One of my favorite things about whole foods vegan eating is the creativity. It suits the inclination of that question I asked myself more than two decades ago, upon first learning the results of an ELISA test: what can I eat? With that question I embarked on a long fascinating voyage through the ups and downs of changing plant-based dietary limitations that I’m still traveling today. One of the best ways to continue that voyage is to sail the waters of YouTube after a google search like “gluten free pizza crust.”
I had no idea when I typed those words in that beside the recipes with gluten free flours, there would be a constellation of recipes I could make entirely without flour, from such staples as quinoa, millet, sweet potatoes, oats and yes, even black beans and lentils, and that all of these were oil free, and some were fat free as well. I jumped right in to experiment.
The first one I tried was simplicity itself: Savy Vegan’s Two Ingredient Quinoa Pizza Crust. It’s literally 1 cup of raw quinoa and 1 cup of water, blended. You can add any spices you want. It worked even in my no frills Osterizer. If it worked with quinoa, why not millet? And I was off to the flatbread pizza crust races.
I read other recipes, too, ones that said to soak the quinoa, soak the millet. I tried that as well, but ultimately it doesn’t seem necessary. I came up with one that combined millet, quinoa and cooked potato, inspired by this sweet potato oat pizza crust from Vegan Nomad Chick.
There are many recipes for red lentil pizza crust, but since I didn’t have any red lentils I tried versions of this one from Vie de La Vegan for brown lentils. The jury’s still out on that.
But by far the most intriguing to me was this Black Bean Crust Pizza from Sweet Potato Soul. I was very impressed with this one and wanted to try a version of it I would not have to do the fancy cookie sheet flip on she is able to pull off in the video. The way to do that, I reasoned, was to include some millet (often my answer). The result is probably my favorite one, and the most original or unlike all the recipes I’ve tried. So I’ll share my version here. Couldn’t a done it without the innovations of all these other great young ladies inspiring me, especially Sweet Potato Soul,
Black Bean and Millet Pizza Crust
I cup of cooked black beans
1/2 cup of millet, uncooked
between tbs-1/4 cup of ground golden flax seed.
garlic or garlic granules
oregano
cumin
1/2 cup of water.
Preheat oven to 425. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
Starting with the millet on the bottom and moving through the solid ingredients add everything to your blender, water last. I just have an old “beater” Osterizer, so I start on grind, to help get the millet going. Then I move to liquify. When I have a wet batter, I pour/push it out of the blender with a spatula, spreading it in a circular shape on the cookie sheet. (This is going to make a pizza for one very hungry person, or, at the most, two polite eaters. So even if you don’t have a round pizza pan, you should be able to make a round shape on a rectangular cookie sheet. Or heck, make a rectangular one if you want. But the round one is easier to flip.)
Place the spread batter into the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Take it out and flip it over like a large pancake. I just loosen it all around with a spatula and then slide it under and flip. It’s worked every time I’ve made any of these pizzas, and by now I’ve made at least a dozen, if not more. This one with the beans is a little more precarious, but it still flipped. If you’re afraid of doing that you can try Sweet Potato Soul’s need trick for flipping hers, which does not have any millet in it. I think the grain gives the crust body and helps to flip it the way I did.
Bake ten more minutes. Take it out and spread your sauce and toppings on. The sky is the limit but on this particular crust I made my tomato paste like barbeque sauce, adding a little vinegar, date paste, garlic and lots of smoked paprika. Then I put some baby arugula, some sliced yellow squash, sliced in half cherry tomatoes, chopped garlic and seasonings of choice.
Put it back in the oven for 5-10 minutes to let the topics warm and cook. Take it out and tear fresh basil over the top. Grate a cashew over it for fun too. And get ready to enjoy your very own gluten free flatbread pizza party.
I hope you have as much fun exploring these videos and pizza crusts as I did. Nothing like pizza to make a meal a party!
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Looks fantastic!