Cauliflower Crust Pizza is the best invention ever. Yes, you heard that right… pizza crust made out of cauliflower. It’s (shockingly) good!
You can top cauliflower crust with any pizza toppings you’d like. I topped this one Hawaiian style. This pizza is incredibly simple to make!
These days you can buy “cauliflower crumbles” in your market’s produce section. If you can’t locate the crumbles, it’s easy enough to make your own.
How to make cauliflower crumbles:
Just use a cheese grater to “grate” your cauliflower into very small pieces. You can grate a whole large head of cauliflower and make two 9-inch pizzas.
Microwave those cauliflower crumbles for 8 minutes. No water or anything needed. Just microwave it for 8 minutes to soften it up, and then let it cool a little bit. See the recipe below for how to proceed if you do not have a microwave.
Mix 1 1/2 cups of the cauliflower crumbles with egg, cheese and spices. (I use mozzarella, but imagine using different varieties of cheeses in the crust! Yum!)
Shape it into a 9 to 12-inch round. Bake the crust. Top it with desired sauce and toppings.
I went so simple and just used Classico Tomato Basil marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, Canadian bacon and pineapple (our favorite).
All that happens next is just a quick broil in the oven to melt the cheese and heat the toppings.
That is all! The pizza can be cut into 6 slices. You’ll probably want to eat three slices to make it a complete meal. If you happen to be following the Weight Watchers WW plan, you will find a link to the WW Points on the recipe card at the end of this post.
You should be able to make two pizzas from one large head of cauliflower. Everyone in my house really love this pizza crust and agrees that you can’t tell at all that the crust is made out of cauliflower. It doesn’t taste like “real” pizza crust, but it doesn’t have the flavor or texture of cauliflower either. You’ll have to try it out for yourself and let me know what you think! Thanks to this Cauliflower Pizza Crust post for inspiring me to make this myself and share it with my readers!
More pizza topping ideas:
- Marinara or pizza sauce with your favorite toppings
- Pesto with thin sliced tomato and fresh mozzarella
- Alfredo with sausage, mushrooms, Provolone & Asiago cheese
- Barbecue sauce with shredded chicken, green onions and smoked gouda
Here are a few more recipes featuring cauliflower:
- Cauliflower Tortillas
- Easy Cheesy Cauliflower Breadsticks
- Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
- Cheesy Baked Cauliflower Tots
- Cauliflower Rice
Cauliflower Crust Hawaiian Pizza
Recipe Details
Ingredients
CAULIFLOWER CRUST:
- 2 + cups cauliflower crumbles (alternately, you can use a box grater to grate a cauliflower head)
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup finely shredded mozzarella cheese (or try another kind)
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried minced (or fresh) garlic
- ½ teaspoon onion salt
TOPPINGS:
- ½ cup pizza sauce or tomato-basil marinara sauce
- ½ cup finely shredded mozzarella cheese
- 3 slices Canadian bacon, cut into strips
- ½ cup pineapple tidbits
Instructions
PREPARE THE CAULIFLOWER CRUST:
- Place the cauliflower crumbles in a large bowl and microwave them (dry) for 8 minutes (see Tips below if you do not have a microwave). Give the cauliflower a chance to cool.
- Preheat the oven to 450℉. Spray a cookie sheet or pizza pan with nonstick spray (or use a nonstick surface).
- In a medium bowl, mix the cauliflower crumbles (about 1½ cups since they shrink after cooking) with the remaining crust ingredients. Pat the "crust" into a 9 to 12-inch round on the prepared pan. Spray the crust lightly with nonstick spray and bake for 15 minutes (or until golden). Remove the crust from the oven and turn the heat up to broil.
PREPARE THE PIZZA:
- Spread the sauce on top of the baked crust, leaving a ½-inch border around the edge. Sprinkle ¼ cup cheese on top. Add the bacon and pineapple, spreading it out around the pizza. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.
- Broil the pizza 3 to 4 minutes, or until the toppings are hot and the cheese is melted and bubbly. Cut into 6 slices and serve immediately. *This pizza is best served on a plate with a fork.
Notes
- For those who don’ t have a microwave: You can steam the florets just until they are tender (not mushy) on the stove and then let them cool before grating them. The texture/consistency won’t be the same (It will be more like a puree) but it still works fine once you mix all the ingredients together.
