Cauliflower Pizza Crust – Healthy Pizza Base Recipe
By Carine Claudepierre
Published on 08/06/2014 - Last updated on 08/12/2024
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This Cauliflower Pizza Crust is a healthy, nut-free pizza base recipe made with only 3 simple ingredients. Bonus, this cauliflower crust recipe is also gluten-free and grain-free.
I love making healthier pizza crusts, like my Almond Flour Pizza Crust, Low-Carb Pizza Crust, Coconut Flour Pizza Crust. Eating pizza is a standard in my home, and I want to be able to enjoy and share with everyone else!
This cauliflower pizza crust is a flourless, gluten-free, low-carb pizza base made of 3 simple ingredients. It is a very healthy pizza crust recipe perfect for anyone watching their carb intake. This crispy cauliflower pizza crust recipe is also perfectly keto-friendly.
In fact, one single slice contains only 3 grams of net carbs. Plus, the calories in a cauliflower pizza are very low. There are only 66 calories per slice!
Ingredients and Substitutions
This recipe is ridiculously easy to make. All it takes is 3 base ingredients and 15 minutes of prep.
- Cauliflower – It’s a low-carb vegetable that needs to be turned into fine rice to make the base.
- Egg – The beaten egg in this recipe provides some of the binding to the crust. It’s possible to use a flaxseed egg as an egg-free replacer.
- Grated Mozzarella – This low-carb cheese brings crispiness to the keto pizza crust. Use full-fat cheese for a crispier pizza.
How To Make This Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Before you start, you need to make cauliflower rice. Keto pizza crusts made of cauliflower are very easy to make. Let’s have a look at what you need to succeed in this delicious crispy cauliflower pizza crust anytime.
- First, you need a food processor to pulse your cauliflower florets into a rice-like texture. Otherwise, you can directly buy cauliflower rice from the store. We call cauliflower rice the result of grated or pulsed cauliflower florets. Cooked cauliflower is an excellent Keto-friendly vegetable. Carbs in cauliflower only reach 1.7 grams of net carbs per 100 grams once cooked. So this great recipe is perfect if you’re on the keto diet!
- After your cauliflower is pulsed, you need to steam your cauliflower rice. The best technique is to steam your cauliflower in a microwave-proof bowl.
- Obviously, if you don’t have a microwave, you need to use a vegetable steamer or boil your cauliflower rice in water.
- Finally, for a perfect result, drain all the residual water left in your steamed cauliflower rice. You need a clean towel for this. Drain your cauliflower rice as much as you can. You must obtain a ball of steamed cauliflower, like a dough, very dry and compact.
- Transfer the cauliflower rice to a mixing bowl. Add the cheese and beaten egg and combine the batter thoroughly.
- Line a baking sheet with lightly oiled parchment paper and press the keto cauliflower crust onto it.
- Give it the shape you want, round or rectangular.
The thinner you press the cauliflower crust, the crispier it will be after baking!
- Pre-bake the crust for 15 minutes at 400°F (200°C).
- Flip It Before Adding Toppings. To make the perfect, crispy under-crust, flip it after it’s prebaked before adding any topping.
Topping The Pizza
This keto crust recipe can be used as a pizza crust replacement, and therefore most regular pizza toppings can be used. In order to limit carbs, opt for a no-sugar-added tomato paste or tomato sauce or, my favorite option, a homemade keto pizza sauce.
You can also use sour cream as a zero-carb option. Our favorite keto pizza toppings are:
- Pepperoni
- Sausage
- Mushrooms
- Italian Seasoning
- Cheese
- Onions
- Olives
- Peppers
- Chicken
- Beef
- Anchovies
- Some spicy olive oil
Mushrooms, zucchini, or eggplant release water on your pizza crust and soften the crust. I recommend cooking these ingredients in a frying pan before adding them to the crust.
