When I wrote about cauliflower crust pizza, reader Sarah tipped me off on the Seattle Local Food Facebook page to another idea: zucchini crust. Apparently it’s a trick she learned from her grandmother.
Grandmother-approved and grain-free? I had to check it out. If it was as delicious as it sounded, it could be the ultimate cure for too-much-zucchini season.
It works just like the cauliflower crust, only you pre-shred the zucchini raw, and drain out its excess liquid, whereas you mash the cauliflower after cooking it. If you have a food processor with a top shredding blade, assembling this crust is fast and easy. The whole pizza-making process is actually pretty quick.
The result is a thinner crust than the cauliflower, with a nice chewiness. A wetter topping such as tomato sauce can make it a bit soggy, but tastes so good that I don’t mind. Pesto works really well too. I used some of the nettle pesto from my freezer on one pizza. Delicious.
The pizza above has tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, extra parmesan, fresh yellow tomatoes added at the end, and a sauté of garlic, onion, Italian parsley, and king oyster mushrooms. Any mushrooms will do.
About the crust proportions: You can really vary them, as long as there is enough egg to bind the other ingredients together, enough cheese to brown, and enough zucchini (with water squeezed out) to give it character. More cheese will make a crispier, browner crust.
Okay, too-much-zucchini season: Bring it on. My toppings are ready.
~
Zucchini Crust Pizza!
This recipe can be doubled.
For the crust:
- 1 large egg or 2 small ones
- About 3 small-medium zucchinis (mine were about 8″)
- 1.5 cups grated parmesan or mozzarella. I liked parmesan best for this one.
- salt
See note above about how you can vary these proportions according to your taste, your desired crispiness, etc.
For the toppings:
Use anything you like on a pizza. General formula:
- Mild tomato sauce OR pesto
- Grated firm mozzarella cheese OR sliced fresh mozzarella cheese
- Ricotta cheese or goat cheese, for small dollops on top (optional
- Assorted vegetables. Pre-sauté for extra flavor, especially if you’re using onion, garlic and mushrooms. A little italian parsley or basil is nice too; the basil can be added fresh after the pizza is cooked, and the parsley is nice in the sauté. Finely chopped greens are nice. Fresh tomatoes can be added after the pizza is cooked too.
- Meat if you like/eat meat on pizza: Crumbled sausage would work well. Pre-sauté. Ground lamb or chicken would be tasty, cooked with lots of garlic.
- Olive oil, black pepper
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Grate the zucchini.
3. Sprinkle salt on the zucchini and stir. Let it sit a few minutes.
4. Squeeze the water out. I found the easiest way to do this was to wrap it in cheese cloth or butter muslin and squeeze. You can also put the zucchini on one plate and press another plate on top of it, or put it in a colander and press a bowl into it.
5. Mix with egg and grated cheese.
6. Spread parchment paper on a pizza stone or baking sheet. Spread out your dough batter about 1/2 inch thick into a circle.
7. Put it in the oven and cook until it has browned, about 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, as it is cooking, sauté any toppings you want cooked. I sautéed garlic, onions, mushrooms and Italian parsley.
9. Take the browned bottom crust out of the oven and admire it.
10. Cover it with your toppings.
10. Bake again until crust edges brown further and cheese on top melts into toppings. Take out of oven and add drizzled olive oil, grated black pepper, and optional fresh tomatoes and fresh basil. Serve hot.
Seattle Local Food 
Hi from Seattle!
Yum! I just made the cauliflower crust this week, and we just ate it plain. I did not cook the cauli first, and it turned out delicious. My husband loved it. Great way to get your veggies!
We didn’t plant any zukes this year after the Great Zucchini Giveaway of 2007 when I was sneaking them to as many people as I could find, but I’ve missed them.
So glad you liked it! My zukes haven’t done great this year, since we had to plant our garden late (moved in July), but we’ve been getting tons from our CSA, roommate’s mom, etc. Because of this pizza I want to be a recipient of the Great Zucchini Giveaway of 2010!
Thanks for the tip on not precooking the cauliflower. I’ll have to try it. I’m curious if it changes the texture; it’s probably less uniform but delicious in a different way.
Wow, looks great!
Here’s a way that I used up extra zucchini, via a pizza, although not as hardcore as you!
🙂
http://shutupandcook.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/i-dream-of-pizza-zucchini-pizza-with-sun-dried-tomatoes-and-olive-tapenade-that-is/
can this be adapted for vegan? if so how?
I don’t think this particular recipe can. The goal of this recipe is to substitute a different binding agent into the crust (mozzarella and egg) in place of the traditional binding agent, which is gluten and grains. I don’t think you could make a vegan grain-free crust, but you could certainly add grated zucchini to a traditional vegan pizza crust. Let me know if you try anything interesting.
