As I’ve said before… I have the taste buds of a 6-year-old. Because of this I am on a constant quest for ways to trick myself into eating vegetables. Imagine my complete and utter shock when I found a way to eat cauliflower. One of the grossest of the gross.
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I had seen the idea of a cauliflower pizza crust floating around the blogosphere and I finally decided to give it a try. After a recent beet smoothie incident (where I spit it out almost as fast as I put it in my mouth), I admit I was skeptical and a bit nervous.
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The first thing I noticed was how very simple it was to make – easier than any homemade pizza crust ever. That was a plus for sure. Then, as the crust was baking, all I could think was how delicious it smelled. What? Cauliflower smelling delicious? Well, it smelled like pizza crust, not like cauliflower. And then it was just plain delicious and there was no weird texture at all. It was just… pizza. I admit that there was a teeny tiny slight aftertaste type smell or something when I took the first bite – but it may have been psychosomatic because after a couple of bites all I could think was how delicious it was.
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There are a number of recipes online… I combined a few and this is what I did:
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Cauliflower Pizza
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Ingredients
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1/2 Head of cauliflower (mine was a smallish head)
2 C shredded cheese divided (I used mozzarella, but any medium/hard cheese will work)
Italian seasonings (I used oregano, parsley, fresh garlic and some onion)
Pizza sauce or marinara sauce of your choosing
Toppings (we used sausage, black olives and pineapple)
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Instructions
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Grate your cauliflower. I used a food processor with the grater blade (cause you don’t want it to become pureed, just shredded). Place the grated cauliflower into a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 6-8 minutes (depending on your microwave). You want to make sure the cauliflower is soft but not mushy. Do NOT add water or anything to the cauliflower.
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While the cauliflower cools off (I put mine in the freezer to cool it quickly), preheat the oven to 450* and prepare a cookie sheet or pizza pan by spraying it with cooking spray. This is also a good time to prepare your toppings – cook your sausage, cut up your pineapple, whatever…
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To the cauliflower add 1 C shredded cheese and spices and combine. Add egg and mix well with your hands. Press the crust onto a pan and shape into a 9-12″ pizza (depending on how thin you want the crust). I did mine closer to a 12″ and it worked great! Spray the top of the crust with cooking spray (to help brown) or brush with oil.
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Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes (or until golden brown). It is really important to get it nice and brown so that it has a crispness to the crust otherwise, the texture isn’t a convincing pizza crust! When you pull out the pizza, turn your oven to broil.
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Add your toppings (we did 1/2 sausage and 1/2 pineapple/black olive) including 1 C cheese and put pizza under the broiler for 3-5 minutes. Just broil it long enough to melt the cheese and caramelize the toppings a bit.
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Seriously delicious! My husband will eat cauliflower, but doesn’t love it. I am one of the pickiest eaters on the planet. My daughter is another one of the pickiest people on the planet. We ALL loved it!! I made this Sunday and they are already asking for it again!! Cauliflower! Who knew??