Cauliflower Crust Pizza
A co-worker of mine is currently on a special diet and has been experimenting with several low-carb dishes. One day a few weeks ago, she dropped by my office to tell me about a recipe she’d found – pizza crust made of cauliflower! Yes, it sounded a little strange, but I was definitely intrigued. Since she’s a culinary school graduate and enjoys food as much I do, I trust her judgement and wanted to try it.
She offered to bring a piece to the office the next day for me to sample and even day-old and reheated, it was really good!
My husband is a pizza fanatic, so this new discovery was particularly exciting. Since I try to limit the processed stuff we eat, cutting out simple carbs from our meals when possible, I don’t like to make or order pizza very often. I personally love the sauce, cheese and all the toppings that come on pizzas, but I don’t like the way I feel after eating all the dough that serves as the delivery vehicle, so this twist on the crust has made us both very happy.
With a hefty dose of veggies, I feel good about eating it myself and feeding it to him, which means he can get his pizza fix a lot more often now. We pile it high with a variety of toppings- mushrooms, spinach, red peppers, green peppers, onions, green and black olives, sometimes with meat, and sometimes without.
I’m not going to lie and say it’s just like eating a flour pizza crust because it’s not. But surprisingly, it’s not like eating cauliflower either. I’m not even sure that you’d be able to guess what it was made of if someone hadn’t already told you. The one problem I find is that while it’s not impossible to pick up a piece and eat with your hands, it’s much easier to use a fork. We feel that’s a small price to pay though in order to feel better about what we’re eating.
I’m interested to see what some of you think, so please, if you give it a go, come back and leave a comment!

Cauliflower Crust Pizza
Serves 2; Adapted from Your Lighter Side.
Ingredients:
1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp garlic salt
olive oil (optional)
pizza sauce, shredded cheese and your choice of toppings*
Directions:
To "Rice" the Cauliflower:
Take 1 large head of fresh cauliflower, remove stems and leaves, and chop the florets into chunks. Add to food processor and pulse until it looks like grain. Do not over-do pulse or you will puree it. (If you don't have a food processor, you can grate the whole head with a cheese grater). Place the riced cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 8 minutes (some microwaves are more powerful than others, so you may need to reduce this cooking time). There is no need to add water, as the natural moisture in the cauliflower is enough to cook itself.
One large head should produce approximately 3 cups of riced cauliflower. The remainder can be used to make additional pizza crusts immediately, or can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.
To Make the Pizza Crust:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Add oregano, crushed garlic and garlic salt, stir. Transfer to the cookie sheet, and using your hands, pat out into a 9" round. Optional: Brush olive oil over top of mixture to help with browning.
Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven. To the crust, add sauce, toppings and cheese. Place under a broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted (approximately 3-4 minutes).
Enjoy!
*Note that toppings need to be precooked since you are only broiling for a few minutes.
Note for those that don’ t have a microwave:
You can steam the florets on the stove before ricing them. The texture/consistency won’t be the same (It will be more like a puree) but it still works fine once you mix all the ingredients together! I know because I’ve tried it that way too!
Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular
post! It’s the little changes which will make the most significant changes. Thanks for sharing!
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This was so good. I featured it in my ‘fall cooking’ post.
This is a keeper. Thanks!
Fondly-Lisa
AMAZING. I LOVE THIS!!! are you still blogging? ;)
My husband and I are over the moon! Love love love this! I made it first for lunch to try out the recipe and had to make this for dinner tonight. My sons (who I made a regular crust for ) loved it too and it will come in handy during wrestling season for them! Thank you so much for posting!
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Personally, I would not make this pizza, as a pizza, again. It tasted great if you think of it as a pizza topped vegetable omelet, but it was plate and fork only eating. I WOULD make it for brunch type of meal.
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Made this last night and loved it. I used “Italian seasonings” instead of just oregano, and I used the alternate method of preparing the cauliflower (I steamed it and then blended it). I think that you have a good deal of flexibility for preparing the cauliflower, so don’t stress too much about it. The final product will come out great regardless of the exact texture and method of cooking the cauliflower. Give this a try!
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I loved this. I actually made it without the cheese and it was fine!!! I doubled the cauliflower and the egg. It was a little runny, so I might so 2 1/2 cups Cauliflower to 2 eggs. I also added more oregano to make up for the taste. It turned out great!!!!
