Whenever Pizza Hut first launched the Pizza Mia, I thought it was a great idea. It looked fairly healthy, pretty tasty, and cheap.

At $5 per pizza, that’s comparable to the cost of a frozen pizza, and you have to cook those yourself! So I got a few and had a great time doing a Pizza Mia taste test.

But despite my friends, family, and I all enjoying the Pizza Mia, nearly every other review of this pizza was negative. No one else on the Interwebs liked it!

I didn’t understand it at first, but I think I may have it partly figured out. See, one commentator on my first Pizza Mia review claimed that my picture was not actually a Pizza Mia. Once I finished laughing at the thought of not knowing what pizza I was photographing, I got to thinking….

Maybe other Pizza Hut restaurants don’t prepare the pizza properly?

That’s entirely possible. A lot of the pizza’s quality depends on who prepares it. I’ve seen various pizza place employees that either don’t know or don’t care about what they’re doing.

But I have friends that work in Pizza Hut, and every time a new pizza comes out, all the employees get together for a special meeting where they learn how to prepare the new pizza properly. So around here, I get delicious Pizza Mias!

That’s why I ordered some more the other day. And I took more pictures to showcase the beauty:

Pizza Mia with onions:

Pizza Mia with broccoli:

Pizza Mia with pineapple:

I don’t know about you, but I think those look fine for $5 each.

If you aren’t getting pizzas that look like that, you’re missing out. Maybe you should call the Pizza Hut corporate headquarters and complain.

(Although some people just don’t like the crust or the sauce or the low amount of cheese. In that case you probably want to stick with a regular Pizza Hut pan pizza.)

Pizza Mia tip:

Order cheap toppings. I love the onions from Pizza Hut, and onions are cheap, so that’s my favorite choice. Pineapple is a pretty good choice, too.

Broccoli, on the other hand, is pretty expensive. As you can see, the broccoli pizza is pretty sparse with the topping.

(Broccoli is a healthy pizza topping though.)

My final verdict is…

Whatever the case is, I still like the Pizza Mia, and I would recommend it for enjoyment on special occasions, like Super Bowl Sunday.

Official Website: www.PizzaHut.com

I love pizza, so anytime I can get three mediums for just $5 each, I get excited. I was kind of excited for the Domino’s 5-5-5 deal just because it’s fairly cheap, but the Pizza Hut Pizza Mia deal really had me excited. (Although not quite as excited as I was when a local pizza place for doing 3 large pizzas for $5 each!)

Pizza Hut’s commercials claimed “sauce from vine-ripened tomatoes” and “whole milk mozzarella cheese with a hint of cheddar.” What really stands out in my mind though is that the Pizza Mias looked really good!

(Plus when you consider that most fruits/vegetables are picked before they ripen so that they don’t bruise during shipping, the promise of “vine-ripened tomatoes” really is something special.)

It just looked so good I had to have it. So I ordered some…

And then I got a brilliant idea – I would write about it on my website! So at the last minute, before getting the pizza, I looked it up on the internet to see if anyone else was writing about it.

I was a bit surprised to see conflicting reviews online already. Turns out the Pizza Mia has been out for a while, and despite the heralded sauce and mozzarella, some people say they are terrible pizzas!

What did I think?

I thought it was some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. Really. The first thing I noticed was the amazing aroma, which I later learned was due to the robust sauce and soft cheese packed with flavor. The sauce tasted like a real tomato sauce and it had a nice oregano flavor.

The crust is nice and chewy; it’s definitely not a thin crust but it’s not as thick as their pan pizza. The best part? No grease! At all! It was nice and dry and crispy on the outside but still soft and chewy inside. (Normally I avoid Pizza Hut because the pan pizza is dripping with grease…)

The Pizza Mia is not loaded with mounds of cheese, either, so it’s healthier all around. I actually like my pizza with less cheese so this was great. It’s probably best enjoyed without any toppings, although I enjoyed one with onions, which added to the spicy flavor (and by spicy I mean ‘spices’ like oregano, not ‘spicy’ like hot buffalo wings.)

[Note: Some other website reviews said the pizza sucks and the crust is like cardboard. Their local Pizza Hut staff must be sub-par, because my pizza was put together nicely.]

My final verdict is…

If you like a good, authentic pizza, the Pizza Mia is awesome. It’s more like something from a ‘mom and pop’ pizzeria than a national chain. It also appears much healthier than a typical pan pizza, so I’d recommend it for anyone who would rather not have their arteries clogged from one meal.

If you want a thick greasy crust loaded with cheese and other toppings, though, this isn’t for you.

Don’t get me wrong, the best pizza still comes straight out of Italy, but this was great for a national chain restaurant. And let’s face it, can you afford to fly to Italy every so often just to get a slice of pizza?