We are thrilled to introduce our thin crust cauliflower pizza crust made with ricotta cheese from scratch. This is a healthy, low calorie, low sugar, pizza crust foundation made at home with 3 ingredients and seasoning.
There are very few people out there that would say “no” to pizza. It is such a common and comfort food for so many people that we sometimes abuse it. This cauliflower pizza crust is low calories and even if you end up overeating (eating the whole pizza by yourself) you may not feel as bad and bloated after it. It is a win-win!
Gluten-Free Cauliflower Pizza Crust With Ricotta Cheese
There are people who indeed get sick from gluten. Gluten is not good for us altogether so enjoying a gluten-free pizza nowadays is trendy. The gluten-free pizza options have gained a lot of popularity because you still enjoy eating delicious pizza but you don’t rank up so many calories and eat so much bread that you feel bad and bloated afterward.
How To Enjoy This Pizza Crust
Be gentle with the toppings. This crust holds when picked up, but it is not bread-based so if you put too much topping on it, you may end up using a spoon to eat it. I keep the toppings to 2-5 light items that won’t crush the already thin crust pizza. My kids love pepperoni so that is the most often topping I use. Also, when I load the pizza with cheese and pepperoni and we eat hot out of the oven, my kids cannot really taste the cauliflower flavor that much.
Ingredients For Cauliflower Pizza Crust With Ricotta Cheese
Our recipe title already gives away 2 of the 3 ingredients for this cauliflower pizza dough. Due to our method of making this pizza dough the end pizza crust is not soggy but it is crispy.
Cauliflower Dough
Cauliflower
This pizza crust is made from cauliflower dough. There are multiple ways to end up with a healthy pizza foundation without flour that is gluten-free. We make our recipe from scratch with fresh cauliflower, however, you can buy store-bought cauliflower rice or frozen cauliflower dough. It indeed takes about 1 hour to make this pizza dough but it is worth every second in the end. I don’t like the cauliflower pizza dough at the store. It doesn’t taste that great and I prefer making my own. After all, I want to enjoy the food I am eating and not just eat it because it is “healthy”.
We make our cauliflower rice in the oven. Some recipes call out to microwave or steam the rice. I just think baking is one of the healthiest ways to cook the cauliflower rice so that is how I make my homemade cauliflower rice – with the oven. Although it may seem the microwave is an easier and more convenient way, it may actually not be the case. The microwave doesn’t evenly cook the cauliflower rice and it also destroys nutrients. I find it easier to bake the rice than squeeze it in the microwave. In my house, I avoid the microwave as much as I can.
If you are personally in the store we suggest picking a big head of cauliflower. I usually order online and either get my grocery ship or I pick them up from the store. As a result, I sometimes end up with a smaller cauliflower head. To fill up the entire pizza pan with the dough you will need cauliflower rice from a big head or 2 small ones. There is nothing wrong with buying a small head. Just remember that you will be spending 1 hour in the kitchen for a thin crust pizza and you may end up disappointed that the pizza was too small for you.
As all vegetables, cauliflower is rich in fiber. It is also a great source of vitamin B, C, folate, and is a great antioxidant. It is a very low calories food, fat-free, cholesterol-free, and low in sodium. We use cauliflower rice to substitute not only bread (in our pizza recipes) but also grains. Check out our cauliflower rice recipes such as:
- Ground turkey, cabbage, and cauliflower rice
- Beef stir fry with cauliflower rice
- Sweet and sour pork over cauliflower rice
Egg and Ricotta Cheese
In this recipe, we use ricotta cheese to reduce some of the calories, fat, and sodium from cheese. One of the main nutrients cheese is famous for is calcium. However, ricotta cheese is also rich in vitamins A, B, K, riboflavin, niacin, iodine, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc.
Seasoning
For this specific cauliflower pizza crust with ricotta cheese, we use Italian seasoning. We have also tried basil, oregano, savory, and parsley. They are all delicious choices. When I am going to use pizza sauce, I try to stick with the seasoning that is in the pizza sauce just to be consistent in the taste. However, if you feel experimenting with other flavors go for it. I love mint in the pizza so occasionally I will include some fresh mint with the topping or dried mint in the crust (sometimes both!). And of course, we use black pepper. It has great nutrient properties and adds a lot of flavor to the crust.
Keto-Friendly Cauliflower Pizza Crust With Ricotta Cheese
This cauliflower pizza crust is Keto-friendly. Enjoy some real food pizza, although you are on a Keto diet, and could think eating pizza is a taboo. In fact, my family loves this crust much more than the flour one. The flavor and the texture are great, and the pizza doesn’t break so you are eating a whole piece as if is a bread pizza. Moreover, the ingredients are light and nutritious so you are enjoying a quality pizza, guilt-free! That is a score.
