Giving up grains threatened a years-long tradition of Thursday Pizza Night at my house… until my friend Dian shared her recipe for Cauliflower Crust Pizza.
(I think angels may have sung, I was so excited to find a way to make my favorite food work without wheat.)
I’ve now made her cauliflower crust pizza a handful of times and other than my notoriously picky four year-old, it has been universally liked by young and old. I’ve tweaked it, of course, since I can never leave well enough alone!
If you want to make this (and I definitely recommend it), I want to give you a few pointers before setting you loose with the recipe.
1. The crust is not as durable as a wheat crust – so I find that plain cheese is the best way to go for toppings. When I loaded it up with veggies, the whole thing kind of fell apart and I had to eat it with a fork and knife.
2. The crust is still going to be on the soggy side when it comes out of the oven. Let it cool for a good 10 minutes before you try cutting and serving it.
3. The recipe recommends baking just the crust for 10 minutes, but be sure to check your crust, as ovens really vary. I suggest making sure that your crust is browning around the edges and bottom before putting sauce and cheese on it.
Cauliflower Crust Pizza Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower – cleaned and broken into pieces (here’s a great tutorial on how to do it in under a minute)
- 2 egg whites
- 1/2 t garlic powder
- 1 t Italian seasoning blend
- 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella
Instructions
1. Pulse cauliflower in your food processor with the S-blade until it resemlbes grains of rice. You will need to do this in several batches. Place grated cauliflower in a microwave-safe glass bowl and cover with dish cloth. Microwave on high for 5 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Let the cauliflower cool for 10-15 minutes. Dump it into the middle of your clean dish towel and squeeze out the liquid. I am able to get at least 1/3 of a cup of water each time. The drier your get yours, the crispier your crust will be.
4. Mix wrung-out cauliflower with remaining ingredients.
5. Cover pizza pan (or plain cookie sheet) with parchment paper. Or, you can use tin foil and spray with vegetable spray.
6. Mound cauliflower mix in middle and press out with your hands into a round dough shape. It should be just a few millimeters thick.
7. Cook crust only in oven for about 10 minutes, or until sides and bottom are starting to brown. Remove from oven and top with sauce, cheese and other toppings (keeping my above advice in mind).
8. Return to oven and cook for another 13-16 minutes until cheese is bubbly and starting to brown.
9. Let cool for 10 minutes and enjoy!
With the Nine Days starting tomorrow, this is a great recipe to add to your vegetarian menu plan! By the way, I usually make one of these pizzas for me and my husband – and a regular crust pizza for the kids.
You can see all my recipes, including the vegetarian ones, at the Kosher Recipe Index.
We love cauliflower crust pizza!
I tried this for the first time this past Pesach. My aunt made it and my kids (who are not big veggie fans to begin with) couldn’t get enough of it. I’ve been meaning to ask her for the recipe and now I don’t have to. I just printed this one. So excited to make it for my kids, especially since it’s now the 9 Days. It is soooo yummy!!
I printed this recipe out for pesach too but never tried it because I thought it was weird.
Going to try it now! Thanks!
Let me know what you think!
I made a different recipe for cauliflower pizza that I thought you might like. It is similar to the one you posted but you don’t have to cook the cauliflower first. It also holds up pretty good.
3 cups grated cauliflower (I used my food processor)
3 eggs or 3/4 cup Egg Beaters
1 1/2 shredded cheese (I used cheddar because that was what I had at home)
1/4 tsp each: salt,pepper,garlic and basil.
Mix together and spread on a parchment paper lined, Pam sprayed pizza pan.
Bake at 425 for 30 minutes, let edges turn crispy. Flip onto another piece of sprayed parchment paper, put back on pizza pan and bake an additional 10-15 minutes until the edges are really brown and crisp.
Add pizza sauce and cheese and broil 5-10 minutes until the cheese is melted. I also put on sliced olives and parve hot dogs. Delish
Thank you for sharing – I’ll have to give this a try, too!
And I bet my boys would love the veggie hotdogs!
I found your site while looking up a cleaning product. But saw that you have some recipes that are gluten free, so took a look. You have a very nice site. While we are not of your faith, I saw many very practical ideas anyone can use. I have been meaning to try alternate crusts for pizza and will try this recipe. My hubby has MS and we are eliminating foods for him that cause inflammation. So I am looking for gluten free all the time. My suggestion is to add some salt (if not being eliminated due to dietary concerns) to the cauliflower when you cook it, that may release more of the water. It doesn’t have to be a lot, like maybe adding 1/2 teaspoon or less. When I make my zucchini bread, I always add my salt as called for in the recipe to the zucchini and let it stand till the water starts to come out, then squeeze as much as I can out of it. It keeps my zucchini bread from getting heavy and soggy. Using salt to remove excess water from veggies is a French technique I read about several years ago when I got tired of my zucchini bread turning out like lead bricks. Thanks for a great idea with the pizza crust!
Good call on the salt. We’ve been doing that and it really helps, thank you!
Mara, this is on my list for a Chol Hamoed meal. Will it work with frozen cauliflower? To be honest, I don’t have the patience to clean heads of cauliflower.
Sigh. I don’t know. I’m afraid it will mush, rather than “rice” when you put it in the food processor. I hope I’m wrong!