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I am totally new to cooking, I just boil eggs :). I am staying alone for sometime, and I want to cook some stuff at home instead of eating outside every day.

I thought that Pizza might be a good start. So, I am trying with pre-made frozen pizza (well, that is not actual cooking!)

The problem is that all the frozen pizzas I found are created to be cooked in oven (put 15 minutes in the heated oven), and my oven is broken. I have the fan grill, the oven top and a microwave..

can I cook pizzas using any of these?

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  • You can't buy microwave pizzas where you are? I lived on them at college. Granted, they were liked cheese on cardboard, but they were cheap...
    – ElendilTheTall
    Nov 8, 2011 at 19:34
  • A toaster oven can be a wonderful thing if you're living on your own, cooking in small quantities, and wanting some of the benefits of an oven. It won't be like a full-size oven with a pizza stone, but it'll be a whole lot better than a microwave! (Assuming you get small pizzas that fit in it, or hack up bigger ones.)
    – Cascabel ♦
    Nov 8, 2011 at 20:41

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No, you can't bake pizza in the microwave. See Why do my pizzas get such hard crusts? for details. The short answer: it gets as hard as brick.

I won't say that baking a pizza with a stove and a grill is impossible, but it is definitely not something for beginners. So this, too, is out. Really, a pizza needs an oven.

If you insist on pizza, the cheapest way is to buy a toaster oven. They start at 50 €.

If you just want to ease into cooking by preparing pre-made food, look into frozen pre-seasoned vegetable mixes for the pan, or fresh dumplings from the refrigerated goods aisle, or noodles with easy sauces. All of these can be prepared without an oven, and don't need much time or cooking knowledge. They won't let you experience all the benefits of home cooking, but neither will frozen pizza, so this is probably not a problem in your case.

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  • +1 for the hard crust.. I already saw this is my first trials :D
    – Yousf
    Nov 8, 2011 at 18:53
  • If you check secondhand and discount stores, you can often find toaster ovens much cheaper - mine was $15 and it works fine. You'll almost certainly have to cut up the pizza. Ah, memories of growing up....
    – SilverbackNet
    Nov 9, 2011 at 1:27
  • I've seen some really big toaster ovens in recent years. 12 inch isn't the max. :)
    – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx
    Feb 5, 2015 at 5:17
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I've "developed" a way of heating pizzas in a microwave which is fairly practical and easy:

Before you put the pizza on the plate, put some sugar cubes (wrapped ones work best!) on the plate to support the pizza, five is enough for small pizzas but more may be needed for larger ones! This gives the moisture coming off the bottom of the pizza a chance to escape and prevents the base from being soggy.

Then microwave the pizza for a few minutes (trial & error!), and after taking it out of the oven remove the sugar cubes (which will probably be stuck to the base of the pizza). If you used the wrapped cubes, just discard the wrapping and put the sugar cubes in the sugar bowl for later.

Enjoy your pizza!

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Yes, you can absolutely cook a frozen mini pizza in the microwave. I put mine on a plate and microwaved it for about 3.5 minutes on high. It has a soft crust and it's a little gooey in the middle, but it's cooked and totally edible.

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Another option to look into, if you're a huge fan of frozen pizza and can't see yourself using a toaster over for anything else, is the Presto Pizzazz Pizza Maker, which gets pretty rave reviews as long as you work it right, and there's a whole community out there devoted to tweaking it into making the perfect pizza. (Works for crisping other things, like wings, as well.) Wish I'd had one when I was in my daily frozen pizza phase, but I've never personally tried it.

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