French Bread Pizza: Homemade Recipe, the Right Loaf, and Stouffer's Cooking Times
One soft loaf, split, toasted and topped, feeds four in 25 minutes. Which bread holds up and which falls apart, the step that stops sogginess, a full recipe, and the Stouffer's oven and air fryer directions from the maker's own pages.
French bread pizza is a loaf of soft French bread split lengthwise, toasted, then topped with sauce, cheese and whatever you like and baked at 425°F for 10 to 12 minutes. One loaf feeds four in about 25 minutes. The frozen Stouffer's version that most people grew up on bakes at 375°F for 24 minutes according to the box.
Where French bread pizza came from
The usual origin story points to a food truck. Bob Petrillose started a pizza truck on Stewart Avenue at Cornell University in 1960 and ran it, as the Hot Truck, for 40 years; the Cornell Chronicle's 2008 obituary lists the Poor Man's Pizza, French bread with tomato sauce and cheese, among his best-known subs, along with the MBC (meatballs, sauce and cheese on the same bread). The truck served from 10 p.m. to as late as 5 a.m., seven nights a week, which tells you what this food is for.
The frozen version turned it from a college-town habit into a national one. Stouffer's French Bread Pizza is the two-to-a-box rectangle with the crunchy edges that showed up in school cafeterias and after-school freezers for decades, and it is still sold in pepperoni, three meat, extra cheese and deluxe. Nobody who ate one at age ten has forgotten the roof-of-the-mouth burn.
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Which bread to use
Not a baguette. A real baguette has a thick, hard crust and an open crumb full of holes that sauce falls through, and it is too narrow to hold anything. The bread you want is the soft, wide loaf sold as "French bread" in the supermarket bakery, 16 to 20 inches long and about 450g, with a thin crust that crisps rather than shatters. Day-old is better than fresh; it toasts drier and holds more sauce without going soft.
| Bread | Crust | Crumb | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supermarket French loaf (soft, 450g) | Thin, crisps well | Tight, even | The one to buy; the frozen product is built on the same idea |
| Italian loaf | Thin, sometimes seeded | Tight | Just as good; usually a little wider |
| Baguette | Thick, hard | Open holes | Sauce leaks through, crust cuts your mouth; skip it |
| Ciabatta | Medium | Very open | Works if you press the cut side flat first; chewy result |
| Hoagie or sub rolls | Thin | Soft | Good for individual portions and lunchboxes; 8 to 10 minutes |
| Sourdough batard | Thick | Open, tangy | Toast longer; the sour note is good with sausage |
The step that stops it going soggy
Toast the cut sides before anything touches them. Butter or oil the bread, put it under the broiler or in a 425°F oven for 5 minutes until the surface is golden and dry, then sauce it. The toasted layer works as a seal, the same way a par-baked crust does, and the difference between toasted and untoasted is the difference between a crisp slab and a wet sponge by the second piece.
Two smaller things help. Pull out a shallow channel of crumb down the middle of each half with your fingers so the toppings sit in a trough instead of sliding off a dome. And keep the sauce thin: 120g per half of a 450g loaf is plenty. More sauce is the second most common reason a French bread pizza fails, after the missing toast.
French bread pizza recipe
One 450g loaf, split and topped, cut into 8 pieces. Serves 4 as a meal. Prep 10 minutes, cook 15 to 17.
- 1 soft French or Italian loaf, about 450g and 16 to 18 inches long, preferably a day old
- 45g (3 tablespoons) softened butter mashed with 1 grated garlic clove and a pinch of salt, or 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 240g (1 cup) pizza sauce, thick; simmer a thin jarred sauce 5 minutes first
- 300g (about 3 cups) low-moisture mozzarella, shredded; see best cheese for pizza
- 60g pepperoni, about 30 small slices, or other toppings (below)
- 20g grated Parmesan, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, chili flakes to serve
- Heat the oven to 425°F with a rack in the middle. Line a sheet pan with foil or parchment; cheese will run.
- Split the loaf lengthwise with a serrated knife. Cut each half in two crosswise if it is longer than your pan. Press or pull out a shallow channel down the center of each piece.
- Spread the garlic butter edge to edge on the cut sides. Toast 5 minutes in the oven, or 2 to 3 minutes under the broiler, until golden and dry.
- Spread the sauce to within a quarter inch of the edges. Cover with mozzarella all the way to the edge so the crust browns under the cheese rather than burning bare.
- Lay on the pepperoni, then the Parmesan and oregano.
- Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and browned in spots and the edges of the bread are deep brown. A minute under the broiler at the end gets the pepperoni crisp.
- Rest 3 minutes, then cut each half into 3-inch pieces with the serrated knife. Chili flakes at the table.
