I always enjoy a good take and bake pizza, and Aldi always seems to offer them, so I keep buying them. That’s why there are so many reviews for the popular food (in case you were wondering). And I also keep buying them, because they make a great quick meal when my wife works late, or as is the case right now, out of town visiting family; I can just pop it in the oven for a few minutes, then voila! A dinner is complete.

I have to say that this pizza is pretty good, but it tastes just like every other barbecue pizza that Aldi has ever offered (i.e., their excellent take on Hawaiian). Seriously, I swear they use the same barbecue recipe (or the factory uses the same vat of the stuff), and the same bland, pointless chicken pieces for all of their barbecue chicken pizzas (and there are multiples). Granted, they are released under the same brand name (Mama Cozzi’s), and given Aldi’s constantly rotating inventories, generally aren’t available at the same time, but I’d like a little variance in their options.

Anyway, for a full breakdown for those that haven‘t read my reviews for similar products: the barbecue sauce is delicious and sweet, and there’s a decent amount of it on there; the onions are perfectly soft and also sweet, a perfect compliment to the sauce; the cheese is pretty much standard pizza cheese (which is to say, good, but nothing remarkable); and the chicken is the same creepy, nondescript slabs of rather tasteless mystery meat that these frozen pizzas always feature. That’s it in a nutshell.

That being said, the taste is good, especially if you like your pizzas to have at least a little bit of sweetness to them, though the creepy chicken pieces don’t do it any favors. The other qualm that I always have with these is the price: It’s $3.99. No, that doesn’t seem terrible at first glance – and it’s not technically “terrible” at all – but it weighs about 12.5 ounces. Their large take and bake pizzas are usually at least twice that size for $1 or $2 more. Sure, I get that not everyone needs a full pizza, and this is basically their equivalent of a “personal size” pizza, so I guess it fills that niche. But considering it’s a flatbread, it’s basically just barbecue, cheese, and chicken on a teeny little cracker. Personally, I can eat one of these and still be hungry (if I haven’t eaten much all day), so to me, it just makes more sense to stick to the actual pizzas, which are more filling. Regardless, for those looking for something a little “lighter”, or that just want a decent barbecue chicken fix, this should hit the spot. Good, and certainly above average, but for those who have had their other barbecue chicken pizzas, a little too familiar.

Overall: 6/10. The sweet barbecue sauce mixes perfectly well with the sweetness of the sautéed onions, but the creepy, nondescript frozen chicken kind of ruins what could have been something special. The sweet barbecue sauce tastes exactly the same as the kind used for their outstanding Hawaiian pizza, so if you’ve had that, then you know what you’re in for, but the rest of the supporting cast doesn’t quite live up to that delicious example. The $3.99 price tag also feels a bit much to me, considering the flatbread removes all the excess crust, and is essentially the equivalent of a topped cracker, which isn’t nearly as filling. Personally, I’d rather spend the extra buck or two for a full size pizza and have leftovers the next day (or share with my wife if she’s in the mood), but if you want something a little “lighter”, this should fit the bill.