it… though I will likely try this cheeseless idea again in the future. The taste was great overall, though.

Next up was the new Margherita pizza from Daiya. This pizza is gluten free and vegan with both shreds and some bocconcini-style cheeze circles. The actual product also differed from the picture on the box, but I felt like it was a closer representation than the Amy’s. The Daiya box clearly shows fresh basil on the box and what you get is definitely some dried stuff dumped on top but again, this is a quick frozen meal so I can’t expect gourmet decadence.

Taste-wise I was surprised. I wasn’t a big fan of the old Daiya recipe, but the recent change has certainly improved things. I didn’t have to struggle to eat this, I actually genuinely enjoyed it! It still has a bit of the strange “Daiya smell” but it’s much less intense than it was before. The cheeze was stretchy and tasted pretty good. The tomato sauce was nice and so were the small bits of diced tomato on top.

This might be my first ever tie for Vegan Battle, but I can’t decide which one is the clear winner! I’d rate the Daiya at about an 8/10 as well, with deductions for the gluten free crust (it’s just not as good as a regular chewy crust! Sorry!) and for the fact that their fake cheese still tastes a bit funky to me. Those complaints are fairly minor though as the GF crust was crunchy and didn’t fall apart into soggy dust like so much other GF stuff, and the cheeze flavour is greatly improved over what it was previously.

So there you have it, our first draw! Try both of these pizzas, they are pretty good!