Cauliflower Crust Pizza

I've seen this cauliflower pizza crust recipe all over Pintrest for the past year and thought, "How in the world is that even possible?" until I stumbled across this Pin originally from Detoxinista. After reading all the comments from her post, I thought, "Alright, I have to give this a try."

Now, neither my husband or I are gluten intolerant, but we do notice a huge improvement with weight loss and less joint inflammation when we stay away from grains. However, it's hard to do that when you love pizza, amiright? That alone was enough motivation, plus sheer culinary curiosity to give this a go.

Let me caveat to say that this crust is NOT like what you are used to in a pizza crust. It is not crunchy (except in a few of the more browned areas) and it is not really rigid enough to eat by hand, although I did manage to pick up a slice or two without it falling apart. The crust is more of a biscuit-y type consistency and overall NOT THAT BAD!

I did change the recipe a little based on some of the comments from Detoxinista's post and added a little almond flour for binding. This seemed to help a lot. I was able to find Bob's Red Mill Almond Flour in the organic section of my local grocery store.

Perfect Califlower Crust Pizza
Recipe Source: Detoxinsta 

4 cups of cauliflower "rice" (see below)
1/3 cup goat cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup almond flour
1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs seasoning
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 400°.

To make cauliflower rice, cut up cauliflower florets and place in a food processor. Process in pulses until cauliflower is fine ground to the size between rice grains and cornmeal.

Place processed cauliflower in a saucepan with an inch of water and bring to a boil. Simmer to cook for approximately 4-5 minutes. When finished, pour cauliflower into a thin mesh strainer to drain and cool. When cool enough to handle, place cooked cauliflower inside a piece of cheesecloth or cotton dish towel. Ball the cauliflower up and twist the towel to squeeze as much liquid out of the cauliflower as possible...the drier the better. You will be left with a baseball size amount of cauliflower.

Mix the cauliflower with the remaining ingredients, ensuring the goat cheese is well distributed. This mixture will resemble a gummy dough, but don't worry, it will firm up in the oven. Press the dough (about 1/4 inch deep) onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, making sure to build up the edges a little. Bake the crust approximately 25-35 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and add your toppings (not too heavy!) and place back in the oven for 10-15 minutes more until the cheese is bubbly, Remove pizza from oven and let cool for 5 minutes before cutting to allow the crust to firm up a little. Enjoy!

NOTE: I would also recommend prepping more than one head of cauliflower at a time and possibly freezing the unused drained and squeezed cooked cauliflower rice. Detoxinista mentions that you could bake an empty crust and freeze, but I think it would pick up too much moisture. Resqueeze the defrosted, cooked cauliflower rice before continuing.