Cauliflower Pizza Crust
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Love pizza, but want to keep it healthy? Make this low-carb cauliflower pizza crust. Only 6 ingredients and so easy!
Cauliflower has blown up in recent years. No more soggy steamed cauliflower… now there’s cauliflower rice, cauliflower tortillas and cauliflower pizza crust.
You name it, cauliflower can do it!
That said, cauliflower pizza crust is arguably the most fun way to eat cauliflower! It’s obviously not the same texture or flavor as a traditional doughy pizza crust, but it’s so delicious! It’s crunchy around the edges, has a hint of roasted cauliflower flavor and tastes just like pizza.
Cauliflower Pizza Crust Ingredients
There are two parts to this recipe – the crust and the toppings!
Here’s what you need for the cauliflower pizza crust:
- riced cauliflower – learn how to make cauliflower rice or use store-bought
- garlic
- part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
- egg
- dried basil
- dried oregano
Some topping ideas:
- pizza sauce
- shredded mozzarella cheese
- fresh basil
- crushed red pepper
Notes & Substitutions
Riced Cauliflower – The star of the show is riced cauliflower. If you’re new to the cauliflower rice world, don’t be intimidated! Simply place cauliflower florets in your food processor and pulse until the cauliflower is broken up into rice-sized pieces. If you don’t have a food processor you can use a blender or cheese grater to manually make rice. You can also buy pre-riced cauliflower, but make sure it’s fresh and not frozen as frozen has excess moisture that won’t work well with the crust.
Dairy-free – You can either use dairy-free mozzarella cheese or try omitting the cheese. I personally prefer this with cheese, but others have tested the recipe without cheese and it turned out just fine.
Vegan – If you want to skip the egg in the crust, you could try a vegan egg replacer or a flaxseed egg. I haven’t tried either, but it should work!
Toppings – You can top the pizza with whatever you like, just make sure the toppings are already cooked since you’ll only be broiling the pizza for a few minutes. Also keep in mind that the cauliflower pizza crust is less firm than most regular dough-based crusts so you don’t want to weigh it down with a ton of ingredients. Keep is simple.
How to Make Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Make cauliflower rice – Remove the stems and leaves from your cauliflower and chop florets into chunks. Add to a food processor or blender and pulse until the texture is similar to rice. If you don’t have a food processor or blender, you can grate the cauliflower with a cheese grater or chop it or buy pre-riced cauliflower.
Sauté cauliflower rice – In a nonstick skillet over medium heat, cook the riced cauliflower until translucent – about 6-8 minutes. This step is key and really helps to dry out the cauliflower.
Combine crust ingredients – In a large bowl, combine the cooked cauliflower with the garlic clove, shredded cheese, egg, dried basil and dried oregano. The cheese may melt a bit during this process, but that’s okay.
Make crust – Line a baking sheet or pizza stone with parchment paper and grease with olive oil. Spread the dough out evenly on the baking sheet and form into a circle. You’ll want it to be about 1/4 inch thick.
Bake crust – Bake at 400ºF for 25-30 minutes or until the crust is golden, crispy on the edges and cooked through the middle.
Add toppings – Remove the crust from the oven and set the oven temperature to broil. Top the crust with pizza sauce, cheese and any other toppings you’d like.
Broil – Broil the pizza for 5 minutes or until the toppings are hot and the cheese has melted. Allow the pizza to cool for 2-3 minutes before cutting and serving.
Can Pizza Be Healthy?
YES! 100%. If you cut this crust into 8 slices, each piece of crust (without toppings) has only 75 calories, 5 carbs and 5 grams of protein! There’s no need to feel guilty about eating a few slices… several times a week. Enjoy!
More Healthy Pizza Recipes
- Spaghetti Squash Pizza Crust
- Naan Pizza with Butternut Squash and Pesto
- English Muffin Pizza
- Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust
- Chicken Crust Pizza
Want More Cauliflower Recipes?
- Cheesy Cauliflower Nachos
- Cauliflower Soup
- Baked Cauliflower Mac and Cheese
- Roasted Cauliflower
- Cauliflower Gratin
Be sure to check out all of the cauliflower recipes here at EBF!
If you enjoyed this recipe, please consider leaving a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below.
Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- Crust
- 2 cups riced cauliflower, about ½ head
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 cup part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- Olive oil spray or 1 teaspoon olive oil, for greasing
- Toppings
- ⅓ cup pizza sauce
- 1 cup part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese
- Fresh basil
- Crushed red pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven: Preheat oven to 400° F.
- Prep a baking sheet or pizza stone: Line a baking sheet or pizza stone with parchment. Grease the parchment with olive oil spray or rub on regular olive oil.
- Prep cauliflower: If using whole cauliflower, remove the stems and leaves from the cauliflower and chop the florets into chunks. Add to a food processor or blender and pulse just until the texture is similar to rice. If you don’t have a food processor or high powered blender, you can grate the cauliflower with a cheese grater or chop it. Another (much faster option) is to buy riced cauliflower.
- Cook cauliflower rice: Sauté cauliflower “rice” in a non-stick skillet over medium heat and cook until translucent, approximately 6-8 minutes. (You can use the microwave for this as well. Just place cauliflower in an uncovered microwave-safe bowl and cook for 8 minutes.)
- Mix cauliflower dough: In a bowl combine the cooked cauliflower with garlic, mozzarella cheese, egg, basil and oregano. The cheese will melt a bit and this is okay.
