After making this recipe at least 5 times, I’m finally ready to share my new favorite pizza crust….and it’s made from cauliflower! I always wanted to try a cauliflower crust but felt it was too time-consuming, from cutting up a head of cauliflower to mincing it with the food processor and steaming it – all before you even begin making the recipe. However, the Paleo crust I had been making was simply too ‘heavy’ and dense (it was almond and coconut flour along with eggs, so pretty fat- and calorie-dense, despite being better than regular flour).
So, I finally decided to give a healthy cauliflower pizza crust a try – the only problem was, the recipe I ended up using was so different from a ‘normal’ pizza crust that I didn’t want to replace our Friday night pizza with it. We eat really clean at least 80-90% of the week, and we all look forward to our pizza tradition on Fridays, so while I didn’t want to give up hope on finding a good cauliflower pizza crust recipe, I knew the one we tried wasn’t *it*. Fast forward a few weeks and I was ready to give it another try, but this time I researched different cauliflower crust recipes and decided to formulate my own. I’ve been making it for over a month now and it’s turned out great every time, so I’m looking forward to sharing this healthy cauliflower pizza crust recipe with y’all since there’s nothing better than enjoying a delicious pizza that happens to be better for you! And the best part is, you can use frozen riced cauliflower, which cuts the prep time down significantly!
More weekly meal plan ideas
Ingredients
- 4 cups uncooked riced cauliflower (fresh or frozen)
- 1/3 cup almond flour
- 1 egg or for a completely vegan crust, use an egg replacer, such as Energ-G or VeganEgg
- 1/3 cup vegan cheese (I use Daiya brand - optional for Paleo/W30)
- Dash of Italian seasoning and garlic
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Prepare your cauliflower. If fresh, chop and mince in food processor until it resembles rice then cook on stovetop until translucent and soft. If you have frozen riced cauliflower, you can cook on stovetop or in microwave according to package directions.
- Lay out a hand towel (the flour sack/tea towel type work best) and pour cooked cauliflower in middle of towel. Allow to cool.
- Once cauliflower is cool enough to handle, grab the edges of the towel, twist and squeeze to get all of the excess water out. The cauliflower will condense down quite a bit!
- In a medium-sized bowl, add the drained cauliflower, almond flour and egg and mix well. Then, add in the vegan cheese and stir (or omit entirely - it does seem to hold the crust together a bit better as it melts, but it would work without it, too!).
- Cover a flat pizza pan with parchment paper and lightly spray with cooking spray.
- Pour crust mixture onto center of pan and begin flattening until about 1/3" thick and use your hands to build up the edge a bit (this will help your toppings stay put and make it resemble a normal pizza).
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crust begins turning golden brown.
- Remove from oven, add thin layer of tomato sauce (the trick is to not put too much to avoid sogginess), toppings and vegan cheese and return to oven for 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool a bit before slicing.
- Enjoy!
I told my husband the other day that I don’t even miss ‘real’ pizza because this one has so much flavor and a great consistency, too. I will mention that the recipe above can feed 2-3 people, but for a family, it’s best to double the recipe (especially if you want leftovers – and yes, it tastes great reheated!). Since we make pizza weekly, I’ve been buying my frozen riced cauliflower at Costco – it’s cheaper than the grocery store and goes a lot farther!
Check out my favorite Costco finds
Have you ever tried a cauliflower pizza crust? If you give this recipe a try, let me know what you think. Be sure to follow me on Pinterest for more healthy recipe substitutions!
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