I am completely engrossed by the concept of Cauliflower pizza crust. It is such a phenomenally good idea for so many reasons and uses. Use it to make pizza for kids; its way healthier, and they won’t be able to tell under a good layer of pepperoni and cheese. It cuts carbs, it adds vegetables in a sneaky way where you forget you’re eating vegetables.
Now, add pesto. You’ve seen my Perfect Spinach Pesto post, and know how truly and deeply I value this green spread. This is another sneaky veggie addition in this dish: the sauce is flipping spinach! You’re eating cauliflower and spinach. It’s practically a salad, but it’s pizza. In love yet? Sure, there’s some cheese, and some oil, but I put that on my salad too!
So….
Cauliflower Crust Pesto Chicken Pizza
For the crust:
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 egg
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (grated or shredded- don’t get complicated)
1 Teaspoon Italian Seasoning
For the Pesto (Fine, you’re rushed. Use pesto from a jar. But it won’t be as good.):
1/3 cup pine nuts
3 cups fresh spinach (Yes, you traditional pesto lovers- use basil. It’s fine too.)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup olive oil
For the Pizza toppings:
1 cup cooked chicken (use the stuff from the deli, use the frozen Tyson stuff, do what I did and boil a chicken breast and shred it. Or skip it all together and be vegetarian. You do you)
1 cup Mozzarella cheese
3 Tbls Pine Nuts
Other stuff you may like: black olives, shrimp, roasted garlic cloves, roasted red peppers, jalapenos, a drizzle of balsamic. Mmmmmmm…..
Instructions:
Make the crust: Preheat oven to 450. Put the cauliflower in your food processor and spritz it until its rice-ish. Put that cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl. Clean out your processor- you’ll need it for the pesto.
Microwave the cauliflower for two minutes, then stir. Be liberal with the stirring: you want the steam to escape so it gets dry. Microwave another three minutes, stir again. Microwave five minutes, stir. Microwave five final minutes, stir. This is a total of 15 minutes.
Add in the other crust ingredients. Be careful with the egg- it could scramble.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (DO IT) and dump the cauliflower mixture onto the baking sheet. Form a square, like a pizza crust.
Bake for about 15 to 18 minutes, until it’s pretty brown on the edges and feels kinda solid. Don’t stress: it’s just a crust.
Make the pesto: Toast pine nuts in a dry pan over medium high heat until light brown and smelly. Pulse in the food processor (which doesn’t have cauliflower in it anymore, yes?) until ground. Add spinach and parsley, garlic, and salt. Pulse until finely chopped. Add cheese. Pulse until combined. With the food processor running, drizzle the olive oil slowly through the feed tube on top until smooth and saucy.
Assemble: Once the crust is out of the oven, let it cool for like five minutes so that the pesto doesn’t melt all over the place. Then, spread on the pesto. Throw on the cheese, chicken, and some of those optional toppings. DO NOT do the pine nuts yet; they’ll burn.
Pop it into the oven for five minutes, until the cheese is bubbly.
Throw on those pine nuts, and slice it up!
The best part? This is totally guilt free as far as pizza goes. Make dessert. Or order it from the pizza place 🙂
whenkathycooks 