Hearty Grain-Free Pizza Crust

Jessica Stewart
Jun 24, 2013
3 min read

Pizza, pizza, pizza. Mm! Everyone loves pizza! Well, not everyone. I’m sure I’ve met a few of those types of people but I can’t remember them really. Because, again, most everyone loves pizza.

Pizza is such an easy meal. It’s the suggestion people always turn to. Birthday party? Pick up some pies. Late night craving? Call in a delivery order. Watching a movie on Friday? Eh, grab some pizza, too tired to cook.

Everyone always turns to pizza. It’s cheap, convenient, and fast; a perfect match for someone tired, cranky, hungry, and low on cash. I actually WON a contest in a pre-med club in college. Well, it wasn’t really a contest but it was a survey for the club. I won the grand prize to a restaurant of my choice (yeah, buddy!) for giving them my most honest feedback. And frankly, most of my feedback was on the crap pizza they offered at our bi-monthly meetings.

Why were we trying to bribe people to come to meetings with pizza and pop? Gross. I lived in the dorms so delicious pizza was always available to me, where I indulged in it once in a while, hot out of the oven. No way was I going to waste calories on Hungry Howies cold pizza.

The moral of the story is that pizza is in our lives a lot. We turn to pizza. Pizza is our friend. Until it hits us in the middle of the night as you’re rushing to the bathroom.

Well, thank goodness I’ve found a great alternative for you to end your digestive suffering!

This fantastic pizza crust is perfect because it’s delicious enough to taste like pizza and hearty enough that you don’t want to eat a ton of it. I’ll be honest, I can put away about 3-5 slices of regular pizza and I was full on 2 of these bad boys.

You can add whatever toppings you like to create your perfect pizza. I will say that I forewarned myself to not expect anything out of this crust and to be well aware that it is NOT regular pizza. I braced myself for what I thought would be disgusting. Turns out, this crust is amazing and really, really good!

Try it out!

Ingredients:

1.5 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1.5 cups ground almonds
¼ cup garbanzo bean flour
¼ cup ground golden flaxseeds
1 teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 eggs
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup of water

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a food processor, grind your almonds to a coarse texture. Not like flour/meal, but not big ol’ chunks. Transfer to a bowl.

Next, grind your mozzarella cheese in the food processor to a grainy size. Add the cheese, garbanzo bean flour, flax, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt to the bowl with the ground almonds.

Stir in the eggs, oil, water, and mix thoroughly.

Spread a large sheet of parchment paper over a baking sheet. Plop the dough on the parchment paper (I know, it seems watery/gooey/ThisIsNeverGoingToWork). Put another sheet of parchment paper on top of the goopy mess. Using your hands “roll” out the dough to a size/thickness you’d like. This took me to tries due to the fact that I went a bit crazy and there were holes poking through.

Remove the top layer of parchment paper. Use your hands to form a delicious crust. Bake for 20 minutes!

After the crust is done, add whatever sauces/toppings you’d like. I used a mix between pesto and tomato sauce, then added some more mozzarella cheese, shredded chicken, bacon, and red pepper spices. It was all I had on hand; please don’t judge me.

Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until cheese is melty.

ENJOY!!