Pizza and vegetables don’t normally go in the same sentence, that is unless you can’t stand a good meat lovers. If your like me and a growing number of Americans, eating wheat is no longer an option due to poor gut health, allergies, and our bodies resistance to GMO foods. Giving up pizza was definitely hard and I quickly began experimenting with other options.
GF crusts made out of your generic GF flours can be pretty tasty, albeit high in carbs and not necessarily what I would consider “healthy.” For awhile I played around with these flours trying to satisfy my desire for good pizza. What turned me away from these crusts though was the sad reality that most GF flour’s carb count was not fitting into my lower carb lifestyle.
Life tip: just because something is gluten free doesn’t necessarily mean its an amazing food for you. “Junk carbs,” as Dr. William Davis calls them – rice flour (and brown rice flour), potato flour, ccornstarch, tapioca starch – can raise blood sugar levels and cause more harm than good. More on that in another post though. Back to pizza crusts!
Here enters the cauliflower crusted pizza…dun dun dun dunnnnn. The premise of this crust fit into everything I needed!
- Low Carb
- All ingredients were whole and clean
- An easy way to get more veggies into my diet
- Could be made without dairy if needed
PaleoLeap Cauliflower Pizza Crust Review
A couple of weeks ago I made the PaleoLeap’s recipe and had high expectations. The pictures on their blog looked delicious and very crust like. Rather than placing my cauliflower florets into the food processor to “rice,” I used my grater attachment and pushed them through the top end like a piece of cheese. It worked fabulously! I then proceeded to microwave the crumbles then strain out the liquid with a dish cloth. In all, it was the easiest and fastest method I’ve done for making this type of crust.
After forming and baking the crust like the recipe instructed making sure it was browned and crispy, I placed the toppings of choice on: pesto, chicken, halved cherry tomatoes, spinach, pepperoncinis, and half the pizza had cream cheese bits. The pizza was then placed back in the oven to cook and meld the toppings together.
After baking with the toppings on, I pulled it out of the oven and began trying to cut into slices. This is where the problems arose. Rather than cutting through the crust, the blade just wanted to drag the crust along. It was frustrating. It seemed as if the crust just didn’t have enough to hold it together. It was to moist and definitely not crispy. It was missing something.
Let’s be clear though, in PaleoLeap’s defense I maybe put to many toppings on and I maybe should have let it cool longer than I did when I pulled it out of the oven a second time after baking with the toppings. Even so, I still don’t think it would have turned out very pizza like. Even the next day after it had cooled and been refrigerated it was floppy and more like a cauliflower bake, better eaten with a fork than like an actual slice of pizza.
In all honesty, the best cauli crust I’ve had is one made with added cheese, and 75-80% of the time I’m trying to stay away from dairy. This review is of a non-dairy crust, so keep an eye out for one made with cheese in the near future! Even though crusts made with cheese are usually better, I just can’t let go of finding a dairy free version that everyone can enjoy which also tastes and acts like a real pizza crust. All I ask is that I can hold it with my fingers and it doesn’t fall apart!
Until that happens, may your own pizza game be strong!
Knife Over Fork 