It CAN be adapted for Vegan as we are vegan and what we did was to substitute out the mozzorella cheese for a non-dairy cheese by Daiya. It worked and was delicious!
sorry i didn’t add: we added 1/3 cup of brown rice flour but we did make one exception and added the eggs. We also mixed basil in. The original recipe I have said 2 tablespoons of basil but I don’t think we used that much! It was delicious with these changes. Actually, we used a recipe from a friend and now I came across this recipe and liked the additional helpful instructions.
Can you freeze this and use later?
Good question, and I’m not sure. My instinct is no, because the crust is quite delicately fragile and thin, the kind of crust that’s easier to eat with a knife and fork, but that highlights the toppings. It also has much more moisture than a typical dough crust and freezing changes the moisture. But if you try, please post back and let us know how it went. If you do try, I recommend making it a bit thicker.
You can freeze zucchini crust pizza after baking it.
A French Press works great also for extracting the water out!
The zucchini crust was a great pizza alternative. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Thanks for the recipe!
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Any advice on what might have went wrong if your “crust” came out soft still even though the top was all browned? I’m thinking maybe all the water wasn’t drained out of it….
So it was delicious! But my crust got stuck to the parchment paper! any tips on how to keep this from happening?
Buy a Silpat and place it over your pizza stone or pan. Your crust won’t stick.
we loved this pizza, my 12 yr old even ate 3 pieces without caring there was zucchini in the crust. however,,,, mine stuck to the parchment too and im sure we ate some paper, maybe next time i will just spray the stone instead of using paper?
Buy a Silpat and place it on top of your pizza stone or pan. Works like a charm 🙂
Wish I would have seen this recipe earlier this year. I’ve had tons of zucchini from my garden and given a lot away. Anxious to try this today!
I just made this and it was DELICIOUS! Here’s the proof: http://instagram.com/p/gZO9G-AOmp/#
[…] The original recipe can be found at Seattle Local Food. […]
[…] https://seattlelocalfood.com/2010/09/12/zucchini-crust-pizza/ […]
what are the calories in the recipe?
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Zucchini pizza crust
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Love your food…
Hands down, the best pizza I have ever made and ate! It was so simple and the crust was DELICIOUS! My boyfriend wanted to eat healthier but obviously not give up on everything, and this has been the best alternative for a flour pizza crust. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
I used one egg and a bit less parm. Bound great. I also used my pizza, stone. I think next time will take the crust off parchment for second cooking. Didn’t get as crispy on the bottom. But it was delicious. Possibilities are endless. I used only two tablespoons of fresh pesto as sauce. Low fat mozzarella, mushrooms, onions, heirloom tomatoes and yellow squash. Very filling. No sides. I think I will add some heat next time too. Hot peps. 🙂
This is my 3rd time making this in 2 weeks! I did exactly as recipe called for for the crust. I did add oregano for more pizza flavor and red peppers. My toppings were pineapple, black olives and turkey pepperoni. I am a repetitive eater,so I can eat this daily for a week and would love it every time! I do use fat free mozzarella cheese. I calculated all calories for my pizza and it is a nice big pizza. All total for mine is usually 550- 600 cal. Just depends on how much pineapple and cheese I use. Well worth it! Thank you so much!
Spent @ least 3 hours preparing this only to end up throwing it out!!!!
Cooked crust much longer than requested to soggy finish in the end.
I did wring zucchini out in cheesecloth as well. Very disappointing & costly experience!!!!!
Nancy
This looks so delicious! But mine came out too soggy in the end, I thought I baked it long enough. Any suggestions??? I would love for this too work. It tasted good as veggie mush hahaha.
Hi Ezzy,
It’s been a long time since I made this, but it’s a tricky recipe. The zucchini might still have had too much moisture. Maybe more parmesan and longer baking? You could always add some flour if you’re not trying to make something flour-free.
Can you use frozen zucchini in this recipe.
Hmm, I’m not sure, but my guess would be yes if it’s frozen shredded. But it would have to be defrosted first so you can squeeze water out. If it’s not shredded, it might be too difficult.
There is so much zucchini this time of the year in the US for cheap, I’d try for fresh. And some people with large gardens practically beg people to take it off their hands, as in the only zucchini poem I know of: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/html/1807/4350/poem1606.html
Reblogged this on un poco di tutto and commented:
Great recipe! Will add this to my blog. There are never enough recipes this time of year to use up my zucchinis. Thanks!
We made this with broccoli and it was dee-lish!
[…] used THIS RECIPE that I found on Pinterest and the basic steps are outlined in the pics […]
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Fantastic idea and very tasty. Made it tonight as we are having a carb free week before carb loading for a marathon. I cut the cheese to 3/4 of a cup but only because we didn’t have enough in and it still worked really well. Topped it with mozzarella, toms and pepperoni. Next time we’ll go veggie with red onions, mushrooms and toms.