Storage Instructions
You can store the baked pizza slices in the fridge for a few days in the fridge. Rewarm it in the oven for 10 minutes at 400°F (200°C). It’s also possible to freeze the pizza slices in Ziploc bags for up to 3 months in the freezer.
More Pizza Recipes
Other healthy pizza crusts you would love to try if you enjoy this recipe.
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Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- 5 cups Cauliflower Rice about the head of a medium size cauliflower
- 1 large Beaten Egg or flaxegg
- ½ cup Grated Mozzarella
- ¼ teaspoon Garlic Salt optional
- 1 teaspoon Dried Oregano optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
- Prepare a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Spray some oil on top to prevent the crust from sticking. Set aside.
- Place half of the cauliflower florets into a food processor with the S-blade attachment. Process for 30 seconds, stop and scrape the bottom and sides. Repeat for 30 seconds until all the florets are pulsed into fine cauliflower rice – it will look like couscous/semolina. Transfer the cauliflower rice to a microwave-safe glass bowl. Process the other half of the cauliflower florets until pulsed into rice and transfer into the glass bowl.
- Cover the glass bowl with a microwave-safe lid. Microwave for 5-6 minutes. Remove from the microwave with oven mittens – be careful it is super hot!
- Transfer the hot cauliflower rice onto a clean towel. Squeeze as firmly as you can to release all the water. Again it is hot, so use your oven mittens to avoid burning your hands.
- Open the towel. You should obtain a dry ball of cooked cauliflower rice. Transfer into a bowl, and add spices, salt, beaten egg, and cheese. Combine with a spatula. The cheese will melt, and the cauliflower pizza crust is forming.
- Press the cauliflower crust onto the prepared baking sheet. Press with your hands to form a round pizza.
- Bake the crust for 15 minutes or until the borders are crispy.
- It is optional, but if you can flip over the crust and bake for an extra 5-8 minutes on the other side, it will add extra crispiness to the crust.
- Spread your favorite pizza toppings, starting with a sauce like my healthy pizza sauce, sour cream, or no-added-sugar tomato paste, then flat ingredients like pepperoni and ham and finish with extra grated pizza cheese.
- Bake again for 15 minutes until your toppings are cooked, and the cheese is melted.
Notes
Tools
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Nutrition
About The Author
Hi, I'm Carine, the food blogger, author, recipe developer, published author of a cookbook, and founder of Sweet As Honey.
I have an Accredited Certificate in Nutrition and Wellness obtained in 2014 from Well College Global (formerly Cadence Health). I'm passionate about sharing all my easy and tasty recipes that are both delicious and healthy. My expertise in the field comes from my background in chemistry and years of following a keto low-carb diet. But I'm also well versed in vegetarian and vegan cooking since my husband is vegan.
I now eat a more balanced diet where I alternate between keto and a Mediterranean Diet
Cooking and Baking is my true passion. In fact, I only share a small portion of my recipes on Sweet As Honey. Most of them are eaten by my husband and my two kids before I have time to take any pictures!
All my recipes are at least triple tested to make sure they work and I take pride in keeping them as accurate as possible.
Browse all my recipes with my Recipe Index.
I hope that you too find the recipes you love on Sweet As Honey!
Disclaimer
The recipes, instructions, and articles on this website should not be taken or used as medical advice. You must consult with your doctor before starting on a keto or low-carb diet. The nutritional data provided on Sweetashoney is to be used as indicative only.
The nutrition data is calculated using WP Recipe Maker. Net Carbs is calculated by removing the fiber and some sweeteners from the total Carbohydrates. As an example, a recipe with 10 grams of Carbs per 100 grams that contains 3 grams of erythritol and 5 grams of fiber will have a net carbs content of 2 grams. Some sweeteners are excluded because they are not metabolized.
You should always calculate the nutritional data yourself instead of relying on Sweetashoney's data. Sweetashoney and its recipes and articles are not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose, or treat any disease. Sweetashoney cannot be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or advice found on the Website.