Toppings that work on French bread
Anything that goes on a pizza, with one adjustment: the bake is cooler and shorter than a real pizza oven, so raw toppings do not cook through. Brown sausage and mushrooms in a pan first, and use cooked chicken. Cured and cupping pepperoni, the kind from our pepperoni pizza guide, crisps nicely under the broiler. A white version with garlic butter, ricotta, mozzarella and spinach skips the sauce entirely and is less likely to go soft. For a buffalo chicken loaf, toss 200g of shredded cooked chicken with 3 tablespoons of hot sauce and a tablespoon of melted butter, use that in place of the pizza sauce, and finish with blue cheese crumbles after the bake. Our easy pizza snacks page has the rest of the bread-based family, from pizza bagels to tortilla pizzas.
Stouffer's French bread pizza cooking instructions
The directions below come from the maker's own product pages for the pepperoni and deluxe varieties. One early step is the same for every method: pour the ingredients left in the wrap back onto the pizza. Cheese falls off in the box.
| Method | Steps | Time | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conventional oven (pepperoni) | Preheat 375°F, baking sheet on the center rack, same time for 1 or 2 pizzas | 24 minutes, stand 1 minute | Crunchiest crust; the way the box intends |
| Conventional oven (deluxe) | Preheat 400°F, baking sheet on the center rack | 24 minutes, stand 1 minute | Same |
| Micro-bake | Microwave on high 1 1/2 minutes for 1 pizza (2 minutes for 2), then bake at 425°F | 4 minutes for 1, 8 for 2, stand 1 minute | Nearly as crisp, under 10 minutes |
| Micro-air fry | Microwave on high 1 1/2 minutes, then into an air fryer preheated to 300°F | 6 minutes (the time printed for the deluxe pizza), stand 1 minute | Crisp edges, fastest; one pizza at a time |
The maker says to cook to an internal temperature of 165°F, and the pepperoni pizza is listed at 440 calories for one 166g pizza, two to a box. The air fryer times on the page apply to a microwave-first method; a frozen pizza put straight into an air fryer with no microwave step takes longer, about 12 to 14 minutes at 350°F in practice, and the top can brown before the center thaws. For other frozen pizzas, our air fryer pizza times cover personal pizzas, rolls and reheated slices. The best frozen pizza ranking covers where the French bread style sits against the rest of the freezer aisle.
Homemade French bread pizza in the air fryer
A 6-inch piece of topped loaf fits most baskets. Toast the buttered bread 2 minutes at 370°F, top it, then cook 6 to 8 minutes at the same temperature until the cheese browns. The bread crisps harder in the air fryer than in the oven, which is good for the base and bad for an exposed rim, so take the cheese right to the edge.
Storing and reheating French bread pizza
Leftovers keep 3 to 4 days in the fridge, wrapped once cool; how long pizza is good for has the full table. Reheat in a 375°F oven or a 350°F air fryer for 5 to 7 minutes, never the microwave, which turns the bread to rubber in 40 seconds. The skillet method on our how to reheat pizza page works too if you cover the pan for the last minute.
To freeze your own, assemble the topped halves on a tray without baking, freeze solid, wrap in foil and bag them. Bake from frozen at 400°F for 18 to 22 minutes. That is, more or less, what Stouffer's has been selling all along, for less per pizza and with pepperoni you chose yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What bread is best for French bread pizza?
The soft, wide loaf sold as French or Italian bread in the supermarket bakery, about 450g with a thin crust. A crusty baguette is too hard and too narrow, and its open crumb lets sauce fall through. Day-old bread toasts drier and holds up better than fresh.
How do you keep French bread pizza from getting soggy?
Toast the buttered cut sides for 5 minutes before saucing, keep the sauce thin at about 120g per half loaf, use a thick sauce rather than a watery one, and cook wet toppings like mushrooms or sausage in a pan first. The toasted layer seals the bread.
How long do you cook French bread pizza in the oven?
Homemade: toast the bread 5 minutes at 425°F, top it, then bake 10 to 12 minutes until the cheese is browned in spots. Frozen Stouffer's: 375°F for 24 minutes on a baking sheet per the maker's page, followed by a 1-minute stand.
Can you cook Stouffer's French bread pizza in an air fryer?
Yes. The maker's method is to microwave the pizza on high for 1 1/2 minutes first, then cook it 6 minutes in an air fryer preheated to 300°F and let it stand 1 minute. Straight from frozen with no microwave step, allow about 12 to 14 minutes at 350°F.
How many calories are in a French bread pizza?
A Stouffer's pepperoni French bread pizza is listed at 440 calories per 166g pizza. A homemade piece from the recipe above, one eighth of a 450g loaf with 300g of mozzarella and 60g of pepperoni across the whole loaf, comes to roughly 350 calories.
Who invented French bread pizza?
The most-cited claim is Bob Petrillose's Hot Truck at Cornell University, which started in 1960 and served a Poor Man's Pizza of French bread, tomato sauce and cheese for 40 years. Stouffer's frozen French Bread Pizza made the idea a household one.