If you’ve ordered from Pizza Hut lately you may have noticed the food isn’t what it used to be. And you wouldn’t be alone. The chain isn’t winning customers over like it once did, as signaled by Pizza Hut closing hundreds of locations and being sold off by Yum! Brands. Perceived drops in quality are one of the reasons for this decrease in popularity. Notably, the pan pizza has gone from a fan favorite to a dish many skip. This is mainly due to the recipe and cooking method being changed in 2019.
Changes included using a different cheese and sauce blend and a new pan for baking. It’s also thought that the dough was switched from a daily made-in-store version to a frozen, pre-tossed base. While touted as an improved product, customers found the crust chewier, thinner, and less crispy. In fact, online reviewers thought they were given a hand-tossed pizza by mistake due to the crust’s thinness. Other complaints include the pizza being smaller than it was and the flavors being off.
Despite Pizza Hut still ranking as the second-most popular pizza chain in the United States, sales have been declining since 2019. Whether this change to the pan pizza is to blame, we can’t say, but customers certainly don’t seem impressed. There was even a petition launched to bring back the old recipe. And yet, there’s presently no sign it will return. Pizza Hut’s hand-tossed crust is changing as well, and it’s yet to be seen if consumers will appreciate this alteration.
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What customers are saying about Pizza Hut’s new pan pizza recipe
Shannon O’hara/Getty Images
Complaints regarding Pizza Hut’s pan pizza appear online frequently, especially on Reddit. One Redditor in r/pizzahut went as far as to say, “The quality is so downhill now it’s unbelievable. The ingredients taste cheap, Pizza Hut now gets frozen dough, they don’t make it fresh in stores anymore. It hasn’t been the same since the late 1990’s – early 2000’s.” This last part suggests customers have been noticing issues since before the 2019 changes.
As mentioned, many people also no longer see a difference between the pan pizza and the relatively thinner hand-tossed pizza. Another Redditor explained, “We got a pan puzza and a hand tossed. Looking at it, you can’t tell which is the pan crust and which is the hand tossed.” Some Reddit conversations even suggest the pizza has been further changed, with a mid-2026 post asking, “Did Pizza Hut change their pan crust recipe?” While no other changes have been confirmed, store-specific quality and consistency issues could be to blame.
It’s worth mentioning that not all customers are dissatisfied. One Redditor recently asked, “What makes Pizza Hut’s Pan Pizza so freaking good?!?” Yet even in this thread, commenters replied saying, “It use to be better. I’m not sure what they did but it’s much more like a regular pizza than pan.” If you agree with these complaints and are craving the old dish, try making a copycat Pizza Hut pan pizza crust at home with complete control over the pizza size, toppings, and cooking method.
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