Gluten-Free Healthy Cauliflower Pizza Base

Love pizza but not too keen on the calorific doughy base, then try this amazingly tasty cauliflower pizza base that’s super easy to make, gluten-free, low carb, tastes brilliant and makes even pizza a healthy meal – result!

cauliflower pizza base

Did you know that the 9th of February is National Pizza Day. Isn’t that wonderful, a day where you can eat pizza to your heart’s content without the food police telling you how bad it is for you.

Think of that dough base. Well if you have to think about avoiding dough for reasons of diet or going gluten-free etc then this cauliflower pizza base is for you.

National Pizza Day celebrates all that is pizza.

Pizza history

Pizza goes back a l o n g way, right back to Roman times when flatbreads were covered with various layers of herbs, sauce and cheese. Even though those were pizzas it wasn’t till the 18th century in Naples that the modern-day pizza was born.

This original pizza had garlic, basil and cheese on top. The tomatoes came later.

Pizza has spread around the world with all sorts of toppings. The most contentious being the Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple. Purists of pizza claim this is an abomination. I think they are right but my daughter loves this type of pizza and would possibly kill me for saying it was in any way crap.

While I love pizza as much as the next person (apart from Hawaiian !) I do like to make this cauliflower pizza base instead of the standard pizza dough base.

There is something really satisfying about substituting veggies for pasta, bread, rice etc. Courgetti is one of my favourites.  I enjoy the lightness veggies offer and the guilt-free pleasure of eating more as there are way fewer calories to think about.

You are also packing in that all-important 5-a-day so that’s all to the good.

Ingredients for cauliflower pizza base

• 1 medium-sized cauliflower
• 40g ground almonds
• 40g gram flour/aka chickpea flour
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 3 eggs beaten
• salt and pepper to taste

How to make cauliflower pizza base

• Remove leaves from cauliflower and reserve stalk for another use (soup) as it contains a lot of water, chop florets
• Whizz cauliflower florets in a processor till you get rice-like grains
• Tip into a large bowl and add all other ingredients and bring together to form a loose sort of dough
• Press this out on to a paper-lined baking sheet about 1/2 cm thick and make a little raised edge around it to hold your toppings in place
• Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 35 minutes till golden
• Top with toppings of your choice and bake for a further 10 minutes

So there you have it, celebrate National Pizza Day the healthy way with my cauliflower pizza base and all the toppings you fancy. Just avoid the Hawaiian one please!

Looking for more lighter meals to try? Then check these out before you go;

Quick and healthy asparagus and quinoa risotto

Lamb koftas with yoghurt sauce

Greek style vegetarian stuffed peppers

Minced beef with courgettes/zucchini and hummus

Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.