There are lots of different reasons to swap your traditional pizza crust out for healthier options like cauliflower or even quinoa. I've been faithfully reading all the recipe posts I could find about how to make cauliflower crust but can honestly say it sounded like a lot of work! And up until I finally tried out cauliflower in place of mashed potatoes I wasn't sure if I would even like it! But I finally decided to play around with it a bit and see if I couldn't find a simple way to make it in the slow cooker!
This was a truly simple recipe to make. The only real amount of work was busting out the food processor. Well, and dusting it off since I haven't used mine in at least a year! But you will need it to pulse up the head of cauliflower until it is in rice like shapes. Just took a couple minutes and you have the base for your pizza ready to go. You saved yourself all the work of kneading and rising dough!!
Several of the recipes I've seen call for squeezing out all the water you can from the cauliflower rice before adding the other ingredients. Since I knew this would be cooking in the crockpot I decided to skip that step and see what happened. You know, I like to skip stuff that looks like too much work and hope for the best. Well, it all turned out just fine. I propped the lid of the crock open with a wooden spoon and all that extra moisture cooked off and I ended up with a nice solid crust.
I made this into a white pizza. One reason is that white pizza is good, but the bigger reason is that my daughter won't eat anything with tomato sauce. And since I didn't want to make two pizzas, we made it her way. But the best part was this ended up tasting like the gourmet cheese pizza we get from one of our favorite pizza places!
This took a little over 3 hours on high in my crockpot. Then I let it sit for about 20 minutes before I cut it up so that it wouldn't fall apart. Love being able to throw the ingredients for a healthy and homemade pizza in after lunch then going about my day. When we are ready to eat... so is the food!!
Slow Cooker Deep Dish Cheese Pizza with Cauliflower Crust
Ingredients
- For the crust:
- 1 large head cauliflower
- 2 eggs slightly beaten
- ½ cup shredded Italian cheese blend
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning blend
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Toppings:
- ½ cup jarred Alfredo sauce
- 1 ½ cups Italian shredded cheese blend
- ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
Instructions
- Rough chop your clean head of cauliflower into about floret size pieces
- Place in food processor and pulse until evenly chopped into rice sized pieces
- Place in a bowl and add eggs, ½ cup cheese, Italian seasoning and salt.
- Mix together well.
- Spray crock with nonstick spray (I used my 6 qt oval crock) then press the cauliflower mixture down into crock, forming a slightly higher edge around all the sides. You can use a piece of wax paper or a large spoon to help you press it down firmly
- Top with alfredo sauce and cheese and then sprinkle with rosemary
- Cover but prop lid open with a wooden spoon handle
- Cook on high for 2-4 hours until eggs in crust are fully cooked and the cauliflower is tender. The edges will be slightly browned.
- Turn off heat and let sit for up to 30 minutes before cutting into slices and serving
Nutrition
Hi. I just tried this recipe, cooking it on high for 2 1/2 hours, then letting it rest for 30 minutes. I added pepperoni slices to the top during the last hour of cooking, and it was good! The edges got dark brown, however, the cauliflower "crust" was soggy. Maybe I had too much mixture because I had a large cauliflower?? I will use less next time. Thanks for sharing the recipe. 🙂
Hi. I would like to make this with frozen or fresh cauliflower rice but do not have any idea how much to use? Can you help?
Hi! I am making this recipe right now. Instead of cooking it on High do you think I could cook it on low for about 7 hours?
Hi Danie! Sorry for not catching this yesterday (was running the kids all around during the afternoon and away from my computer). How did it turn out?
Is the cheese used in the crust for flavor or sticking together? I was thinking of omitting it
Yes, you will need the cheese to hold the crust together. Might be worth a try without, but it could turn out a little more like a casserole instead.
Did not work for me....had to throw the whole thing out.?
What specifically didn't work, Catherine? I'd love to help you figure it out!
Sara, can you post the site with the mandolin that you used? There are many and I want to purchase the one that you used to make very thin slices.
I just made this and it was a HUGE disaster. I made it to the EXACT recipe and it didn't turn out at all! I don't know what I did wrong but this was a big mess.. I won't be making it again!
I'm really upset that I wasted a head of cauliflower on this recipe. Your picture looks so delicious but my end result was not even edible!!
oh no! That really stinks! I've had this turn out well for me several times as well as others that have tried it. I try to test things well so that no one ends up with a disaster. What do you mean by a big mess? Was it watery? Or you didn't care for the taste? I'd love to help make sure no one else has issues with it, so if you wouldn't mind sharing specifics that would be so helpful!
So excited to try this, 🙂 about how many cups of cauliflower did you use?? I have a giant cauliflower that I want to use but am worried it'll be too big..
Oh gosh, I didn't document well. But it all kind of depends on the size of slow cooker you use and how thick of a crust you want so I don't think you will go wrong.