Cauliflower Pizza Crust (Gluten Free)
Boy oh boy do I love pizza! What I don’t love are the carbs, the white processed flours and preservatives in the crust. Plus I’m always looking for a way to make something more nutritious without sacrificing flavor.
I posted a recipe for Cauliflower Cheese Sticks a little while ago and with the leftover cauliflower made myself a delicious cauliflower crusted personal pizza. The technique is slightly different though and this recipe is for a medium size pizza.
The steps are really easy, there are just a few of them. But it’s well worth it to me because I like knowing exactly what’s in my food and more importantly, what is not.
You’ll be impressed with yourself with what a delicious, nutritious and satisfying pizza crust you made. Let’s get started shall we?
Ingredients:
- 1 medium size head of cauliflower (you’ll make “rice” with it)
- 1 egg (room temperature)
- 3/4 tablespoon italian seasoning
- 1/4 tablespoon dried onion flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
- 3 tablespoon finely grated parmesan (like the kind that comes in a shaker)
Directions:
HOW-TO make cauliflower rice. This is so easy peazy, it’s ridiculous. I took my head of cauliflower, trimmed off the big green stem and the leaves and took it to the grater.
I grated it just like cheese and it magically became cauliflower rice. So genius. I didn’t grate all the down to the stems, I just did all of the florets. If you have a food processor you can put the “rice” in it for a few pulses to make it even finer. Now that you have your “rice”, the rest is even easier.
- Place your cauliflower rice in a microwave safe bowl and cook on high for 5 minutes. Don’t add any water, just the cauliflower. This will release a lot of the moisture in the cauliflower.
- After the 5 minutes are up, lay out a clean dish rag and put 2 paper towels on top of it. Place your cauliflower on the paper towels.
- Let it cool down just a minute and wring out the water from your mixture. I ended up using 2 more paper towels for a second wringing just to make sure I got as much water out as possible.
- In a bowl, mix the cauliflower, italian seasoning, onion flakes, olive oil and parmesan cheese.
- In a separate bowl whisk the egg like you were making scrambled eggs. Now add the egg to the cauliflower mixture. Mix everything well.
- Almost done. Now form your mixture into a ball and place on a greased parchment paper lined baking sheet. Flatten dough out to (about a 1/4 inch thick) make a round pizza crust. You can make it any shape (heart, square, etc.) as long as it’s only about a 1/4 inch thick. The thinner it is, the crispier your crust will be.
- Bake crust for 12 – 15 minutes.
- You’ll want to see some browning around the edges before flipping. A little more than I show in my photo above. I flipped a little too soon (as you can see in the photo below). It didn’t matter though, it will end up cooking more when the toppings go on.
- Once you’ve flipped it, it’s time for TOPPINGS!!!! Add some sauce, veggies, fruit, meat, cheese, whatever you want and cook for another 5 – 6 minutes depending on how well you like your pizza done.
- Word of caution, it will be hot so if you can stand it, let it cool off a couple of minutes before cutting.
This pizza was amazing! Make it a family fun night and divide up your cauliflower crust mixture into mini-pizzas that everyone can personalize. Shape it into a heart crust for that someone special or do like I did and make it for yourself and don’t share with anyone 🙂