So, when I came upon this recipe for a gluten free pizza, I thought I would give it a try (originally posted here).

Ingredients:
Crust:
2 Cups Almond Meal/Flour
2 Eggs
2 Tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tsp salt

Sauce:
1 Can Tomato Paste
1-2 Cups Water (To desired thickness)
1 Tsp Dried Oregano
1 Tsp Garlic

Toppings:
Whatever you want!  We used fresh shredded swiss and mozzarella, chicken, bacon and onion!

Instructions:
Crust:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. This should give you a ball of “dough”. If your dough is too “mushy” (like mine was), continue to add almond flour until you get a good consistency.
3. Make a pizza sheet or baking tray non-stick. This is VERY important if you want your pizza slices to come off in one piece.
4. Press your dough on the sheet nice and even about 1/4 inch in the middle and 1/2 inch at the edges.
5. Put crust in the oven for 15 minutes. It should look slightly golden brown when you take it out.

Sauce:
1. In a saucepan, combine all ingredients. Use water to desired thickness. We like ours pretty thick. Feel free to add more spice if you want it, too.
2. Simmer on stove for approximately 15 minutes.

Toppings:
You will want to pre-cook any meat going on your pizza. Veggies can go on fresh and raw, or cooked depending on your preference. Your favorite cheese will do, but I recommend the 50/50 mix of mozzarella and swiss that we used. It melted perfectly and tasted great!

Put it all together:
1. After crust comes out of the oven, spread sauce evenly over crust.
2. Add your cheese and toppings evenly on top of sauce.
3. Put back in the oven and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 15 more minutes. Cheese should be evenly melted.
4. Slice and enjoy!

Results:  Two thumbs up!

We were very pleasantly surprised by the result.  The almond flour (the “secret” ingredient) made a very passable dough.  My oven took a little longer at 350 F than in the recipe, about 23 minutes.  We added the tomato sauce (very easy to make and in a pinch you could use a ready made sauce), plenty of cheese (we used a mix of mozzarella and cheddar), red peppers, onions, garlic, and a good quality pepperoni.

We found this pizza surprisingly filling.  Almond flour is denser, it did not have the light and bubbly texture of traditional pizza dough, but it was not a brick either.  Almond flour  has significantly more fat and less carbs than wheat flour, making the dish much healthier than conventional pizza.  In my day I could pack away plenty of pieces of pizza, but I found that after two pieces I was very pleasantly full.  My wife didn’t even make it through her second piece.  And the good news is that it tasted just as good the next morning.

Both my wife and I were very pleased with this recipe and have added it to our cooking list.  We’ll definitely make this again.  The only downside, almond flour is spendy, but that’s probably a blessing in disguise or we’d be having pizza more often than we should.  I will be recommending it to patients who cannot tolerate wheat but are longing for pizza.

What are your thoughts?  Have you cooked with almond flour before?  We’d love to hear about it.  Share your experiences below.