Roasted vegetable cauliflower pizza

healthy pizza

I love this dish as it is a pure celebration of vegetables rather than attempting to mimic meat, which I feel many veggie options try to do. Let the vegetables do the talking!

The creamy cashew cheese and basil pesto teamed with roasted vegetables invoke authentic pizza vibes but with none of the guilt.

The cauliflower base is a revelation, as you could easily believe it is a bread dough.

Feel free to mix up your veggie choices, add a tomato base in place of pesto- play with the flavours.

I served the pizza with a dressed rocket salad and a chunky guacamole.

Nourishing, gluten free and delicious, enjoy!

Shopping list:

1 head of cauliflower

almond milk

linseeds

nutritional yeast

corn meal

½ aubergine

½ sweet potato

dried oregano

cherry tomatoes

½ courgette

6 medium chestnut mushrooms

large handful of basil

small bag of pine nuts, toasted

garlic

olive oil

lemon

1 cup cashews, soaked in water for as long as you have time or manage to remember in advance!

First, prepare your veggies. Chop the sweet potato and aubergine into 1 inch cubes and put into a large roasting tray and toss with olive oil, salt and dried oregano. Put into the oven at around 200 Celsius to roast until soft.

Next move onto the cashew cheese and pesto so you’re all ready to go later once your ‘dough’ is done. To make the cashew cheese, drain the nuts and blitz in a food processor until smooth with 1 garlic clove, ½ lemon juice and a heaped tblsp of nutritional yeast.

For the pesto, first add your basil, pine nuts, lemon and garlic to your processor once you’ve removed the cashew ‘cheese’ and blitz. No need to clean it out first, it won’t matter if these flavours mix a little. Pour in olive oil while blitzing until you have a nice creamy pesto. Set aside for later.

Next free your cauliflower from the leaves and chop into small florets. Put this into a food processor and pulse until you achieve a fine crumb. You may need to do this in batches as I did, my processor couldn’t handle the whole head!

If you have a microwave, nuke the cauliflower crumb for roughly 4 minutes or steam for about 10 minutes until softened.

While this is happening, mix a cup of linseeds with enough almond milk to cover, this concoction acts a binder for the cauliflower ‘dough’.

Pan fry sliced mushrooms and courgette with garlic.

Once the cauliflower is cool enough to touch, or if like me you are impatient, put on rubber gloves and combine with the linseed mix, salt, pepper, roughly 1 cup of corn meal, ½ cup of nutritional yeast (this adds a cheesy flavour) and combine until evenly amalgamated. If it seems too dry, add a little more almond milk, if too wet then a little more corn meal until you achieve what seems like a good dough.

With a spatula carefully spread evenly onto a large baking tray lined with baking paper and bake at 200 Celsius until darker in colour and a little crispy at the edges.

(Your roasted veggies should be finished so you can exchange them for the dough.)

Once your base looks ready, spread over evenly your cashew cheese, dollop on the pesto and spread, then tumble over all your veggies. Roast for another 10 or so minutes until everything looks roasted and delicious!

leftover pizza, broccoli mash and garlicky beans