Cauliflower Pizza

Everybody makes the resolution to lose weight at the beginning of the year—so much so that it’s trite. But with the prevalence of Bad Food in our grocery stores and supermarkets today, it becomes increasingly harder to not only keep your resolution, but to continue it even after you’ve lost the weight. A great way to stay on the path to your fitness goal is to alter your diet in a healthy and non-dramatic way. But healthy weight loss is kind of slow… and so, I go the crazy-pants route by cutting carbohydrates out of my diet completely. (Disclaimer: This is NOT healthy and NOT maintainable! I will explain further below.)

My girlfriend’s bachelorette party is in Las Vegas, and one of the events on the itinerary is a Beach Club—if you’re not familiar with the idea, it’s a day club that is poolside and outdoors, with cabana service replacing bottle service along the sides. Basically, everyone is in their skivvies and there is no place to hide from judging eyes. I realized that this was going to be a part of the trip about a month before the trip… and that’s why I took such drastic measures and cut carbs out.

With all of that said, I decided to try my hand at cauliflower pizza because it was, in my mind, a great way to have Bad Food (pepperoni pizza) without sacrificing my diet. And yes, technically there are no starchy, carbohydrate components. But what it doesn’t have in carbs it makes up for in fat: cheese, cheese, and more cheese. This cauliflower pizza crust recipe is delicious, but I just wanted to debunk the idea that it is healthy because it doesn’t have bread in it. This is not the case. However, if you are looking for a way to have pizza that is gluten-free… this is the recipe for you.

The key to making the crust cohesive and not crumbly is the amount of water you wring out of the ground cauliflower before shaping the crust. You cannot do this half-heartedly—I don’t know how else to emphasize this point, other than to say that your hard work will look more like cheesy cauliflower mash than crust. I spent over 5-7 minutes just wringing the water out of the cauliflower as hard as I could, and I ended up with a perfect crust that held together—even when I picked it up by the edges.

This recipe is for the crust only and not for the toppings, as I am assuming you have an idea of what you would prefer on your own pizza. For reference, I have used tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and thinly-sliced pepperoni… simple, but delicious!

Recipe adapted from The Lucky Penny Blog.