- Spread dough to make the crust: Spread dough out evenly on your parchment lined baking sheet and form into a circle. You’ll want it to be about 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch thick. The pizza should be about 9-10 inches in diameter.
- Bake: Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the crust is golden, crispy on the edges and cooked through the middle.
- Remove the crust from the oven and set oven to broil.
- Add toppings: Top with pizza sauce and cheese. You can also add additional toppings, but be careful not to add too many heavy toppings as you don’t want to weigh down the crust.
- Broil: Broil the pizza for 5 minutes, or until the toppings are hot and the cheese is melted. Allow the pizza to cool for 2-3 minutes then cut and serve immediately. Serve with fresh basil and crushed red pepper.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This Recipe? Rate & Comment Below!
Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
Dear Brittany..
Hello from Kingwood,Texas. I have been a subscriber for just about a month and just made this delicious and easy pizza crust recipe ❤️With our 6th grade daughter who has special needs and is on fall break ,we decided to have pizza for lunch ( she is not picky except that she just loves her turkey pepperoni and cheese to eat off her crust no matter what kind of crust it is..
I found you through Dani spies and also drink your acv detox drink every day too..
Just made this for our lunch and for my husband who works from home ( due to COVID and essential worker )..
I finally had the guts to use our pizza stone we got for a wedding present 14 years ago ..
I did follow every step and sprayed baking spray on the stone but the crust still stuck ..
Did I do anything wrong ?
Hugs and I also told my niece who just became vegan to subscribe to your site too 🙏
Hugs
Hey Lydia – So sorry to hear that the crust stuck. What spray did you use? It seems like the pizza stone wasn’t greased properly, which is why you probably had issues.
Hi Brittany.,
I used a butter flavored baking spray on my baking stone ..
Should I use something else?
Hugs
That should have worked just fine! Maybe it just needed more of the spray on the baking stone. You didn’t change anything about the crust did you?
No ma’am I didn’t .. followed it 100%.
Mmm, it must just not have been enough spray for it to not stick.
This recipe was amazing!! I ‘ve been wanting to try and make cauliflower pizza crust for the longest time and with being at home more often, I finally decided to try it out. Topped with kale, tomatoes, mushrooms & tomato sauce — no need for extra cheese! Delicious & I can’t wait to try more of your recipes.
Ahh that makes me so happy to hear, Sarah!! I’m so glad you finally got the chance to try this recipe. Thanks for coming back to leave a comment and star rating. I really appreciate it. <3
The cauliflower crust was so mushy. Very disappointing. Next time I would drain the riced cauliflower. Flavor was good, but texture was awful.
Hey Ruth – I am so sorry to hear that this crust didn’t turn out for you. 🙁 Did you use frozen cauliflower rice or an actual head of cauliflower? And did you change anything about the recipe?
Shouldn’t you strain all the liquid out of the cauliflower before adding the other ingredients?
You can totally do that if you’d like, but I haven’t found it necessary with this recipe.
one thing we have missed while doing a low-carb life style has been pizza! Made this recipe tonight – didn’t expect much but wow!!! What a wonderful surprise! Both my husband and I agreed it was delicious and we’ll make it again soon! I don’t have a food processor so just chopped fine with a knife and it worked just fine. Topped with just peppers and onions and cheese. Delicious!!!!!!!
We love this cauliflower crust recipe!! My husband and I make this at least a couple times a month. You can even buy the riced cauliflower in the freezer section of the grocery store making this a much quicker recipe on a weeknight. We’ve tried numerous different topping ideas and haven’t been unsatisfied with any. Great with Pesto topping too! I can’t help but share the recipe with family and friends.
I’m so reluctant to swap gluten filled crust to cauliflower. I did once and it wasn’t a disaster but wasn’t anything that I’d be proud of either. But your one looks so delicious I may give it a try again.
I tried to make it , and it was a fail! The middle of the pie was really soggy and soft , couldn’t life he pizza up & I used greased aluminum foils .. Any tips for next time ? 🙁
This is unbelievably good. I did add a half teaspoon of cumin to the cauliflower mixture. Topped with a pretty decent heirloom tomato and sauteed mushrooms and onions. Can’t wait until August when the great tomatoes are in. BTW, Trader Joe’s is now selling riced cauliflower so you can cheat and put this together in record time. Thanks so much for the recipe.
I was so happy to find your cauliflower pizza crust recipe. There are others out there but the use of goat cheese was the clincher. I did a little Test Kitchen experiment with the crust. I made one according to your recipe and as I was squeezing the water out of the cauliflower- with all my might!- it occurred to me that roasting the cauliflower rice would add nice toasty flavor and eliminate extra liquid. So with my second cauliflower I followed your recipe except for how to prep the cauliflower “rice” – instead of boiling I spread it on a baking sheet and baked it for about 20min or so at 375 to roast the cauliflower. When it came out of the oven it was nice and dry and smelled delicious. I let it cool. I didn’t squeeze the baked cauliflower before I added egg and goat cheese, salt and herbs and popped it back in the oven. It didn’t need to cook as long as the boiled cauliflower version. I cooked it about 12-15 min. instead of 20mins.
The verdict, according to hubs, is that the roasted crust tasted more like cauliflower which was both a good thing and bad. He felt the boiled cauliflower crust held up better and though it needed more salt, it wasn’t obvious that it was cauliflower.
I’d love to hear what you think. We eat roasted whole cauliflower frequently- so I like the roasted cauliflower crust as much as the other. I would suggest squeezing the cauliflower after roasting it. The crust didn’t hold up as well as the one when I followed your recipe.
Great site! Thanks