Whether you’re gluten-free, grain-free, or low-carbing, pizza crust is one of those things you won’t be eating unless you can find a good alternative. Now, I love me some pizza – don’t get me wrong, but honestly, since cutting grains 98% out of my diet, I haven’t WANTED the crust. I’ll just pick the toppings off and eat those if I find myself in a situation where pizza is being eaten (even if I “find” that situation by going out to a pizza place on purpose. haha).

But I’m not about to melt a pile of cheese and sauce in the oven and call it dinner, so if I wanted the ability to make  homemade pizza for dinner, I needed to find an alternative crust.

And let me tell you – those almond flour crusts just don’t sound appealing to me. And coconut flour crusts sound like they’d just be WRONG. But when I saw a photo of a cauliflower crust I thought it might be worth a try.

And it was. (Again, phone pictures = crappier quality, but at least you get posts from me.)

So there are varying versions of this recipe out there in the world, but they all seem to boil down to a 1:1:1 ratio of cups of cauliflower, cups of cheese, and eggs. Some people grate the cauliflower and then steam it, some people cook the cauliflower and then make puree out of it, and I’m sure other people did different stuff. This is how I did mine.

Cut apart a head of cauliflower and steam it as normal. Mine just happened to have exactly 2 cups of cooked florets.

Combine in a food processor:

• 2 cups of steamed cauliflower
• 2 cups of shredded whole-milk mozzarella (not sure if other people use the part-skim that comes in bags or not, or if it would affect the texture of the final product, but I think any kind would probably turn out fine)
• 2 eggs

I whirred it around until everything was combined and smooth and sticky.

Then, grease a pizza pan (though I found the spray to not be sufficient – next time I will use parchment paper!) and dump the sticky stuff on it, and spread into a large circle with a spatula.

Sprinkle with garlic salt, onion powder, basil, oregano, whatever you think would be good seasonings for your pizza.

Bake at 450 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until it’s firmed up a bit and golden.

Add your sauce, cheese, and toppings – for sauce I used a small can of tomato paste with water whisked in until it was a saucy consistency, then mixed in herbs. More whole-milk mozzarella for the cheese, and plain old pepperoni just because this was our first time with this experimental crust.

Pop it back in the oven, and broil for a few minutes until your cheese is melted.

I thought the crust would fall apart, but it was surprisingly … holdy-togethery. I think if I had made the crust a little thicker I would’ve been able to pick up the pieces and eat it like a “normal” pizza. I was fine with my fork though.

The cauliflower taste was very very mild and easy to ignore, and the crust had a neutral taste overall.
The husband did say it reminded him of eggplant Parmesan, but… I think it’s psychological (you know, “There are vegetables under all this cheese and sauce! AHH!”) because I didn’t really taste that at all.

This is definitely a recipe we’ll be repeating. I think it might also be fun to make “breadsticks” out of the crust mixture and top with garlic butter after they’re cooked, then dip them in sauce. Mmmm….