Vegan potato crust pizza (fat free, grain free + mostly raw)

Sometimes I get asked if there’s any “normal” foods I miss eating, from before my big diet change.

Pizza would have to be at the top of that list.

Truthfully I have not been able to find any raw vegan pizza recipes that taste even remotely close to the real thing.

Don’t get me wrong, there are amazing raw vegan pizzas out there. I have tried many and have gone nuts over pretty much all of them! And I think it’s incredible that raw vegan pizza even exists in the world, filling that comfort food void for many a raw vegan.

It’s just that sometimes I wish I could indulge in something a little bread-like. You know?

But my main issue with most of the raw pizza crusts out there is how they’re made.

For a pizza crust to be made raw, it’s got to be dehydrated – usually for a long time, as raw foods are water-rich and the crust would never hold together otherwise. I once tried a raw pizza recipe that took two days to make because of the dehydration process. It was delicious…. but two whole days!! That is way too much waiting time for me to make a recipe like that on a regular basis.

Then there’s the fat issue – for a raw pizza crust to hold itself together, most recipes have to use nuts or seeds as a binder. Often it’s a lot of nuts/seeds and that’s not even counting the extra nuts used to make a cheese topping. This might be fine for some people but it’s just too much fat for me in one dish. One of the big focuses for me on this diet in order to cleanse my liver is to be eating extremely low to no fat. Sadly this makes most raw pizzas a no-go for me.

So a couple weeks ago I went searching online for the perfect cooked pizza crust. I knew I wanted it to include potatoes because that is the one cooked food I eat almost daily in my diet. But I had pretty strict criteria I’ll admit. My crust had to be gluten free, grain free, oil free, yeast free, fat free and 100% vegan – something that I could basically feel free to eat a LOT of and not develop a stomach ache afterwards.

I couldn’t find a single recipe that fit the criteria though.

Then I thought… why don’t I just try making up a crust with potatoes and potato starch and see how that goes?

I did some research on how traditional pizza is made and it’s pretty basic – flour, water, sugar, salt, oil, yeast. Some of the best pizza crusts out there are made from just these simple ingredients. How bad could potato and starch taste? I had a feeling I could get at least something decent out of this…

Turns out I was right! You can get a delicious crust out of just potatoes and potato starch. It’s not exactly authentic-tasting – the crust comes out softer and chewier than traditional pizza crust – but I am PSYCHED I tell you! PSYCHED!! Because to me, this tastes like real pizza crust! It tastes like something more along the lines of real pizza that I remember before going grain-free.

And, because it contains NO fat, I can eat the entire thing without worry that I’m overburdening my liver. Hurrah!

You are going to love this simple and healthy pizza crust.

My recipe is:

• gluten free
• grain free
• fat free
• oil free
• yeast free
• nut free
• salt free
• vegan
• made of just 3 ingredients!!

Since I learned that traditional pizza crust usually contains sugar, I decided to add some maple syrup to the dough to make it a bit tastier – this was a great call! But I will say you can definitely make the crust without it if you prefer to go sugar free. I just happen to think maple syrup is one of the few healthy sweeteners out there and had no issue with adding a little for taste.

I love that this recipe is super carby, with absolutely no fat!

In addition to the crust recipe, I’ll include below how to make the toppings that I used. All toppings are completely raw and that also made me feel great since I prefer to eat any cooked food with plenty of raw stuff. By the way, this is a great practice to keep up no matter how you eat:)

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Vegan potato pizza crust recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups of mashed potato (peeled and steamed) – I used russet potatoes but any variety of white potato will work. I found that one large potato generally equals 1 cup of cooked mashed potato.

1/4 cup potato starch

1 tbsp maple syrup

-makes one 9-inch pizza

1. Peel your potatoes, cut them into small pieces and steam until cooked – about 30-40 minutes.
2. Transfer potatoes to a bowl and roughly mash with a fork.
3. In a food processor, blend 2 cups of mashed potato with potato starch and maple syrup.
4. Line a baking tray with parchment paper – this is important! – and transfer dough to the tray. Use a wet spatula to smooth the dough into a large round shape. It will be very sticky! I like to keep a small dish of water nearby to periodically wet the spatula – this will help to keep the dough from sticking so much. Keep in mind that the dough will rise in the oven so you’ll want to thin it out as much as possible.
5. Use the end of the spatula to push up the edges of the crust a little.
6. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until the crust starts turning golden. If your crust poofs up full of air in the oven, simply press it back down. It doesn’t behave exactly like regular pizza dough but keep the faith…

While baking your crust, start putting together the raw toppings.

Raw pizza sauce:

In a blender or food processor, blend the following ingredients:

3 roma tomatoes
5 raw sundried tomatoes – check the ingredients on the package to make sure there’s no additives – mine contained just tomatoes and sea salt
3 dates (or 1-2 large medjool dates)
1-2 cloves garlic
fresh oregano

Put the sauce in a strainer over a bowl to allow excess liquid to drain while you continue making the cheese. This is an optional step – if you’d prefer, just set sauce aside in a bowl. The straining serves to keep the sauce from being a little runny which I recommend doing.

Raw pizza cheese:

1 zucchini, peeled
1/2 cup cashews (I like to soak mine for 5 hours beforehand so they’re softer and more digestible but this is optional)
2-3 scallion bottoms (just the white part of the scallion)
squeeze of lemon juice
dash of sea salt

Blend together in a food processor. Set aside. (note – this made more than enough cheese for two pizzas since I did not go very cheese-heavy on mine:)

Chop up any other remaining raw toppings you’d like for the pizza. I did mushrooms, red pepper, onion, olives, and spinach. Feel free to make up your own creation though!

Start topping your pizza! You can put as much or as little sauce and cheese on as you like. Personally I like a lot of sauce, a little cheese, and tons of colour!

Enjoy💖

Tag me on instagram if you make this potato pizza, I’d love to see how it comes out for others! I’ve already made this recipe twice in the past week. Obsessed :))

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