We compared some of the most popular menu items at Pizza Hut and Domino's — and though both offer tasty options, Domino's wins for one key reason (2023)

We ordered similar items from each store: a medium pepperoni pizza, ...

... a garlic bread side order, ...

... an 8-piece order of wings, ...

... and a chocolate dessert.

The prices for each menu item we tried were similar between the two chains, except for the pizzas. Each pizza was divided into the standard eight slices ...

... and a medium pizza at Pizza Hut cost about $17, whereas Domino's charged $14.49.

The dipping sauces were priced similarly — Domino's charged 65¢ for each, and each cost 50¢ at Pizza Hut.

We were able to have our orders delivered from Pizza Hut, but not Domino's, which we felt was strange since both chains were in close proximity to each other. Domino's apparently had a shorter delivery range.

So we ordered carryout at Domino's and went to pick it up from the store.

Because of that, the bill at Domino's was just $42.46 versus $71.93 at Pizza Hut, since there weren't any delivery costs.

But if we had chosen carryout instead of delivery at Pizza Hut, the costs would have been closer to $56, so Domino's still would have cost less.

We could still use Domino's handy tracker though — our order was ready in no time.

Pizza Hut didn't have a tracker, but it did offer to send tracking updates via text message, which we opted for. Pizza Hut was quick too — we placed our order at 5:58 p.m., received a notification that it was out for delivery at 6:12 p.m., and then met our delivery driver at 6:22 p.m.

Finally, our orders were laid out in front of us — and it was time to feast.

First up were the garlic-y side dishes. We ordered Pizza Hut's Stuffed Garlic Knots and Garlic Bread Twists from Domino's.

The garlic and marinara dipping sauces from Domino's (the Garlic Bread Twists come with one sauce free of charge, but we added another for extra) quickly won us over. The marinara specifically was perfectly thick with a hint of rosemary.

In fact, the Domino's marinara sauce was the best sauce between both chains' garlic bread sides.

As for the Domino's garlic twists, they were yummy.

But nothing, and we mean nothing, can come close to the perfection that was Pizza Hut's Stuffed Garlic Knots.

The dish comes with 10 garlic knots filled with melted cheese and encrusted with garlic and parmesan.

They were doughy and warm and melted in your mouth. We were fighting over these until the very last one was gone.

It's not that the garlic bread dishes from Domino's or Papa John's weren't good, because they were.

But the fact that Pizza Hut's were stuffed with melted cheesy goodness gave it a significant edge.

Though, in defense of Domino's, the chain does have a Stuffed Cheesy Bread option that we bet would put up more of a fight against Pizza Hut's supreme Stuffed Garlic Knots.

But we chose not to test the Stuffed Cheesy Bread dish since we felt it wouldn't cut it for garlic-bread enthusiasts. Garlic isn't even in the dish's name, and the bread only comes with "a touch of garlic," according to the website.

Source: Domino's

And so Pizza Hut wins the battle of the garlic bread.

On to the main course!

We kept it simple with only pepperoni on all of our pizzas, since you can't go wrong with the topping.

And as it turns out, many Americans feel that way — more than a third of pizzas sold in the US come adorned with pepperoni.

Source: Thrillist

But the topping couldn't save Pizza Hut's pizza. The crust was lacking in texture, and the flavors in each slice called to mind what one would find at a roadside gas station.

The cheese on our Pizza Hut pizza was extremely slim, which was strange given that Pizza Hut is one of the largest cheese buyers in the world, using over 300 million pounds of cheese annually.

Source: Mental Floss

And so we ask: why couldn't more of all that cheese make its way into our pizza?

Finally, we sunk our teeth into Domino's, which was the culinary equivalent of a breath of fresh air.

No overpowering cheesy goo, no emaciated crust — nothing about Domino's pizza reminded us of gas station cuisine.

And the crust was exquisite: fluffy yet crunchy and flawlessly toasted.

Domino's took home the trophy for this round.

Cheers to that!

We somehow still had enough room to taste test the next category: the wings.

We ordered Pizza Hut's plain boneless wings and plain wings from Domino's, which also came bone-in.

And with each dish, we ordered a side sauce: we chose ranch, BBQ, and sweet mango habanero at Domino's and buffalo sauce at Pizza Hut. Some came with our wings orders and some cost extra.

We would absolutely order wings from Domino's again — the wings were mouthwateringly tender and delicious. There was also a distinct smoky flavor to them.

What we can say for certainty is just how unappealing Pizza Hut's wings were.

They were the only wings out of the three chains that came without bones, which made them easier to eat, but they were more reminiscent of a frozen aisle bag of chicken nuggets than an order of wings from one of the country's largest pizza makers.

Source: Mental Floss

Tried as we might, we couldn't finish all of them.

And last but certainly not least, we turned to our chocolate desserts: Pizza Hut's Ultimate Hershey's Chocolate Chip Cookie and the Domino's Marbled Cookie Brownie.

Domino's Marbled Cookie Brownie was the closest thing to a cookie cake that the chain offers.

And it was good, but nothing that stood out against, say, a bag of brownie mix that you could find at the grocery store and make yourself.

What stuck out the most was Pizza Hut's dessert, made with Hershey's chocolate. Maybe it was the chocolate chip placement, which ensured there were chips both within and on top of the cookie cake, but the cookie was gooey and delicious in every bite.

It was a good way to wrap up our taste test.

In each category, there was a clear winner.

Pizza Hut's Garlic Knots were out-of-this-world delicious.

The pizza from Domino's blew its competitor out of the water.

The Domino's wings reigned supreme.

And Pizza Hut's Ultimate Hershey's Chocolate Chip Cookie took the cake, if you will.

Final count — Domino's: 2 and Pizza Hut: 2.

So which is the winner of our taste test?

That title belongs to Domino's, and here's why.

Yes, technically Domino's tied with Pizza Hut in the number of wins among the four menu items. But the difference between the two chains is that everything we tried from Domino's was good.

Nothing, even the chain's garlic twists and dessert, which lost out to its competitor, was lacking in quality or proved to be a poor fast food offering.

Pizza Hut, on the other hand, shone brightly in two categories — garlic knots and dessert — but the chain's wings and pizza, which is arguably the most important part, were wildly unsatisfactory.

On top of that, Domino's cost the least out of all three chains, without sacrificing quality.

It's easy to see why Pizza Hut was dethroned by Domino's as the largest pizza seller in the world.

Source: AdAge