Slow Cooker Deep Dish Cheese Pizza with Cauliflower Crust
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
- 1/2 cup shredded Italian cheese blend
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning blend
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- Toppings:
- 1/2 cup jarred Alfredo sauce
- 1 1/2 cups Italian shredded cheese blend
- 1/2 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, 1/2 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
YUM this looks so good. I love Cauli pizza. I was wondering if I could double for my larger crockpot. I have a sear on my crock pot and was wondering if I wanted crispier could I use that function? Would you recommend that be in the beginning or the end?
I think that’s a great idea. I would probably do it at the end to make sure it didn’t get to crispy.
Has anyone tried using Mozzarella Cheese as a toping verse the Italian Cheese Blend? I have a nice pre sliced log of it leftover and thought this would be a perfect way to use it up!
I was wondering if there was anything that could sub for the cheese/ Sounds so yummy!!
Hmmm. Well, I know there are several vegan cheese options but I have not personally tried any of them to vouch for how they would work. If you give it a try let me know!
Wow this is such an awesome idea!! I would never have thought of making this in the slow cooker. Think of all the variations! 🙂
It is different than the typical pizza for sure. But so easy and so yummy!! And yes, the options are endless 🙂
I had this tonight and it was so good! I was wondering if there is a way to make the crust crispier. I only had it in the crock pot for about 2 1/2 hours until the edges were very browned, but the dish was more of a casserole consistency- still very good but was wondering if I should have kept it in the crock pot for a longer period of time! THANKS!
I’m so glad you liked it! I so wish there was a way to get the super crispy oven from the oven crust but the slow cooker just doesn’t get hot enough 🙁 The key is to cook it on high and you might try leaving it in just a bit longer or reducing the sauce just a bit to help but I think it will be more of an eat with a fork kind of pizza no matter what.
Could this be cooked on low for a longer period of time? Looks delicious and I can’t wait to try!
I honestly haven’t tested this one on low but in general you would double the cook time. My concern with this type of recipe would be if it would be crispy enough on low but you could certainly give it a try!
Has anyone used a red pizza sauce? Do u still do it the same way?
Red sauce should work just fine!
I’m twisting this a bit today for a Mexican flavor and subbed chipotle powder, oregano, basil and cumin with pepperjack cheese and a chunky salsa. I hope it comes out as beautiful as yours!
Ooooo yum! Let me know how it turns out!
Hi! Can you use frozen cauliflower by chance? Or maybe the cauliflower you used was raw/not prepped by steaming? Thanks!
I used raw cauliflower. In most things subbing frozen works well but in this I’m not too sure. I wonder if it would be too soft to form the crust? Maybe I will give it a try sometime just to see because I’m not really sure on this one. But frozen works well in my whipped cauliflower 😉 http://slowcookergourmet.net/2014/01/09/crockpot-simple-whipped-cauliflower/
This sounds wonderful!! Thanks for sharing at Simple Supper Tuesday.
Hi, this looks great, I also think it would make a great appetizer. My question is what is the best way to get it out of the crock pot?
Thanks!! Good question. I let it sit for a bit then sliced it into about 6 pieces. You could do smaller pieces too. Then I used two spatulas to work my way under the first piece and pull it out. The rest I was able to slide right out with the spatula once that first tricky piece was done! 🙂
This looks soooooo good I can’t wait to give cauliflower crust another chance with this! You know what? I thought that because you have it on parchment paper on the table that you had used that in the crockpot. After reading this comment I decided to check if you could use parchment paper in a crockpot and you can! It would probably make for a super easy pull out right? Do you think it would change the way the pizza turned out at all?
Hi Sara! I think it may not get as crispy if you used the parchment paper? But I’m not sure, I should try it sometime just to see!