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We’ve made cauliflower crust pizza and garlic cheesy bread many times (all of my kids’ friends love it and ask for it whenever they are over for dinner, )and I always use raw riced cauliflower as opposed to steamed or microwaved . I think the texture is better- it’s less soggy and the crust holds up better.
For all of you who are experiencing a soggy or fall-apart crust….first of all, you MUST use parchment paper. Otherwise your crust will stick and be a mess. Secondlly, you must FLIP the crust over after the first baking and cook for another 15 minutes. I then put my sauteed toppings on with cheese and place under the BROILER till browned. You’ll have to watch closely the first time you do this because you won’t want it to burn.
Wait about 5 minutes before cutting into slices. You will see that the slices can be held firming like regular pizza.
Another thing, I use a mixture of 1 cup low fat shredded cheese and about 1/4 cup low fat cream cheese with one egg, plus a so-easy 12 oz. bag of FROZEN cauliflower for the crust. I microwave the entire bag for 6 minutes, chop up fine with a fork, and cool before adding the other ingredients. I then spread onto lightly EV0O’d parchment paper and bake at 4:25 degrees until brown and flip over as explained above.
One last thing, I add one packet of Stevia to my sauce. This cuts the acid in the sauce without making it too sweet. Tastes just like a regular pizza sauce!
Just made this for dinner tonite, and it was great! I accidentally forgot to precook the cauliflower, and it was perfect. Think it would have been soggy if I had microwaved it first. We had spinach, red onion and black olives on it. Yum!
I also add flaxseed for fiber.
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I was also wondering if there could be an egg free version. I could use the vegan cheese we have, but im not sure if the egg replacer we use would work…. guess the only way to find out is to try!
I used fat free mozzarella cheese in the crust as a binder. Normally don’t like fat free cheese but to cut calories it worked. Use regular cheese for the topping.
I made 2 thin circles and baked on one side for 15 mins on nonstick foil sprayed with Pam. Took out of oven and let cool around 10 mins. Then put nonstuck foil sprayed with Pam on a dinner plate. Put on top of pizza and flip it over. Slid of foil on top crust and slid the foil and pizza back on the baking pan. Baked this side up for another 15 mins. The center firmed up and like a dough consist ancy since the top and bottom are exposed in the oven.
Forgot to mention that I used half of frozen cauliflower and half frozen turnips and prepared it the same way and came out very good. If low on cauliflower or want some variety can use any root vegetable if “riced”/shredded.
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Oh this makes a great flat bread also…didn’t feel like pizza so ate it with Hummus. Yum-o. Found if you let them cool on a cookie rack then although the pizza’s are soft in the middle they are more bread like. Would probably be soft if I were to proceed with the pizza’s but when they cool off they are wonderful to use for other things like eating with egg salad or using for tostada’s and guacamole!
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Amazing recipe! Made this tonight and it turned out fabulous! My husband likes meat so I topped this with some cooked Italian chicken sausage…yum! Has anyone tried this for vegans? I need an egg and cheese substitute and wonder if the crust will stick together the same?? Thanks
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Just a note for everyone who loves this recipe as much as I do. There is really no need to steam or nuke the cauliflower at all. The ricing makes the cauliflower moist and soft enough that you can just add the grated or riced mozzarella cheese and oregano to it and skip the steaming/nuking altogether. In this batch, I also added some sautéed white onions after they had cooled. Then made some small and some larger “pancake” rounds out of the mixture, put a bit of oil on the parchment paper and on top of the rounds – baked at 400 for 15 minutes on one side, took them out of the oven and flipped them onto another sheet of parchment paper by holding a bread board over them – and baked them for another 15 minutes. By the end of that time, they were crispy and brown – and a huge hit – and gorgeous – after I added sauteed mushrooms and lightly sauteed small red/yellow pear heirloom tomatoes – then added fresh basil and a pinch of sea salt. In the morning I did the same, and added a fried egg on top of the rounds and then the sauteed tomatoes, mushrooms and fresh basil. Thank you again for this great new exciting recipe!
I’m not a very skilled cook but decided to give this a try and it was delicious. Next time I’m going to try it on a pastry sheet because it stuck to my cookie sheet. I cooked some salami up ahead of time and used it with some olives. It has all the pizza flavors I love with non of the carbs I can’t eat because of diabetes. Very tasty!
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