Recipe: Broccoli Pizza Crust

Yes…you read that title right.  This is a pizza crust…made out of broccoli.  Hey…I’m doing this whole clean eating thing, and while I love a real (gluten-free) pizza crust as much as anyone else, sometimes you just want to think outside the pizza box and try something new.  And since it’s getting to the point where I always have broccoli in my CSA bin…well…instead of doing a typical cauliflower crust (if you can call that typical)…I decided to give it a go with one of my favorite veggies…broccoli.

It’s a little bit of work, but it’s a beautiful and nutritious alternative to standard pizza crust.  I make mine with vegan cheese do to lactose intolerance, but regular cheese works just as well.  Don’t mock it until you try it:

Recipe: Broccoli Pizza Crust

Servings: 2
Time: Prep 10 minutes; Cook 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 medium head of broccoli
• 1 cup grated mozzarella cheese (I use Daiya mozzarella shreds)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional…but I highly recommend it)
• 1 large egg

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Chop the broccoli into florets (try to remove the stems) and place them in the large bowl of a food processor.  Pulse for about 30 seconds, just until all of the florets have been cut down into very fine crumbs.  You should have about 3 cups of crumbs.

Transfer to a microwave safe bowl, cover, and microwave on high for 4 minutes.  Remove and let cool slightly.

Transfer to a clean tea towel (not paper towels because they will shred).  Wrap the broccoli bits up tightly in the towel and wring all the water out over the sink.  There is actually quite a bit of water in the broccoli, so keep wringing to get out as much water as you can.  This will help keep the crust from crumbling.

Combine dried broccoli with the cheese, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, and egg.  Use your hands (that’s it…get a little dirty) to mix everything together.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet and form into a 10-inch thin circle.  Bake in preheated oven for 10-11 minutes.

Once crust has precooked, remove from the oven and top with whatever toppings you like.  For this particular pizza, I topped mine off with slices of fresh red tomato, caramelized onion, chopped yellow pepper, chopped avocado and topped it off with goat cheese.

Return to oven and bake for another 15-20 minutes.

Remove from oven and serve.

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As you can imagine, this crust doesn’t keep very well so you’ll want to eat the entire thing that day.  So either share with a friend of come to dinner hungry.  Cheese, herbs and fresh veggies made up my entire pizza and it was super delicious.  You won’t even miss the actual crust.  Honestly!  This has become one of the meals my roommate begs me to make.  It’s a good thing we get lots of broccoli.

Give it a try…I dare you!