I’m not sure about you but right now it is full blown football season at my house. This means Ryan wants to eat anything that involves lots of carbs, cheese, and beer. Tonight I wanted to try a healthy spin on your traditional football fare and got super inspired by this post.
Making your pizza using this cauliflower crust adds a heaping serving of veggies to your meal rather than a bunch of refined carbs, it adds some healthy protein, and it digests easily so you aren’t left with that bloated “I ate too much” feeling that often accompanies your typical pizza night.
The secret here is making sure you really squeeze all the water from the cauliflower (see method below) before mixing in the other ingredients. This gives you a perfectly moist crust that still holds up nicely even when loaded with toppings.
This recipe will make enough for one large pizza or 2 small pizzas. Try making a double batch of crusts, then adding your toppings and wrapping one in tin foil and sticking it in the freezer for a quick dinner option later in the week. Also check out this quick recipe for homemade chunky pizza sauce!
Let me know how it goes! Leave a comment below if you have any questions.
Ingredients:
1 large head of cauliflower, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup chevre (soft goat cheese)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F. Put a medium-sized soup pot on the stove with about an inch of water in it. Bring it to a boil. Meanwhile, add the cauliflower into your food processor in batches, pulsing until it is the consistency of rice.
Add the cauliflower to the pot of boiling water, cover and cook for about 5 minutes. Strain the cauliflower through a fine mesh strainer.
Now for the important part… this is what will give your crust the perfect consistency. Transfer the cauliflower to a clean dish towel and squeeze all the excess moisture out of it. This will take some time and a ton of water will be released!
When you can’t squeeze any more water out, add the cauliflower to a bowl, add the goat cheese, beaten egg, salt and oregano and mix together really well.
Transfer the “dough” to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (do not use wax paper). Shape the “dough” into a crust about 1/3 inch thick and building up the sides a bit. You can either make one big rectangular crust, or 2 small circular crusts like I did here.
Bake the crusts for 35-40 minutes. They should be golden brown and slightly stiff on the bottom when you take them out.
Now for the fun part! Choose your favorite sauce (like this one) and toppings, then set to work decking out your pizzas. Here’s my favorite combo right now:
Place your pizza(s) in the over for another 5-10 minutes or until the cheese gets golden brown (I like topping mine with the fresh basil once it’s out of the oven). Slice and serve immediately. Enjoy!
- 1 large head of cauliflower, chopped
- 1 egg, beaten
- ⅓ cup chevre (soft goat cheese)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Put a medium-sized soup pot on the stove with about an inch of water in it. Bring it to a boil.
- Meanwhile, add the cauliflower into your food processor in batches, pulsing until it is the consistency of rice.
- Add the cauliflower to the pot of boiling water, cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
- Strain the cauliflower through a fine mesh strainer.
- Transfer the cauliflower to a clean dish towel and squeeze all the excess moisture out of it. This will take some time and a ton of water will be released!
- When you can't squeeze any more water out, add the cauliflower to a bowl, add the goat cheese, beaten egg, salt and oregano and mix together really well. Transfer the "dough" to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper (do not use wax paper).
- Shape the "dough" into a crust about ⅓ inch thick and building up the sides a bit. You can either make one big rectangular crust, or 2 small circular crusts.
- Bake the crusts for 35-40 minutes. They should be golden brown and slightly stiff on the bottom when you take them out.
- Now for the fun part! Choose your favorite sauce and toppings, then set to work decking out your pizzas.
- Place your pizza(s) in the over for another 5-10 minutes or until the cheese gets golden brown.
- Slice and serve immediately.
This recipe looks delicious!!! Love that its gluten and grain free. Thanks for posting, I can’t wait to give it a try!
Hey Bethiah!
So glad you’re going to give it a try – let me know how it goes! I’m dreaming of a gluten-free grain-free pizza party with a “top-your-own” station…you can make the crusts in advance and then pop them in the oven to finish them off. Good luck! xo Krissy
Is there any cheese that could sub the goat cheese?
Thanks!
Hi Grams! I haven’t tried it with another cheese before but the goat cheese I used is the same consistency as a mozzarella or cheddar, the texture should be about the same but I can’t speak for the flavor. If you do try out another cheese, let us know how it goes! xo Krissy
Do you let the cauliflower cool at all before squeezing the water out? My problem is the hot water makes it a pain to work with once the towel is wet. Thoughts on the best ways to squeeze out the water?
Hi Ashley! You can run some cool water over the cauliflower while in the strainer and then squeeze it – that way it won’t be super hot. Thanks for this great question! I’ll add this step to the post! xoxo Krissy
Can you use frozen cauliflower? I live in Hawaii and sometimes it’s hard to find decent, fresh cauliflower. Thanks!
Hi Robyn! I don’t see why not – as long as you prepare it so it hsd the consistency of the fresh cauliflower in the recipe. I haven’t used frozen before but I think it will be fine. I used to live in Hawaii and know how pricey the produce can be! Hope you get a chance to try this 🙂 xoxo Krissy