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Hello: Now that we can purchase cauliflower flour do you have a pizza recipe using the flour? thank you
Sharon
Not with cauliflower flour yet, but I’m keen to try!
Hi, I’m new to the site and would like to say I love cauliflower and have made different versions of the pizza crust. However with yours I did feel it was very week and did not crisp up despite cooking for twice as long as recommended plus flipping it. I would love to have some feedback myself as I am new to cooking and want to improve so any help would be gratefully received.
Thank you. Martin.
Cauliflower pizza crust are always soft and not hard and crispy. Try my almond flour pizza crust for a crispy keto pizza dough.
Absolutely delicious, I love this Pizza receip the most!
I just made this pizza crust& it turned out so good. Didn’t feel bad for eating it.
Can you do meal prep with these where you roll the crusts out thin and leave it in the baking tray then freeze it for later? Just curious if I could prep several and deep freeze them then add toppings and bake from frozen later?
Of course, it will work very well. No need to defrost, add topping on the prebaked frozen crust and pop in the oven as a regular pizza. Enjoy, XOXO Carine.
this recipe didnt stste how many carbs per slice
Sorry for that ! The nutrition panel is now showing properly. One slice of crust brings you 3 g net carbs. The recipe serve 6 slices. Enjoy, XOXO Carine.
do you preface this? I dont see further instructions on this except the 3 ingredients and cooking califlower in microwave.
thanks
Hi.. I cant seem to find which step the egg has bee used in.. can this b made without the egg ?
In step 6, you can also use a flaxegg for an egg free cauliflower pizza crust. See recipe note to see how to make flxegg. Enjoy the pizza crust, XOXO Carine.
Sorry there was an issue wih the recipe plugin not showing the recipe it is fixed now ! Enjoy the crust. XOXO Carine.
Hi. Can you make this without cooking the cauliflower?
Hi, Unfortunately no. It won’t hold together. The cooked cauliflower is soft and the cheese stick to it creating the most delicious soft, crispy pizza crust when baked. Enjoy the recipe my friend. XOXO Carine.
Can you use a difference grated cheese for example mozzarella instead of Parmesan cheese
Yes, sure any grated cheese works in this recipe. My favorite are mozarella, cheddar, emmental or edam.
Hi, have you ever froze this Pizza? If yes, what did you do with it after it came out of the freezer? Thanks.
Hi, no I did not freeze it but I will recommend you to pre-bake the crust before freezing.
Holy Smokes! Just made this for me and my husband (the man who refuses to eat veggies). Not only did he devour it, he asked when I could make more. Huge success, THANKS!
Hi Jakkie, I LOVE those sort of comment! Such a pleasure to read you and realised that my recipes makes people love veggie even the most weird veggie like cauliflower 🙂 I have got another veggie pizza recipe that always works well too. Check out the spinach pizza crust here: https://www.sweetashoney.co.nz/spinach-pizza-crust/ or you can try to make my garlic breadstikcs made of cauliflower & broccoli here: https://www.sweetashoney.co.nz/cheesy-caulibroccoli-garlic-breadsticks/
Enjoy and see you around soon 🙂 Carine.
Just made this and it is PERFECT!! I added some finely diced leeks since I didn’t have quite enough cauliflower after having used the rest to make cauliflower mash earlier this week. I also had more like 2/3-3/4 cup of parmesan.
That is great! It is nice to read positive comments 🙂 Leek should taste good as well a must try for my next one. I recently tested broccoli instead of cauliflower and except the strange greenish color for a pizza it taste awesome !
I’m trying this for the 1st time. there was a little broch in the cali i am using and i thought what the heck.
I’m looking forward to trying this pizza crust. Thanks.
It is really yum and you will be surprised by how it taste great 🙂 you will not believe it is made of cauliflower.
I’ve been wanting to try cauliflower pizza crust forever and just simply haven’t gotten around to it. You have solidified I must make it and soon because this looks to delicious and too easy to not try! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing my recipes! Carine.