Grain free, dairy free, soy free pizza...really!

I love coming up with creative replacements for those old but good food memories, like pizza!

In a nutshell, I use sweet potatoes or winter squash, with ground pumpkin seeds, flax meal, and either arrowroot or tapioca flour for the crust. And for the cheese, I either use "Daiya" brand alternative cheese (which is soy free, as well as dairy free), or an egg-mayonnaise mixture.

Here are pictures and a step-by-step.

Ingredients to play with:

The crust:

Bake either a sweet potato, yam, or winter squash (acorn, butternut, and blue hubbards work well), and mash in a mixing bowl. All measurements are relative (sorry!) on the amount of tuber/squash material you use. But I usually grind about 2/3 cup pumpkin seeds to throw in next, an 1/8 cup flax meal, and a 1/2 cup arrowroot powder or tapioca starch. You can also use dried potato flakes to help dry out the dough if you would like.

Here is what you will end up with.

Grease a baking sheet and spread it on, about a 1/4 inch thick. Bake at 350 for approximately 20 minutes, or until crusty to the touch. The dryer, the better here. It will brown on the edges.

Next comes the tomato paste or pizza sauce.

And then comes the "cheese." Daiya brand is surprising tasty and acts like a real cheese. I totally understand that it will not be available everywhere, however, and it has a bit of a lengthy ingredients list. At the end of this post, I will share pictures of another pizza I did with an egg-mayo "cheese." If your expectations allow it to be something other than cheese, (aka, not stretchy, and eggy), it is a delicious alternative.

...and the toppings

Put back in the oven until everything is melted and cooked to your liking.

Serve it up!

And, for those of you that would opt for the egg-mayo mixture for "cheese," the ratio is about 1:1.

Pour it on, top it off, and bake!

I was just posting this to the gluten free subreddit, when I saw someone else made a cauliflower crust with mozzarella and egg. Not dairy free, but looks delicious!
Cauliflower crust recipe

We have used my son's pancake/bread/muffin dough for pizza...

ground almonds (and other nuts), eggs, banana, salt and baking soda. Unlike sourdough this stuff needs to be partly cooked before putting the topping on or it will be soggy. We still cook it at the highest our oven will go though.

Suzy Bean wrote:I love coming up with creative replacements for those old but good food memories, like pizza!

I heart you! I am looking forward to trying something along these lines!

Funny how rice crust makes me feel well, dairy in cheese form doesn't really bother me, soy makes me feel good, but the one thing that might give me heart burn is the tomato sauce.

So how well doest the "crust" hold together?

Kull Conquered wrote:
So how well doest the "crust" hold together?

The crust, each of the times I've made it, has been crusty on the outside, but slightly moist on the inside. It doesn't hold together like a wheat crust, but it doesn't crumble. I think the sweet potato/squash and the flax bind things together.

Suzy, thanks so much for posting this! I bought a huge box of organic acorn squash on sale and will be making some pizza crust today or tomorrow.

I must try this!! I have gone wheat and 'mostly' dairy free and boy has the weight come off, I'm taking no medication for arthritis pain - it's almost gone, and the clearest skin around. The hard part is the cheese. I NEVER eat factory farmed cheese, only certain imported cheeses and local cheeses that come from properly raised dairy animals (locally raised, no added hormones, etc.)

That means that the cheeses I do eat are sooooo good. One in particular is St Angels from France. I can just sit down and eat the whole thing with a spoon.

I do have a couple of butternut squash left from last year so I will give this a try. Also interested in any other gluten free recipes you might have.

I have now seen with my own eyes what a difference it is to get rid of the wheat. I wonder if anyone will ever get around to planting any of the really old wheats – before they started hybridizing it?

Jeanine, I've been GF and DF for about 17 years now, and have moved into largely grain-free the last couple years. When I eat grains, my body simply aches all over, so I'm not surprised your arthritis pain cleared up. What a happy thing!

Here's my version of Suzy Bean's crust. In with my acorn squash (which would have been better roasted instead of steamed - it was a bit wet/soft for this): I didn't have pumpkin seeds, so I used sunflower seeds, tapioca starch (plus a little arrowroot? can't recall) and I used chia seeds in place of flax. Made two crusts, one fairly thin and one of medium thickness. The thin one held together, but couldn't support the weight of the toppings. Medium-thickness (or drier squash?) would be better.

I have to say that I have eaten about three versions of this now. Amazingly good.

I so gotta try this. Closing in on 60 pounds of weight loss since I started paleo last nov. I also had most joint pain greatly reduced after getting off the grain.

Well, done, Joseph--wow!

I made a much, much simpler version of this a few weeks ago. I used a mandolin to slice sweet potatoes, coated them in a bit of olive oil and salt & pepper on both sides, then pre-baked them a bit (10-15"?) before adding the pizza toppings and baking again. I've also made "pizza" with winter squash slices, and I'm sure regular potato would work as well.

Yup, I fell off the wagon about a month ago when I stopped smoking. Lots of wheat and dairy (no factory farmed dairy, of course). My fingers, elbow and feet where aching so bad I could hardly sleep a few days ago. But I think I'm finished with my binging so I'm back to wheat and milk free at least. I'll probably still do cheese but not much as imported cheese and hormone free cheese made in America is pretty expensive. Need to make my own.