- *Other topping ideas:
Marinara or pizza sauce with your favorite toppings
Pesto with thin sliced tomato and fresh mozzarella
Alfredo with sausage, mushrooms, Provolone & Asiago cheese
Barbecue sauce with shredded chicken, green onions and smoked gouda - If you are preparing this recipe as GLUTEN-FREE, just be sure to use brands of sauce and Canadian bacon that are known to be GF,
I just made this and it was yummy. . except my crust wasn’t very “sturdy.” I used Parmesan cheese in the crust instead of mozzarella. Made half Hawaiian, the other half Greek-cucumbers, feta, olives. . sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper. So tasty!
Hi Lori,
Great recipe…I’m trying to low carb and I searched cauliflower pizza crust and up came your site! I’m so impressed. By the way…I went to High School with you!!! what a small world. I’m a caterer and private chef, I’m also on facebook.
my website is http://www.butlerforhire.com if you care to take a glance.
Hope live has been wonderful to you!
All my best,
Joseph Sciascia from the San Francisco Bay Area!
yay! So glad you’re in touch after all these years!
Excellent recipe idea, tried this tonight. The cauliflower definitely became something close to pizza dough, but the yeast/baked bread notes were missing. That said, I would make it again.
Love this idea!! But I am on a special diet for severe IBS and cannot eat cauliflower, or other vegetables in the cauliflower family like broccoli. Do you know of any other vegie that would work in this recipe. Perhaps parsnip or turnip?
I’ve not tried…
amazing! I couldn’t believe it stuck together so well. I used 1/2 the cheese in the crust to cut down calories and it was delicious! can’t wait to make it again thanks!
How long do you bake the crust for before adding the toppings?
It’s in the recipe… 15 minutes.
I absolutely love this pizza! I had the same problem several other posters did my first time…mushy in the middle crust. Second time I made it… Made it thinner and cooked it on the bottom rack closer to the heat. Came out perfect! Also I added a lot of minced garlic to my crust. I happen to love garlic and it helped add more flavor. For the sticking problem… Silicon pad helps. I made it both ways. But it’s crisper if you cook directly on the pizza pan.
This was a great recipe but I found the crust to be very soft even after cooking it for 20minutes. Maybe something else is needed to stiffing the crust some more? Like a couple TBSP’s of wheat breadcrumbs? I dont know, just a thought.
Haha this was such a treat! Thanks so very much! After I baked the crust I added tomato sauce, tiny bit cheese, finely chopped onion,red cabbage,carrots,spinach leaves,and broccoli and then broiled it. WOW such a wonderful pizza. Gotta go tell all my friends have to make this fun, healthy pizza.
Great recipe. I just made it and it was delicious!
Cholesterol Warning – Watch the cholesterol on this one. With all the cheese and the egg you’re looking at 300-400mg of cholesterol per pizza. For a lower cholesterol version, I suggest using only egg whites (instead of a whole egg). I made the substitution and it tasted exactly the same!
And a little lower in fat too! Thanks for the tip!
Everyone was asking about a sub for cheese…I had a idea..First off the cheese binds the cauliflower together to make the crust hold up. If you are concerned about eating too much cheese just make the pizza as the recipie says but dont put cheese as a topping. I promise it is very delicious. Or if you need a cheese free way altogether topping and crust then i would suggest making a whole wheat dough and cauli rice dough and use 1/4 wheat dough with 3/4 caulirice.. Im thinking this combination might make it stick however i havent tried it out yet. 🙂
This turned out really well! I was skeptical, but it was absolutely worth the effort.
I have tried this recipe twice. We love it. The first time I used a round pizza pan (with holes) and the crust was great but left my oven a mess. Second time I used a nonstick jelly roll pan and the crust didn’t seem crisp enough. Has anyone used a baking stone for the crust? I’m wanting to try that next time to keep my crust crispy. Definitely have to have the topping pre-cooked as the broiling time is not enough to cook them. Great recipe!!
