Here's One Pizza Ordering Hack Everyone Should Know

Picture this: it's pizza night. Whether your Friday family tradition, an entrée to accompany movies and games with your friends, or just a Tuesday, anytime is the best time to have your favorite pie from down the street. Before pizza can be eaten and fun can be had, you've got to get it in the works. Whatever your version of pizza night looks like, the essential part of any pizza night is ordering.

The great American pastime of ordering pizza comes with all kinds of tips, tricks, and strong opinions attached to it. Whether it's the best way to order your crust, pickup versus delivery, or how to build the ideal topping combination — we all know the perpetual, polarizing pineapple-on-pizza debate — there are many things to consider when you order a pizza and many ways to ensure your experience is the best it can be.

Of all the pizza advice out there, there's one hack everyone should know. And it may be something you've never thought about.

Yup, you read that right: uncut. It seems counterintuitive, given that it's kind of pizza's thing to be eaten in slices. And who wants the added work of finding the right knife or tool and cutting into a big pizza in the correct number of pieces? If you get past its perceived inconvenience and consider the reasoning, you may never order a sliced pie again.

We're used to pizza arriving in those recognizable triangles, but that's not how everyone does pizza. Let's look to the place that knows pizza best: Italy.

Contento Italiano explains that most of the time when you order pizza in Italy, it comes to the table unsliced; Italians generally cut it up themselves at the restaurant and eat it as they go. That's because unsliced pizza equals better flavor and texture. Since many pizza toppings are runny, slicing allows any liquid to slip away and soak into the crust, creating a wet or soggy pizza. Keeping the pizza unsliced as long as possible keeps the pizza hotter longer and keeps all the ingredients in place, with the original flavor and texture intact — gooey, cheesy toppings that don't jeopardize the texture of the dry, crispy crust. Bottom line? It's pizza as pizza was intended to be.

There's also a bit of added fun to ordering your pizza uncut: once it arrives, you can choose how you want to eat it. Depending on the type of pizza and the toppings you ordered, there may be certain ways to slice up or eat your pizza that make the experience more enjoyable.

For example, if you've got a lot of toppings, especially those like extra cheese or big chunks of meat that might slide off that droopy triangle, you can cut your pizza into squares for a more secure base. This is also a great move if you have lots of mouths to feed, as you can get more pieces out of the pizza. If your toppings are extra runny (think fresh mozzarella or crushed tomatoes), feel free to dig in with a fork and knife. It may seem like blasphemy, but trust us — you'll have a less messy, more enjoyable eating experience, and then you can get your hands on the crust that's been kept nice and un-soggy. You can even try slicing your pizza into thin strips if you're a pizza-dipper, or heck, even go at it with scissors for easy cutting in any shape your heart desires.