Along with delicious toppings, this gluten-free, vegan pizza has a soy chorizo crust and fresh almond mozzarella! Those two items are incredible all on their own! Add some pizza sauce and yummy toppings, and you create a masterpiece!
I’m rather excited about this pizza. A couple of the items for this pizza were huge successes for me. One is the crust, and the other being the cheese. Both of which I had a little help with, let me explain how.
My story about the crust explains how this pizza got created in the first place. Just like how you physically build a pizza, that’s how the ingredients were designed as well — from the crust up. I was chatting with my friend in the UK, and he was talking about some of his baking adventures. He shared how he’d made a breakfast pizza using a chorizo crust. I stopped listening after chorizo crust because that sounded amazing! I immediately started thinking about how I was going to make my vegan, gluten-free version!
To make the crust, I used a pizza crust recipe I periodically make, but added some soy chorizo, altered the amounts of the other ingredients, and I used fresh garlic rather than garlic powder. The method I kept the same.
The first time I made it, I got everything spot on as far as flavor and cooking goes, but the amounts of soy chorizo and how many crusts it made were too odd of a number to share in a post. I had to make them a couple more times before I ended up with an even amount of crusts and an even portion of the soy chorizo. Luckily, in the end, I got everything perfect!
Next, I come to my cheese story. I have to skip the sauce because I have to admit, this time the sauce I cheated on and purchased some premade. I encourage you to use your favorite, whether that be homemade, or store-bought like me.
Before I’d actually made the crust, but had the idea for it, I had a little cheese adventure. One I was a bit apprehensive about, but it ended quite well! Over the last month, I’ve been cooking meals for a friend of mine who isn’t only vegan and gluten-free, but who is currently doing an anti-candida cleanse as well. It’s been an incredible adventure for me, and I think when I’m done helping her out, I’ll write more about it, telling you the entire story.
While on the anti-candida cleanse, my friend I’ve been cooking for can’t have any processed foods. When making a pizza at home I’ll usually cheat (because let’s face it, a pizza is usually our easy meal of the week!) and use a processed store-bought vegan mozzarella, but when cooking for her, I’m not able to do that. Sooo… I wanted to make her a pizza, but I needed to make the cheese. I’ve made a number of vegan cheeses before, but not any mozzarellas. I did a quick google search, and I found a simple recipe only it used cashews — which she can’t have, so I decided I’d try to use almonds instead. I also substituted the tapioca starch with arrowroot powder.
All that being said, I tried my version of the vegan mozzarella recipe I found, and it turned out PERFECTLY! I was amazed! I didn’t expect it to turn out even more mozzarella-y than my favorite store-bought vegan mozzarella, but it was! Since I changed a couple of the ingredients (one being the main ingredient), I didn’t even know if the recipe would turn out good at all. I was so pleasantly surprised, and it made me remember that pizza crust I wanted to make because now I had the perfect cheese as well!
Because I loved the cheese so much, I was motivated to test out my pizza crust idea, but first I had to decide on the right toppings. My friend said he did a “breakfast pizza,” but that wasn’t what I was thinking. I started trying to decide what toppings went with chorizo. I liked the sweet and spicy idea of pineapple and jalepeño. I continued to think about what might also go well with those. What I and I came up with was cilantro and both red and green onions.
My husband and I both loved this pizza! The toppings I picked went perfectly with the soy chorizo in the trust. If either pineapple or jalepeño doesn’t work for you, you could use your own choice of toppings, but you’re going to want to try this pizza crust! And if soy chorizo isn’t your thing, but you’re making pizza (or any Italian recipe) you want to try this cheese! I’ve now used it on pizzas, in quesadillas, and I even made lasagna with it!
Leave a comment and let me know what you make, whether it be just like mine, a pizza with your own toppings, or if you used the cheese on something else altogether! Also be sure to take a pic and tag me on Instagram, @veggiesattiffanis.
Vegan Chorizo-Crusted Spicy Pineapple Pizza
Ingredients
For the soy chorizo crust...
- 6 oz soy chorizo (1/2 of a standard-sized packaged) For this recipe I prefer a soy chorizo with a meatier texture. I used Trader Joe's brand.
- 1 1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 1 1/2 Tbsp garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp olive oil plus more for browning the soy chorizo
For topping...
- 3/4 cup Easy Peasy Pizza Sauce or store-bought pizza sauce of choice (ensure vegan)
- 1 - 1 1/2 cups Fresh Almond Mozzarella or vegan mozzarella of choice
- 2 cups fresh pineapple, sliced in rounds and then cut into bite-sized pieces or use canned
- 1 - 2 jalepeños, seeded and thinly sliced I used 1 large
- 1/2 cup red onion, diced
- 3/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
- 2 green onions, chopped
Instructions
- Heat a drizzle of oil in a medium skillet over medium heat and add soy chorizo. Cook until browned, stirring as needed to prevent burning. Remove from heat.
- Whisk together remaining crust ingredients. Stir in soy chorizo.
- Heat a 7 1/2 inch skillet to medium heat. Add 2 teaspoons of olive oil and once hot, pour in a quarter of the crust batter.
- Once the crust looks brown around the edges and has bubbles in the middle (like pancakes) carefully flip the crust to the opposite side using a large spatula. Turn down heat slighty.
- Once crust is browned, remove from skillet and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Continue with the rest of the batter, creating 4 pizza crusts.
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Spread each crust with pizza sauce, leaving a little bare around the edge. Add dollops of Fresh Almond Mozzarella (or vegan mozzarella of choice. Sprinkle if using shreds) on top of sauce. Next add pineapple pieces, jalepeño slices, and diced red onions.
- Place baking sheets in oven on the center rack (I fit all 4 pizzas on 2 large baking sheets). Bake for 10 minutes, removing and adding cilantro to the pizzas after 8 minutes.
- Remove pizzas from oven and top with chopped green onions. Once they've cooled for a couple of minutes, cut each pizza into 4 slices. Serve and enjoy!
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