Pizza is truly wonderful: it stands just as much for family time as for fun with friends or comfort food. Plus in terms of toppings, anything that floats your boat goes. The sad thing is the amount to calories and carbs that come along with it. Unfortunately, pizza does not qualify as a light meal. But wait a minute, there is a tasty solution to this conundrum! By substituting the main calorie culprit – the dough – it can become a healthier, low-carb weekday lunch or dinner while still keeping the fun factor high. This recipe makes one large pizza for 2.
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower
- Alternative: 5 cups of riced cauliflower; if you live in the US I strongly recommend you get riced cauliflower (e.g., as available at Target) as it saves you a loooot of work
- 2/3 cup (75 grams) of shredded, low-moisture mozzarella for the crust
- ¼ cup (50 grams) of grated parmesan
- 1 egg
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- ½ teaspoon of ground pepper
- 1 cup (110 grams) of shredded, low-moisture mozzarella for the topping
Tomato sauce
- 5 medium-sized tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 1 teaspoon of dried basil
- 1 teaspoon of dried oregano
- 1 garlic clove
- ½ onion
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- ½ teaspoon of ground pepper
If you use fresh cauliflower, cut the head into smaller chunks and grate them (for instance, with a food processor). Ideally, the result sound be flakes. As a side-note: I count the days till riced veggies become a food trend in Germany as I really love this pizza dough, but I make it less often than I like simply because grating vegetables isn’t all that much fun. It was a great revelation to me, when I saw riced cauliflower in the grocery stores during our last US trip. Anyways, I digress, back to our pizza. Cook the cauliflower for 5 minutes in slightly salted water. If you use the ready-made riced cauliflower, simply follow the cooking instructions on the package, but cut the preparation time in half.
Afterwards, mix the riced cauliflower, mozzarella, parmesan and spices. Lightly beat the egg in a separate bowl and then add it to the rest. Thereby, you ensure the crust dough is evenly mixed. Spread the “dough” on parchment paper or a silicon mat on a baking tray. Make sure you aim for a thin crust style. Bake it in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit/205 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes.
In the meantime – unless you want to use ready-made pizza sauce – throw the tomatoes, olive oil, garlic clove, onion and spices into a blender and blend. When the dough is out of the oven, apply the tomato sauce and drizzle fresh sliced mozzarella on top. Afterwards, you can add any additional toppings you might like. Bake the pizza for another 15 minutes.
Enjoy!
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