Gluten Free Pizza Crust (also grain, egg, and nut free)

Egg, nut, and grain free pizza crust

I admit that when things get really limited and you start to use strange concoctions like gooey flax seed meal paste, ground up pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, it is easy to have little hope that the recipe is going to be any good at all!

But even though this pizza crust is free of eggs, nuts, grains, gluten, sugar, dairy and yeast (all the things pizza is normally made with), it is mighty delicious!

I am continuing to be stretched by my own restrictions as well as others who are looking for recipes free of many of the common allergens including eggs and nuts.  I found the original version of this recipe at Grainfreefoodies and from there made it free of eggs and added a bit of honey to balance out the taste of the seed flours.  (It was already grain and nut free.)

I wasn’t sure how it was going to be replacing the eggs with the flax seed meal.  My husband even said he was “scared of this one.”  He actually thought it was going to taste like cardboard when I told him what the ingredients were.

We were all pleasantly surprised.  The crust was a bit crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  It held together very well.  And the crust had a very nice flavor, kind of nutty even though I didn’t use any nuts.  And the last minute idea of adding the roasted butternut squash ended up being a great idea.  Elijah liked it too, and he’s been getting more picky lately.

Not too long ago I never would have thought that you could bake with ground up seeds and nuts and then make things like pizza.  If you haven’t done this and are on a limited diet, give this recipe a try.  You might actually feel like you’re eating pizza again!

Soak and Dehydrate Seeds first:

An important aspect of all recipes that use ground up seeds and nuts is that they should be properly soaked and dehydrated, then ground up.  You can read about why and how to do this here.

After you have dried the seeds and nuts, you can use a food processor to grind them into a fine flour.  My old food processor couldn’t do this very well so I ended up using a coffee grinder which works well but can only hold so much at once.  I got  a new food processor though and hope that it will grind the nuts and seeds up fine enough for flour.

As far as I know, flax seeds do not need to be soaked and dehydrated the same way other seeds and nuts do.

I recommend soaking, drying and grinding seeds and nuts in large batches.  I have a dehydrator that holds many shelves of nuts and seeds so I can do several different kinds at once.  If you don’t have a dehydrator, just use as many pans of nuts or seeds in your oven as possible.  (@ no warmer than 150 F.)  Then I usually grind half of each kind to make flour out of them as well as have some whole seeds and nuts for other recipes.

Here is the recipe:

Gluten free Pizza Crust (grain, egg, nut, gluten, dairy, sugar and yeast free)
Adapted from Grainfreefoodies

Ingredients:
1 c ground pumpkin seeds, soaked and dehydrated
1 c ground sunflower seeds, or a little more depending upon consistency, soaked and dehydrated
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp ground flax meal
6 Tbsp boiling hot water
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp honey
1/2  tsp garlic powder or 1-2 cloves of fresh pressed garlic
2 tsp total of any of the following:  dried parsley, marjoram, oregano and/basil

Steps:
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grind the seeds before measuring out 1 cup each.    Combine the flax seed meal and hot water and let sit for 5 minutes.  Combine all of the ingredients together in a mixing bowl.  I like to knead the dough with my hands until everything is mixed.  The dough will be very stiff.  Add more flour if dough seems too wet and a little more olive oil if dough seems too dry.

2.  Grease a cookie sheet and sprinkle it with coarsely ground pumpkin seeds.  Pat the dough into a ball shape and place it in the middle of the cookie sheet.  Beginning in the center and moving outwards, squish the dough flat with your hands.  I like to make the edges slightly raised for the pizza dough.

3.  Bake for 20 minutes (or longer if it looks very wet).  Remove from oven, top with sauce and toppings, then return to oven for as long as it takes for the toppings to get hot and cheese to melt if you are using cheese.

For my pizza, I used Bionaturae bottled strained tomatoes and bottled tomato paste, garlic, salt, honey and Italian herbs to make my sauce.  Bionaturae uses glass bottles for these two products, which I love because they are BPA free and GAPS friendly.  Compared to other store bought tomato sauces that are free of sugar, it is also much less expensive to make the sauce this way.

I also added some leftover cooked ground beef or turkey? that I had made for another dish earlier in the week as well as roasted butternut squash fries I had made that afternoon as a snack.

I hope you enjoy this allergen-free pizza crust!  Let me know how you topped yours!  I would love this crust with a yummy pesto sauce.

Enjoy!