Budget-conscious Koreans are increasingly scrutinizing food labels after growing awareness of ultra-processed ingredients in convenience foods, and a frozen pizza that's both cheap and additive-free hits a rare sweet spot. The 2+1 deal at Homeplus gave it viral momentum as people rushed to verify the find.
Frozen pizza in Korea has a bit of a reputation problem — most delivery and convenience store options are loaded with palm oil, additives, and enough sodium to make your face puff up like a balloon. So when one Korean internet user stumbled upon a frozen pizza that breaks all those rules, he did what any responsible netizen would do: wrote a full review, cooked it ten-plus times to confirm, and posted his findings to Pizza Gallery (피자 갤러리), a niche Korean online community dedicated entirely to pizza discourse. The post blew up.
The pizza in question is the **Ristorante Mozzarella Pizza**, currently available at Homeplus (one of Korea's major supermarket chains) in a 2+1 deal — meaning you get three pizzas for roughly 10,000 won, or about $7.50 total. That's less than $2.50 per pizza. The writer's first instinct was the same as yours: *okay but what sketchy ingredients are hiding in there?* Turns out, none. The ingredient list reads like something a nutritionist would actually approve — real mozzarella cheese, no palm oil, zero artificial additives. For context, most Korean frozen pizzas are packed with the kind of ingredient list that reads like a chemistry exam.
The nutrition stats are equally surprising. One pizza packs **36g of protein** — equivalent to about 1.5 chicken breasts — making it weirdly viable as a post-workout meal. Sugar clocks in at just 10g, well below the frozen pizza average. The one catch? Sodium. It's on the higher side, though the writer helpfully points out that a single packet of Korean instant ramen contains over 1,500mg of sodium, so... perspective.
But the real star of the post is the **cooking method**. No oven, no air fryer — just a microwave and a frying pan. Here's the technique he swears by after eating this thing over ten times:
**Step 1:** Take the pizza out of the freezer 30–60 minutes before cooking and let it come to room temperature.
**Step 2:** Microwave it for 1 to 1.5 minutes until the cheese just starts to melt and the dough softens. (He pre-emptively roasts anyone thinking about judging this step: *"Don't come at me, just keep reading."*)
**Step 3:** Transfer it to a lightly warmed frying pan on the **lowest heat possible**, cover with a lid, and cook for 2–3 minutes. He specifically warns against the popular advice of adding water or oil — he tried it, hated it, says it makes the pizza greasy and dulls the flavor. Also: if you mess up the heat control, you've just burned a $2.50 pizza, and he learned that the hard way.
The result? A crust that's crispy on the bottom but still soft and chewy on top, with the aroma of tomato and basil filling the room. He describes it as the kind of pizza that doesn't punch you in the face with artificial flavor — which is exactly the point. He admits it might not satisfy people who've been conditioned by years of aggressively seasoned delivery pizza, but for anyone looking for something cleaner and more wholesome, this is it.
His verdict: one pizza is the perfect solo lunch. High-metabolism folks might want to fry an egg or two on the side for extra protein. He's eaten over ten of these. He has no regrets. He also doesn't want comments — just a thumbs up.