A million years ago, I owned a business in Iowa, and every Friday nite, my key employee, his wife and baby would come over to our house, where we’d fire up a movie on the 7′ Sony big screen, and order a couple of pizzas from Little Caesars. At the time, LC’s “gimmick” was you got two pizzas in a single package for a reduced price. It wasn’t particularly good, or bad, per se, the incentive was simply the two-fer, and we could have a pizza for each couple with their respective choice in toppings.
Today, the major chains are all about dazzling us with flavor combos as an attempt to retain our business in light of upstarts offering higher quality ingredient pies with an even wider variety of toppings. Over the past ten years, the industry has progressed from “butter brushed” crusts, to cheese-stuffed, and now….you name your poison, whether it’s a salted pretzel crust or siracha kissed, or a dozen things in between, one or the other of the chains has got a pie to lure you in.
The latest offering from Little Caesars, in their “hot and ready” program (a selection of pies is always ready, you don’t have to call and order), is the ‘bacon-wrapped” crust deep dish. Actually two smaller square pies, with every piece boasting a corner edge, and the ad copy claiming “three and a half feet of bacon” on every pie.
The standard “hot and ready” version comes topped with pepperoni.
I have to admit, I’m not a real fan of LC’s, it’s just not a very exciting pizza, and I’m never really a fan of deep dish. But of course, I owed it to you to try the new bacon crust. It goes for $12, whereas their ‘regular’ hot and ready deep dish is $8, and their always available regular hot and ready pizzas are $5 each.
Although you can order the bacon-wrapped pie during any opening hour, it flips into “hot and ready” status at 4 PM.
So how was it?
A mess of processed pork on a buttery-flavored crispy deep dish crust. It wasn’t terrible. While I will never figure out how they get the bacon to stick to the edge of the crust, I don’t have to, I just have to marvel at it, and enjoy the smoky porcine taste in every bite.
Ordinarily I’d say, because of the “value,” Little Caesars is a good way to feed a gaggle of kids, cheaply and quickly, but if you’re concerned about their nutritional intake, best skip the bacon crust, which must clock in at a ton of “too much” in the nutritional info, tho it is not listed on the company’s website. Their regular pepperoni deep dish offers you 400 calories per slice, nearly half from fat calories, 670 g of sodium and 41 carbs. So you can amp up the fat and sodium when you add the bacon.
I don’t have to watch my girlish figure anymore, so I enjoyed it, and might even get it again, but I think it is an LTO, so you will have to watch for availability.
The only downside with the one I purchased, as evidence from the photos, is the oven was apparently a little over enthusiastic – lots of char on this sucker.
As presented in box
Close up to show bacon crust
Little Caesars Bacon Crust Pizza Review