I tried this the other night and it was delicious tasting.. but for some reason i couldnt get the crust to cook .. the middle never stiffened up like pizze does it was kind of just a mushy disaster… and it stuck soooo much to the pan… any tips for next time to get it to cook and not stick?? the ‘dough’ was quite mushy once I put the egg in … is it supposed to be like that? ( I had double the recipe to make 2 pizzas- so I did use 2 eggs.. next time I dont think I would use both eggs)…
The mixture is definitely mushy when you mix it all up and spread it onto the pan. I used a nonstick pan and sprayed it w/ cooking spray- no problems w/ sticking. Someone else suggested sprayed parchment paper. For best results, spread the crust into quite a thin layer & bake until golden on top- it shouldn’t have a chance to be mushy inside if it’s thin. It won’t be like real pizza crust- we eat ours w/ a fork on a plate.
I MADE THIS BUT FOR SOME REASON MY CRUST WAS MUSHY. I JUST ATE IT WITH A FORK BUT WOULD REALLY LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT SO IT IS MORE LIKE PIZZA.
Spread the crust out very thin and bake until golden. It definitely won’t get crispy like real pizza crust, but should bake up better when thin.
I am sooo not a fan of cauliflower, but I would totally give this a try! Just emailed the recipe to my wife! Thanks!
I liked the recipe!!! Though I have a hard time following any recipe verbatim.
I started with your recipe, modified it a bit and I did an onion, mushroom, and turkey pepperoni. I published a like to your site, and then talked about my changes, on my site.
Thanks for such a great recipe.
Very nice way to adapt, Doug. Appreciate the link and the fact that you didn’t cut/paste the whole thing! Wish everyone did it like you 🙂
I tried twice to send this recipe and also to copy and paste it. neither worked,
seems to me if they really wanted us to have it, those things would work!
To email the recipe to someone, click the little envelope at the bottom of the post. I just tested it out and emailed it to myself- it worked! As for copy/paste… not sure what you’re trying to do there. You can print out the recipe via the print function or email the link too.
Wow I’ve never heard of anything like this! Am very curious to see what cauliflower crust pizza tastes like!
I just got done making this pizza – delicious! The crust held up exactly like a real pizza dough and tasted like it too. I used fresh herbs in the cauliflower mixture.
The only problem is that I ate almost the whole thing 🙁
I tried this tonight after seeing it on Pinterest. I like the idea as a way to sneak in more veggies. It tasted great, however we had the moisture problem and had to use forks. Next time I will try sopping up some of the moisture before baking, and use parchment paper.
I seriously cannot believe how amazing this is…my Husband loved it too. I didn’t have onion salt so I used onion powder and baked the pizza on parchment paper. Delicious, Healthy, Low Carb, and Easy=Awesome!
Finally tried this for lunch today (topped with BBQ sauce, chicken, onion, spinach, and red peppers) and it’s so good! Not sure if it was worth all the work and mess, but it is delicious. My crust was well cooked in 10 minutes, so I’m glad I was watching. To the people with moisture problems, I drained my cauliflower on a napkin for a few minutes before putting it in the microwave. Also, after I mixed everything together, I squeezed the excess moisture out before putting it on the pan. Mine holds together good enough to pick up to eat. I doubled the recipe and got one 18×13 pizza out of it. Thanks for sharing!
This reminds me of the Cauliflower Pizza Crust I’ve been eating for years from the Your Lighter Side blog. It’s so tasty and your version looks yummy too! For those wanting it crispy all you need to do is put parchment paper down on the pan first. I bake mine for about 25 minutes so quite a bit longer than this version indicates.
Yep, check comment #30- she left a comment here and I provided a link to where the recipe was discovered. The girl is a genius! Great tip about the parchment- will try that next time!
This is the best pizza i have ever had! what i love even more is that i can have half of the pizza and not feel guilty (or bloated) at all. We make this every sunday night at my house and we all look forward to it. We’ve made it three times and topped ours with hamburger meat, chicken with pesto and spinach, and bbq with chicken and spinach. I was wondering if you could reduce the amount of cheese in the crust because i’m not supposed to have a lot of dairy. i know you need some to keep the crust together but wondered if you had tried to reduce it and it didn’t turn out as good. Thank you so much for sharing this awesome recipe!!
I’m not sure. I think it would take some experimenting, or sub whatever you normally use as a cheese substitute.