COOKING at home is the best way to keep the cost of food down but when you need a break, a pizza is an easy go-to option.

The Sun taste-tested seven frozen varieties that are readily available - but the one that got the highest marks might just surprise you.

Who doesn't love a great slice, right?

After, all pizza is one of those ubiquitous foods found across every culture and probably nearly every country around the world.

But making it from scratch at home can be time-consuming, and driving to your local pizza place to pick some up isn't always an option, while delivery fees can make it not worth the expense.

So we decided to look at the next best thing in the latest installment of our Bang for your Buck series - the frozen kind.

There is a lot of variety out there, and big box chain retailers like Target, Trader Joe's and supermarket chains like Whole Foods had some delicious-looking specialty pizzas.

However, to keep things as consistent in our taste test as possible - we focused on just pepperoni pizza across the brands we reviewed.

We tried Costco's Kirkland house brand, Target's Good & Gather, Trader's Joe's in-house variety, along with Whole Food's 365 brand.

We also considered Digiorno, Ellio's and Motor City Pizza Co, readily available across local supermarkets.

We roped in the entire family of five to take part in the test - two of whom are big pizza lovers, including my 14-year-old daughter and 20-something son, two who can take it or leave it, and one (guess who) who is not a big fan.

It was no easy feat getting through seven slices of pizza even for the biggest connoisseurs among us.

On a scale of one to five, the pies were judged on each of the following four categories: appearance, taste, nutrition and value, with five being the best possible score in each category.

We did not share our notes until the end of our layman's test. The results surprised us.

Let’s start with the brand that came in last.

This is a go-to freezer staple in our house, because it is readily available and compact due to its rectangular shape.

However, when compared to the rest, it provided less value for money due to smaller portions.

It also tasted the blandest when the points were tallied.

This was a step up from Ellio's pizza in our opinion.

There was a lot of pepperoni on the self-rising crust pizza so everyone got a healthy dose on their slices.

However, while the pizza did expand while baking and hand a nice textured crust, we had to cut the pizza into smaller slices to make sure everyone could try it.

The portion was the problem with this one - it was only big enough for four servings, but really if you were eating this as a meal, we thought everyone would want to eat at least two slices to fill up.

Judging by appearance I thought this both delivered excellent value, with each pizza priced at just over $4 for four large frozen pies.

It seemed like it would be the dinner gift that kept giving.

The ratio of pepperoni to the thin crust was good.

But when it baked up the crust tasted a little dry and there was very little pull to the cheese.

Overall, we ranked this as pretty average and still have the other three in our freezer.

And at 400 calories a slice, it will be a while before I pull out another pie, but it is good to have around if a bunch of your kid's friends show up hungry.

This one had the biggest range of scores from family members either really liking the taste or really not liking the taste.

The crust was a good consistency and thickness and the sauce was generous.

When I pulled it out of the packaging all the pepperoni had settled on one side of the pie, but it was easy to move them around so they were spread evenly.

When done it had a fairly good pull to the cheese, but the color ended up looking a dark shade of orange verging on brown and the pepperoni ended up curling up and wasn't the easiest to cut through.

However, the cheese tasted fresh and this would be one most of us said we would try again.

This is a brand that you see in every practically supermarket's frozen section and is pretty synonymous for its pizza.

I wasn't expecting this one to end up in the top three, but it surprised me for a couple of reasons.

The bake on it was perfect and the ratio of the self-rising crust, to sauce and cheese was perfect.

The pepperoni was a little sparse, but each bit had a spicy kick to it and the entire pie was not too greasy.

When you're going through seven pies, that was appreciated.

This pizza did not disappoint, but the kudos has to come with a disclaimer.

There wasn't a regular pepperoni pie available so I had to opt for the gluten-free variety and it did come with a sprinkling of olives and onions on it.

We did our best to avoid letting that detract from the overall taste of the pepperoni and pizza.

It was a light bite and because the pizza comes with three portions, we had to divvy the pie up into smaller pieces for each of us to try.

The cheese had a great pull and given it was gluten-free and had a couple of extras on it, we thought the value was good.

It was definitely a thumbs up for many of us and if you can get it, it's worth buying.

This ended up being the clear favorite.

The Detroit-style deep dish pie hit all the right notes when it comes to taste, and the brand's descriptive "it's all about the crust" was 100 percent accurate.

The square-shaped pizza came in a plastic tray that was oven-proof and the pie rose into a fluffy delight.

The pull on the cheese was the best of any of the frozen ones we tried, and it came closest to the feeling of eating a fresh slice from a deli.

This was a brand none of us had heard of, or tried before (including the pizza aficionados).

And despite it being the most expensive of the pies, the satisfying taste overall made it one we definitely will keep in the freezer as a handy busy night backup.

While we were all super-psyched to try the pizzas, by the end of the exercise none of us wanted to look at another pizza again for a while.

Instead, we all craved some salad.

However, as a go to on a busy work day, there are a lot of varieties and styles to pick from - one that can satisfy even the most discerning taste buds.

Here's more on a mac and cheese taste test The Sun did to find out which ranked the best.

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