With the cold weather here I have been craving comfort food and one of my favourite comfort food dishes is the pepperoni pizza casserole. Although I will never cease to enjoy digging into a plate of this casserole it is a little high on the calories and the carbs so I thought that I would make a new, lighter, version using cauliflower as the base rather than pasta. This casserole is super easy to make, you simply cook the cauliflower, and I like to roast it since it add that caramelized flavour, mix it with some pizza sauce and your favourite pizza toppings, top it with cheese and more of your favourite toppings and bake it until it is golden brown and bubbling. With all of the different toppings to choose from this cauliflower pizza casserole will never get boring and you can’t go wrong with the classic pepperoni topping!
All of the flavours of pizza in a lighter cauliflower casserole!
Puree the cauliflower and serve as a lighter alternative to pizza dip while watching the game!
Cauliflower Pepperoni Pizza Casserole
All of the flavours of a pepperoni pizza in a low carb cauliflower casserole!
ingredients
- 1 large cauliflower, cut into florets
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 2 cups pizza sauce
- 2 ounces pepperoni
- 1/4 cup black olives, sliced
- 1 cup mozzarella, shredded
- 1/4 cup parmigiano reggiano (parmesan), grated
- 1/4 teaspoon oregano (optional)
directions
- Toss the cauliflower in the oil, place on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast in a preheated 400F/200C oven until it starts to caramelize, about 20-30 minutes, mixing half way through.
- Mix the cauliflower, pizza sauce, pepperoni and olives, reserving some pepperoni and olives, place in a baking dish, sprinkle on the cheese followed by the reserved toppings and the oregano.
- Bake in a preheated 350F/180C oven until the cheese has melted and the sides are bubbling, about 20 minutes.
Option: Steam the cauliflower instead of roasting it.
Option: Puree the cauliflower and turn it into a side or a dip!
Pepperoni Pizza Casserole
BBQ Chicken Cauliflower Crust Pizza
Eggplant Pizzas
Chipotle BBQ Bacon and Grilled Corn Zucchini Crust Pizza
Pizza Quesadillas (aka Pizzadillas)
Pizza Dip
Cauliflower Enchilada Casserole
Cheesy Margherita Pizza Hummus with Pesto Pita Chips
Stuffed Crust Pizza Dip
Pizza Stuffed Chicken
Pepperoni Pizza Spaghetti Squash
Love that you took pizza and made it about 82 billion times healthier! This look delish Kevin!
Oh man this cauliflower casserole that involves pizza flavorings is right up my alley. We love love love cauliflower and I like this addition to it.
Yah, I could go for this pizza tonight! Looks great Kevin!!
Great twist on pizza!
What a great idea low-carbing it with cauliflower Kevin! We've been eating lots of cauliflower lately so I love this idea!
This is very creative Kevin & I love it has no pizza dough in the recipe 🙂
What awesome flavors Kevin! I bet it is so tasty that no one notices that they are essentially just eating a ton of vegetable!
Gotta make this tonight.
But where does all the sodium come from? or is it a typo?
Rogelio Valencia: Actually most of the sodium comes from the fact that the tool that I use to calculate Nutritional Facts used a generic store bought pizza sauce. If you use the recipe that I link to or make your own, there will be a lot less sodium!
Great idea! Like the idea of dipping into it as a snack, like you would with nachos!
I love using cauliflower for substitutes for everything! It's a blank slate, and this looks great!
Good stuff, Kevin! Love this! ~~ally 🙂
I think I would be going back for seconds with this great twist on pizza dish!
This is such a great meal my whole family would eat. love it, kevin!
Whoa! What a crazy and awesome idea!!
Sues
We made it! Simply awesome!!! 😀 Timi from Hungary
What size baking dish would you recommend? I have a 9×9 & 9×13 glass pan, or a ceramic pie plate.
woooow! i love it!!!
and I remember the first time you did this with cauliflower, I was so impressed!
I bet cast iron would fire up a nice crispy crust.
Say what… This looks amazing. Pinned.
Cauliflower is such a cool vegetable. So many things you can do with it.
Mmmm..it looks soo good!
wow. when i saw the title i thought…. well, never mind, lol! but i can see the flavors together, and it actually looks pretty good. great job kevin!
Oh man. This looks incredible Kevin!
That looks SO good…I'd be happy to get this in cauliflower…I'm getting so hungry looking at this! Using Tequila is quite creative and smart! 😀
At 12:30AM, there's nothing I'd rather do that stuff my face with this amazingness here!
This sounds right up my alley! Pinning!
Super creative! I too crave comfort foods when it's cold and this delicious and satisfying. 🙂
Tina at http://www.tinaschic.com
AHHHH this recipy is TO Delish to handle 🙂 love your blog and im following now.
Check out my blog today…my all time fav. lasagna recipy 🙂
Have a fab week dear
LOVE Maria at inredningsvis – inredning it's, Swedish for decor 🙂
Nicole Boyd: I like the bigger baking dish for this as you can get more cheese on it 🙂 The smaller one will work as well though.
Delicious!
Catching up on your posts and I've pinned so many, Kevin! Everything looks great and I bet this would be a partytime favorite! pinned
I will be making this tonight. I'm hoping my son will not complain. He's a picky eater just like his mama. 😉 Thanks for the recipe.
I loved this! Most important – hubby loved it too! Made it last night with a few tweaks – I used ground meat instead of pepperoni. Added onions and bell pepper and threw in a few dried mushrooms…
I made this last night with a few minor tweaks – used ground meat instead of pepperoni…added onions and bell pepper to the meat. I loved it!! more importantly, hubby loved it too! Thanks, Kevin!!!
MsAstor: I am glad that you enjoyed it!
Made this for last night's dinner. It was fantastic. The only problem was that DH and I devoured the whole thing, and didn't leave anything for lunch today! Next time I am going to try to roast some mushrooms along with the cauliflower.
Jessica: Roasted mushrooms would be a great addition!
Any estimate on how many cups of cauliflower florets you need? My grocery store has small cauliflower heads and not sure ifi need 1.5 or 2
Any estimate on how many cups of cauliflower florets you need? My grocery store has small cauliflower heads and not sure ifi need 1.5 or 2
Me: 2 small heads will be perfect!
This looks so good!!
Has anyone tried this recipe with frozen cauliflower?
Made this as my lunch for the week. Added 2 zucchinis, mushrooms, onion and garlic and it was sooo good! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
I made this on the weekend and it was delicious. It tasted like I was eating something really naughty!
Meadows08: I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I have had this recipe pinned for quite some time. Why did I wait so long? This was AWESOME! I sauteed some onions, peppers and garlic and added them to the mix. My family devoured this! I actually preferred the cauliflower to pasta! Thanks for this keeper!
I just made this and it's absolutely delicious! Didn't have any pepperoni, so substituted chorizo. Incredibly simple and so good!
This is by far my favorite low carb recipe. BY FAR. I like to add extra cream and butter to the cauliflower and annihilate it with my VitaMix and then portion it out in ramekins. The rest of the fam isn’t low carb, but they will eat this with pleasure so sometimes I have to make it as a whole casserole. 🙂
Another gem….yummm
I made this for dinner tonight as my hubby made homemade pizza for himself and the boys. I am definitely not feeling deprived or like I’m missing out on ANYTHING!!! This tasted just like my homemade pizza always did…minus the crust! Unbelievable! This will be my go-to whenever I want pizza flavour! Btw…I added some ground beef and bacon! Thanks so much!