Alternative pizza crust time! Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a yeasted dough, probably more than most things in life. But trying new things isn’t a bad thing and this was certainly worth the adventure! I was looking into alternative crusts and came across the “meatza” which is a ground beef crust… delicious, I’m sure, but also terrifying. Gen suggested a cauliflower crust and after some searching around online I read enough to decide that this was worth doing. The crust honestly doesn’t taste like cauliflower. It tastes almost like a fluffy, soft biscuit. The way I went about making this created a fairly stable crust (though we did have to eat it with a fork), and it crisped up nicely on the edges. It certainly wont replace a yeasted crust in my heart, but it was a good experiment that Gen LOVED, so we will certainly be eating it again.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Adapted from here.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 large head of cauliflower
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of mozzarella
• 1/2 cup of jalapeño havarti (or another 1/2 cup of mozzarella)
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat your oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet (or pizza pan) with parchment paper, or give it a swirl with some olive oil.
2. Cut your cauliflower into even-sized chunks and place in a steam basket. Steam until just tender, about 10 minutes. Drain in a colander.
3. Once your cauliflower has drained and cooled a bit, place in the food processor and pulse just until you have very small pieces (grated-sized). You can also use the grating blade and just put the cauliflower through that (you can also just use a cheese grated but I found that incredibly difficult, and I am grater-nervous after my carrot-cake injury). You should be left with about 1 1/2 cups of grated cauliflower. If you have more, set it aside for future pizzas!
4. In a large bowl, stir together all of the ingredients, including the cauliflower bits. Stir until well combined.
5. Dump the ‘dough’ out onto your prepared pan and flatten into a pizza shape. You don’t want it to be particularly thick as it will be more crisp the thinner it is.
6. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until browned.
7. Top with your favourite toppings. I recommend put down a layer of cheese first, then dollop your sauce on top of that, this prevents a soggy crust.
8. Turn your oven to broil and bake for an additional 5 minutes until the cheese is bubbling.
   • Quick and important note! The broiling wont cook the pizza toppings very much, so if you want cooked-toppings, do it on the stovetop first, and then pile onto the pizza to finish.

Base of ‘dough’

Flattened and ready to bake.

Baked with toppings! Sliced up beautifully and gobbled up too quickly for pictures!