It’s not often that I have pizza or cheese for that matter at the Quest House. It’s not that I can’t have those things. There is just other stuff I’d rather eat most times that take priority. OK, it’s kinda selfish. I’d much rather eat a boat load of sweet potatoes, meatloaf, and other things than a slice of pizza.
Every now and then though, I’m hit with a craving. As luck would have it, most of the time it’s later in the day when I don’t have a lot of calories leftover to spare. I googled around and found this interesting concept of a pizza made with a cauliflower crust. Yes, you heard me correctly. This is apparently a commonly known thing that I’d never heard of under my rock.
I read through a bunch of versions and combined a few of them into something that I could work with. It’s pretty simple to make. I’d say about as hard as making your own homemade pizza so the cauliflower part doesn’t add to the complexity. It also tastes amazingly similar to thin crust pizza. I don’t think I’d even realize the secret crust ingredient hidden in there.
One thing I found consistently in the recipes online was the use of a raw head of cauliflower or sometimes slightly cooked florets. I didn’t go that route. I got creative lazy. I bought a 16 oz bag of frozen florets and used the shredding blade on my food processor to shred the crap out of it.
It made a ton of rattling noise as they bounced around and the results made me want to grab sugar and food coloring to make snowcones, but it worked. So hey, one up for me on time saving. No cutting up a raw head, no thawing frozen bits, no slightly cooking. Just snip the bag, pour, blitz, done. You’ll only use part of the bag for the recipe below.
I scooped up the rest and froze it in a ziploc baggie for later. I made sure to label it so The Kid didn’t get the wild snowcone idea only to be met with disappointment. I’m now wondering what other tasty treats I can whip up with cauliflower powder… or would you call it caulipowder. OMG, caulipowder it is. 😉
Cauliflower Pizza Crust
- 1 cup (95g) shredded cauliflower AKA caulipowder
- 1/4 cup shredded, part skim mozzarella cheese
- 1 egg white
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp oregano
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- Pizza toppings of choice
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray the bottom of a 8 or 9 inch cake pan with non-stick spray. Mix the caulipowder (see above for instructions), cheese, egg white and spices in a bowl until well mixed. It will be kinda mushy, but don’t panic.
Spread evenly in the bottom of the cake pan. I used my fingers to press it down and completely cover the bottom. The crust should be about 1/4 inch thick when pressed out. If you need to, add a little more caulipowder to make sure there are no parts of the pan showing through otherwise your crust will have holes in it.
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes until the crust is crispy. Remove from oven and turn the oven to the broil setting. Top the crust with desired toppings and broil for 3 – 5 minutes until the cheese is melted. Remove from oven, slice, and serve. Makes one pizza for one at 153 calories – 19g protein, 8g carbs, 6g fat (not including toppings of choice).
If you’re looking to save fat, you can use fat free cheese. I used 2% part skim mozzarella. I had my pizza with grilled chicken, tomatoes and more cheese. It was crazy how it sliced into pizza slices. I’m definitely doing this again. I need to play around with a non-cheese version for The Kid.
If you try this without cheese, let me know how it turns out. I love hearing about your versions of my recipes. Do you ever make up your own names for things you discover like caulipowder?
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