Cheesy pizza

This post is part of The Great Pizza Experiment

Topped with turkey pepperoni, garlic-stuffed green olives, green pepper, mushrooms, and parmesan cheese

This was an interesting recipe. Many of the grain-free pizza crust recipes use a liberal amount of shredded cheese as a binder. This one uses shredded cheese only, along with an egg or egg whites. I suppose it seemed only natural to give that a shot! I adapted the recipe from this one on Genaw, which was originally posted here on Low Carb Friends. I made one-fourth of the recipe for a single-serving mini-pizza.

Thick or thin crust: Thin

Taste: 5. I was not crazy about this pizza. It wasn't unpleasant per se, but there was just something unappealing about eating a big glob of melted cheese. While other recipes may use quite a bit of cheese in the crust, this uses far more. I guess that I would describe this as stoner food. Personally, if I am going to eat a huge hunk of unadulterated cheese, I'd rather put the calories toward raclette or plate of quality cheeses, not a baked disc of shredded supermarket mozzarella. I also think that the addition of cheddar in the recipe was a mistake, as I used sharp cheddar and the flavor was too strong. If you make this, I would recommend mild cheddar instead. I do think that this would be a nice pizza to make for Pesach/Passover, as it doesn't require any weird ingredients like flax meal or coconut flour and thus most people would likely have the ingredients on hand.

Texture: 6. It did get nice and crispy and can be easily eaten with your hands. But it was still, y'know, just melted cheese. I don't think one would mistake it for anything else.

"Realness": 6

Ease of preparation: Very easy

THIN AND CRISPY CHEESE PIZZA (adapted from http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/thinandcrispy_pizza.html)

Serves 1

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz (weight) (about 1/2 cup) shredded mozzarella (low-fat is fine)
• 1 oz (weight) (about 1/4 cup) shredded mild cheddar (low-fat is fine)
• 3 Tbs liquid egg whites or egg substitute (could use a small beaten egg instead)
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp Italian seasoning
• Sauce and toppings of your choice (saute any vegetables first)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Combine all the ingredients with a fork.
3. Spread the cheese mixture evenly into a very thin disk on a sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
4. Leave your oven rack in the center of the oven, but turn off the oven and turn on the broiler. Add your sauce and toppings to the crust. Broil for 2-3 minutes.

NUTRITION (Crust only, no toppings, using low-fat cheese)
243 calories, 14g fat, 3g carbohydrate, 28g protein

Posted in: pizza