Lately I’ve been seeing quite a few recipes for pizza made with a cauliflower crust, so when I spotted one in The Complete Guide to Fasting, I thought I’d better whip one up in honor of Pizza Sunday and June’s Diet of the Month! Around here, we have a tradition of pizza (usually homemade) for Sunday dinner and I was interested to see how this grain-free, cauliflower crust pizza would measure up against the more traditional crust made with flour, yeast, salt, and olive oil.

The recipe itself is super simple. You can either buy a head of cauliflower, chop it up, and pulse it in a food processor until it’s in small crumbles OR you can buy a bag pre-pulsed for you in the fresh produce section at pretty much any grocery store. In the recipe I used, you then take about 1 1/2 cups of your crumbles, mix it with 2 beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, and 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder. (Actually, the recipe in The Complete Guide to Fasting calls for a whole teaspoon of garlic powder, but I thought that was craziness so I used much less.)

Once you’ve got this mixture, spread it onto a pizza pan lined with parchment paper, roughly forming an 8″ circle. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven, add your desired toppings (I used 1/3 cup homemade pizza sauce, 3 oz mozzarella cheese, 12 pepperoni slices, and fresh basil). Bake for another 10-15 minutes and then serve hot!

I thought this recipe was pretty good! The boys were even willing to give it a try and my brave 10-year-old concluded that he’d be willing to eat it, if that was all he had. (Very gracious of him.) It helps that the cauliflower is covered with all manner of delicious toppings and makes a rather neutral (albeit floppy) base. I think if I were to make this again, I would try baking the crust on my perforated metal pizza pan. I think the holes might help the crust to crisp up a bit more, thus creating a firmer foundation. As it stands, this crust pretty much required a fork until the last few bites.

By using a grain-free, cauliflower crust, this recipe brings pizza into the low-carb, keto-friendly, reduced-calorie realm. Despite all this, however, I can tell you that this pizza was quite filling. Of course, being covered with cheese and pepperoni helps. The entire recipe comes to 530 calories, 34 grams fat, 17 grams saturated fat, 15 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams fiber, and 41 grams protein. I could only eat about 2/3 of the pizza though, less than 350 calories’ worth. Not too shabby if you want to have your cake (or pizza, as the case may be) and eat it, too!