It doesn’t matter if you’re going to be picking up pizza 10 minutes down the road or an hour away – making sure that pizza arrives hot, fresh, and delicious is always mission priority number one. Unfortunately, as most folks know all too well, a lot more goes into figuring out how to keep pizza warm in the car than it appears on the surface. Try and “wing it” too much and you’ll inevitably discover that your pizza is at best lukewarm, if not outright cold.
No, you need to do a little bit of preplanning and preparation if you’re serious about keeping your pizza just as warm as it was when it rolled out of the oven at the pizza shop. An insulated delivery bag, some aluminum foil, and an old blanket (amongst other tips) can help you keep your pizza hot and fresh.
That’s why we’ve put together this detailed guide.
Below you’ll learn (almost) everything there is to know about how to keep pizza warm in the car with as little headache, as little hassle, and as little extra expense as necessary.
Let’s jump right in!
How to Keep Pizza Warm in the Car
Grab an Insulated Pizza Delivery Bag Online
The simplest way to keep your pizza warm while driving home in your car is to simply grab one of the exact same insulated pizza delivery bags that pizza joints use every day to deliver sizzling pizza pies to their customers.
It used to be pretty difficult to track down one of these insulated delivery bags. Some people even had to resort to bribing delivery people to fork over the bags they were using.
Today, though, thanks to the power and reach of the internet getting one of these bags (including vintage delivery bags from popular take-out spots like Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and more) is practically effortless.
Jump on Amazon or eBay (depending on whether or not you’re looking for a new or vintage option), search for “insulated pizza delivery bags”, and grab one that looks like a halfway decent buy.
Keep it permanently in your car (they roll up to a really compact form factor) and you’ll never have to worry about getting stuck with cold pizza again.
Insulated Grocery Freezer Bags Work in a Pinch
If you don’t feel like springing for an insulated delivery bag, a legit carbon copy to what delivery people use every day, you can get almost the same results from using insulated grocery freezer bags, too.
These kinds of bags often sell for a dollar or two at the grocery store and are generally found near the freezer section or the checkout lanes.
Grab a couple of them and you’ll be able to keep a couple handy whenever you go to grab takeout pizza. They don’t work quite as well as the “real deal” but the overall performance difference is pretty negligible.
They’ll keep your pizza a whole lot hotter than it would have been just leaving it out on your front seat.
Wrap Your Pizza Box in Aluminum Foil
Let’s just say, for the sake of argument though, that you weren’t able to grab either of these kinds of bags ahead of time.
That’s okay!
Believe it or not, a classic kitchen staple – good old-fashioned aluminum foil – is more than enough to keep your pizza hot on the ride home.
Sure, you’ll have to use a little bit more aluminum foil to insulate your pizza than you probably use around the kitchen normally. But it isn’t like you’re going to be rapping pizzas like Christmas every single day, either.
It’s not a bad idea to get into the habit of leaving a backup role of aluminum foil underneath your car seat, even. This guarantees that you always have a bit of foil on hand to wrap up your pizzas or other types of takeout you want to keep hot, too.
Cover Your Hot Pizza with a Car Blanket
It’s always a good idea to make sure that you have a car in your blanket.
Soft and cozy, these can be used to keep your passengers nice and toasty on long road trips. They are perfect for impromptu picnics or trips to the beach as well.
You can use them as a wonderful insulator to keep your pizza hot on the way home from the pizza shop, too.
Put the pizza in the middle of your blanket and then start folding and rolling it up. It won’t take long until you have it completely covered with multiple layers of blanket, and all of those layers are going to retain heat.
Your pizza will still be piping hot by the time you come through the front door!
Crank Up Your Seat Warmer
One of the coolest things about modern cars is the inclusion of heated seat warmers, a total game changer for folks that live and drive in winter weather.
Few things beat settling into a nice and toasty car seat that has been perfectly warmed for the ride ahead of you – except maybe using seat warmers hot as you cruise down the road.
The best thing about these seat warmers is that they aren’t ever going to get to extremely high temperatures, the kinds of temperatures that could actually overcook your pizza.
Instead, they hold at just the right temperature to maintain that freshness, keeping your cheese nice and melty and guaranteeing that every first bite is as good as if you are in the pizzeria itself.
Stash Your Pizza in a Cooler
It sounds a little weird to use a cooler to keep your pizza warm, but that’s exactly what these amazing little insulated boxes are built for.
Coolers work just as well for keeping warm things warm as they do for keeping things cool. A pizza stuck inside of an empty cooler is going to maintain those temperatures for the car ride home at least (and will probably feel warm to the touch for a good while after).
Just be sure you’re not sticking your warm pizza in with a cold beer or ice pack!
Closing Thoughts
At the end of the day, learning how to keep pizza warm in the car is a whole lot easier than it might look on the surface – even if you do need to prep a little bit in advance.
Use the tips and tricks we highlighted above to guarantee that you don’t ever have to worry about walking through your front door with pizza that tastes anything less than super fresh and piping hot.
There’s a time and a place for cold pizza to be sure, but that’s always the morning after you enjoyed as much of it as you could while it was still fresh, hot, and the cheese still nice and melted.
You’ll be able to taste the pizza exactly the way the pizzeria wanted you to, with ingredients that are super fresh, super warm, and not stiff and cold or limp and steamy, either.
Keep some relatively inexpensive supplies in your vehicle (delivery bag, insulated grocery bags, aluminum foil, a cozy blanket, etc.) and you’ll have nothing to worry about.
Pizza nights will always be pitch perfect, even if you end up ordering from your favorite place clear across town – or in the next county over.
Latest post’s
