Broccoli Pizza Crust (Gluten-Free)

Simple. Quick. Crispy. Unparalleled!

Lately, I’ve been making dozens of pizza recipes and trying pizza crusts with ingredients you wouldn’t even imagine, but this gluten-free broccoli pizza crust was one of the best I’ve ever had! You’d think it would be a pizza crust with a strong, intense flavor, but the truth is, it has a subtle flavor, with a delicious hint of broccoli and a crispy, crunchy crust. It’s actually perfect!

The best part? It only took me 10 minutes to prepare this pizza crust, ready to top with all the toppings! Not bad for a gluten-free and vegetarian recipe, right? It even reminded me of my zucchini pizza crust, which I also made super quickly.

If you want to learn how to make this healthy recipe, you’re in luck! I’ve photographed every step of this recipe so you can see how to make the pizza crust, what the texture is like, how to cut the ingredients, and all the details you need to make it a success the first time. Let’s get started!

The Ingredients for Broccoli Pizza Crust

In fact, the ingredients needed for this recipe are even simpler than for my traditional Italian pizza dough recipe. In fact, we’ll only need 5 ingredients for the crust and 3 ingredients for the toppings.

Pizza Crust:

• 1 large head of broccoli, cut into florets – The broccoli needs to be as fresh as possible! You can’t use frozen broccoli, as it retains much more water and will make the pizza very soggy.
• 2 large eggs – They’re essential for keeping the crust together! I prefer to use free-range eggs that I buy from my neighbor; besides being organic, they give the recipes a more pleasant color!
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese – It’s essential for adding flavor and helping the crust hold its structure. I tried making this recipe with mozzarella, ricotta, and cream cheese, but they released too much moisture into the dough, making it extremely soggy and impossible to bake.
• ¼ teaspoon salt – It’s not just for making the crust salty! Salt helps bring out the natural sweetness of the broccoli, giving it a more intense and pleasant flavor.
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper – It’s essential to balance the subtle flavor of the broccoli. I don’t recommend using cayenne pepper; I used it once and it left the pizza crust with a very strong flavor.

Toppings:

• Tomato sauce (as needed) – For me, it’s an essential topping! I use it on all my pizzas, including my Pizza Baguette recipe! You can make your own tomato sauce or use store-bought. I like to use Rao’s Homemade Pizza Sauce, it’s not very expensive and gives the pizza that homemade flavor that everyone loves!
• Mixed mushrooms, pre-cooked – I like to use homegrown mushrooms, but when I don’t have any, I buy whole mushrooms at the supermarket and slice them.
• 1 mozzarella cheese -In my opinion, it’s the cheese that makes the pizza taste better. I use mozzarella on all my pizzas, including Pizza Bianca, which is practically all cheese!

How to Make This Delicious Gluten-Free Broccoli Pizza Crust

If you’re still unsure whether or not to try this recipe, I have a little secret for you… Even Jorge liked this pizza crust, and he hates vegetables! Seriously, he ate three slices of the last pizza I made! It’s true, if it were a traditional margherita pizza, he would have eaten almost the entire pizza, but it’s still a huge win for me!

So don’t waste any more time, you can trust my years of experience as a cook and Jorge’s girlfriend!

First of all, preheat your oven to 390ºF (200ºC) and line a round baking tray with parchment paper and set aside. It’s important to always preheat the oven, as this will ensure the pizza bakes evenly. Plus, you can put the pizza crust back in the oven as soon as it’s finished, it’s always a breeze!

Now let’s get our hands dirty… Place the broccoli florets in a food processor and pulse until they resemble rice grains.

Transfer the broccoli to a clean kitchen towel, wrap it up, and squeeze out as much water as possible. It’s important not to skip this step, otherwise the pizza crust will be too watery and will fall apart when baked. I know what that’s like; as you can imagine, it happened to me when I first tested this recipe.

Now, put the dried broccoli into a large bowl, add the eggs, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Mix until well combined and you get a compact mixture.

Spread the mixture onto the prepared tray, shaping it into a round pizza crust. Now all you need to do is bake for about 15 minutes, or until the base is slightly golden.

At this point, your pizza crust is ready. If you want to continue the recipe and make the full pizza, I’ll show you how. However, if you prefer, you can freeze this pizza crust (after letting it cool) and keep it stored for up to 2 months. Now it’s up to you!

Now that you have the pizza crust ready, spread tomato sauce on top, then add mozzarella slices and mushrooms. Just be careful not to overfill the pizza with toppings, otherwise it may fall apart when you cut it into slices. This is normal, as it’s not a regular pizza crust.

Now you just need to bake for another 10 minutes, or until the cheese starts to melt and the crust starts to get crispy! Luckily, it’s not hard to know when it’s ready, because it will look just as delicious as the photo below!

Now you just need to let it cool for 2 to 3 minutes, slice and eat this delicious vegetarian, gluten-free and healthy pizza. If you’re like me, take it out of the oven and eat it straight away, because I’m so hungry that I don’t even give it time to rest!

Learn From My Test Kitchen Fails

Jorge started posting all the mistakes he made while making his recipes, and readers really loved it! So, I decided to copy the idea (don’t judge me, Big Cravings belongs to both of us…) and publish the mistakes I made while making the recipe.

• Not Squeezing Out Enough Water – This is a rookie mistake, I know… It’s the main mistake that causes pizza crust to become soggy and fall apart. You have to squeeze out as much water as possible from the broccoli. If you can’t, you can even leave it in a colander for 15 minutes, and most of the water will drain naturally.
• Making the Crust Too Thick – It’s not a good idea to make the crust too thick, otherwise it will be difficult to bake. In fact, what happens is that the crust doesn’t bake through in the middle, becoming soft and falling apart when you try to cut a slice.
• Using Too Much Sauce – You’ve probably noticed by now that I love tomato sauce… I love it so much that sometimes I get carried away and pour too much on my pizzas! The problem is that too much tomato sauce adds weight and lot of moistureto the pizza crust… You see what happens, right? The pizza crust falls apart!

I really want my readers to get the recipes right the first time, so I think it’s essential to show where I went wrong so you don’t make the same mistakes.

Say no to waste! How to store and reheat Broccoli pizza crust

As you can imagine, I make a lot of recipes… Really, a lot! This means I can’t always eat everything on the same day. On the one hand, it’s bad because I don’t always eat fresh food, but on the other hand, it’s good because it helps me see how long food lasts in the fridge and freezer so I can share those expiration dates with you.

• If you want to store just the pizza crust – You need to bake it before adding toppings (as I recommended above), let it cool, and store it in a sealed container. It will stay fresh in the refrigerator for 3 days and in the freezer for about 2 months.
• If you want to freeze multiple pizza crusts – It’s convenient to have frozen pizza crust ready to use, but you need to store it properly. It’s important that you use parchment between each pizza crust, otherwise they will stick together and you won’t be able to separate them.
• Shall we heat up the pizza crust? – First of all, forget the microwave, okay? We’re just going to use the oven. All you need to do is remove the pizza crust from the fridge and place it on a baking tray at 375°F (190°C) for 5–7 minutes, or for 10–12 minutes if you took it from the freezer.

It couldn’t be simpler, don’t you think?

And that’s it! I hope you loved my gluten-free broccoli pizza crust recipe and make it again and again! If you liked it, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Before you go, I believe you will love this Greek Yogurt Pizza Dough, it is also a different but delicious concept that you should try.