Equipment
- Food processor – For this recipe, you will need a food processor to make the cauliflower rice. If you don’t have one, then you can buy store-bought cauliflower rice. We strongly suggest buying a food processor as it is one of our most used kitchen appliances. For example, we buy a whole piece of mozzarella cheese and then use the food processor to make shredded mozzarella. It saves a lot of money on cheese!
- Pizza pan – We use a circle pizza pan for this recipe to bake our masterpiece. If you like pizza, you probably already have one at home. It is super convenient if you buy a frozen pizza from the store too.
- We love eating pizza at our house. Hence, we own a pizza cutter. You can also cut the pizza with a knife, but it is so much easier to use the pizza cutter.
- We are big fans of food safety and began making our recipes compliant with food safety guidelines. As such, we started using a vegetable brush to clean our hard produce. It does give an extra piece of mind that you are doing your best to clean the produce.
- To really have a perfect pizza crust, you do need to get rid of as much water out of the cauliflower rice as you can. Layering cheesecloth pieces is one of the easiest ways to do so.
- Pepper grinder – most recently we started using pepper grinder as opposed to pre-grounded black pepper. The flavor is astonishing!! I would never buy ground pepper ever again. When you grind the pepper especially on top of a meal just before eating it, you will see a tremendous flavor difference. I dare you to try it!
- The rest of the needed equipment is standard items you probably already have in your kitchen such as parchment paper, mixing bowls, measuring set, etc.
Cauliflower Pizza Crust With Ricotta Cheese
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower
- ¼ cup ricotta cheese
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- ⅛ tsp ground black pepper
Instructions
Prep
- Wash hands with soap and water. Check out our article about how to wash hands properly
- Gather all ingredients
- Preheat oven to 375 F
Make Cauliflower Rice
- Scrub the cauliflower with a clean vegetable brush under running water.
- Remove the outer leaves of the cauliflower, separate into florets and chop into smaller pieces so that they can go through the food processor opening.
- With the food processor set up with the shredding blade, pulse the cauliflower florets to become "rice" like.
- Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Transfer the cauliflower rice to the baking sheet and spread evenly.
- Bake cauliflower rice on 375 F for 15 min.
Squeeze water out of cauliflower rice
- Let the cauliflower rice cool for a few minutes as you will be handling it with hands.
- In a mixing bowl, set up 2-3 layers of cheesecloth.
- Transfer the cauliflower rice to the cheesecloth. Squeeze as much water as you can out of the cauliflower rice. This will be your hand's workout for the day. Squeeze the rice until there is no more water coming out of it.
- I use the cauliflower water for stock, smoothies, etc. If I cannot use it immediately, I freeze it and store it in the freezer until I need it.
Make the pizza dough
- Preheat oven to 450 F.
- In a mixing bowl, add the drained cauliflower rice, 1 egg, ¼ cup ricotta cheese, ⅛ tsp ground black pepper, and 1 tsp Italian seasoning. Wash hands after handling eggs. Mix well.
- Cover a pizza pan with parchment paper.
- Transfer the pizza dough in the middle of the pizza pan. With hands, spread out to flatten the cauliflower dough and form a pizza crust.
Bake
- In a preheated oven of 450 F, bake the cauliflower dough for 20 min.
- Flip over the crust and bake for an additional 2-4 min.
- Enjoy with a topping of your choice!
Video
Notes
- You can buy ready cauliflower rice from the store. I just like to make it myself.
- Because we use cauliflower dough, this pizza is thin-crust
- We never have any leftovers, but I think the pizza will be fine in the fridge for 1-3 days.
- I don’t freeze food, but if you want to prepare it ahead of time and then pop it in the oven for a quick appetizer or dinner, the pizza can be frozen for about a month.
- Many people asked me why not use the microwave to cook the cauliflower. The answer is that I don’t like the microwave as it kills a lot of good nutrients. I prefer the oven. Also, the oven cooks much more evenly than the microwave. If you ask a mom who had to warm up baby food or baby milk you will be told to use a bottle warmer and NEVER the microwave. Or you risk burning your baby. Try warming up your milk in the morning. It is super hot on the top and lukewarm in the middle. It has just become a habit of mine to avoid the microwave as much as I can.
- We do our best to follow the cooking safe guidelines of the saferecipeguide.org hoping this will help our readers get into good cooking habits!
Nutrition
We strive to provide the most accurate information possible, however, it is at your own risk when you decide to use it. For example, the nutritional information shown is an estimate provided by our recipe plugin. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. If we list a recipe as a nut-free, for instance, we do our best to check all ingredients for nuts via an application. However, it is your responsibility to double-check our work prior to using the information as there is always room for manual error on our part or an error on the application we use.