Perfect Gluten-Free Pizza Crust Vegan Recipe

This vegan gluten-free pizza crust is deliciously chewy, bakes up nice and crispy, and will make you feel like you’ve had a “regular” pizza!

Vegan Gluten-Free Pizza Crust Can Be Delicious

Not too long ago, I was thinking (lamenting?) I might go the rest of my life and never have a good pizza crust. Every other gluten-free pizza crust I’ve tried is like a cracker. Even at pizza restaurants, the GF crusts were a fail.

Gluten-free baking often uses eggs in an attempt (usually failed) to add some of that delightfully chewy texture that real bread with all the yummy glutens has in it. That makes it even more difficult to find good gluten pizza crust that’s also vegan. 

Helpful Items for a Perfect Gluten-Free Pizza Crust

Here’s a list of things I found really helpful in making this recipe! Note: Some may be affiliate links! 

• I probably wouldn’t make nearly as much bread without my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. <— That’s a link to one like I have. I love it and use it almost every day. I got mine many years ago when I got into regular breadmaking. When I became gluten-free I stopped using it to knead bread (it’s great for other things!). Now, I’m a bread-making fool again, just gluten-free, and the dough hook on this works great on this GF bread. Of course, kneading by hand works great, too!
• This inexpensive French rolling pin is pretty awesome. It’s so easy to use!
• Psyllium Husk Powder is the secret ingredient in this recipe and gives this crust an authentic texture!
• A bullet-type blender like this NutriBullet will help with the secret ingredient!
• Otto’s Naturals Cassava Flour is the best cassava flour I’ve used. It’s soft, finely ground, gluten-free, and can be used just like wheat flour.
• I used Fleischmann’s Instant Dry Yeast for much of my bread-making projects lately because that’s what my local store had (and then they ran out and I made GF sourdough starter, DIY coming soon!) but Bella Rise Instant Dry Yeast is a great product, too.
• A good pizza pan always comes in handy! This one is pretty inexpensive, too.
• And, last but not least, Lactic Acid works so well and makes sure your crust doesn’t turn purple!

Secret Ingredient for Perfect GF Pizza Crust

Here’s the secret ingredient that has made GF pizza crust as good as the original … 

Psyllium Husk Powder

This works like a miracle in adding the right texture to GF baked goods, especially pizza crust. It’s pretty much just fiber and works naturally to rid the body of cholesterol, especially “bad” cholesterol. 

Soluble Fiber Is Healthy!

Psyllium husk powder is super high in soluble fiber. You may have used it before and not even known it, it’s the main ingredient in fiber products like Metamucil. Soluble fiber helps digestion, but it’s also beneficial to just about every part of the body, including the pancreas and heart. 

Psyllium husk powder is heart-healthy because the fiber if contains escorts excess and bad LDL cholesterol out of the body. It binds to it and moves it on through, basically.  

How to Keep Psyllium Husk Powder from Turning Purple?

One of the drawbacks of using psyllium husk powder is that it turns just a little purple when baked. This gives a super weird and honestly unappetizing look to bread. It still tastes delicious but looks like an alien food experiment. 

The Easiest Way to Keep Psyllium Husk Powder from Turning Purple is Lactic Acid!

The easiest way to keep psyllium husk from turning your bread purple is to acidify the dough. There are a couple of ways to do that but the best is to use a bit of lactic acid. Lactic acid is usually vegan and while you can’t locate it easily at your corner store you can certainly get it at larger online shops, most notably Amazon. I used the Mezzoni Lactic Acid. It works so easily and lactic acid has the added benefit of giving a sourdough-like taste. The lemon juice method below will give the bread a more sour but citrus flavor.

Another plus to lactic acid is that it works really well in vegan cheese making as well.

Alternatively, and this is a second-choice method if you can’t get lactic acid, you can solve this problem with a bit of lemon juice. This takes just a minute or two and makes a big difference in the color of the finished product. I’m pretty sure it’s the acid in the lemon juice but am not sure. Just place the psyllium husk powder into a small cup and cover it with a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. It will sort of “bleach out” the psyllium husk powder while at the same time turning the powder and juice into a thick, fairly hard, rubbery blob. 

The rubbery chunk of bleached-out psyllium husk and lemon juice mixture must be broken down, though, so it can be added to the flours. Do this by scooping it into a bullet-type blender with about 3/4 cup of the water called for in the recipe. Blend it until it’s smooth. Now it’s going to be more like … well,  it’s thinner, let me put it that way. It’s more like a gelatinous smoothie now. But again, this is where the structure and chewy texture comes from. 

Egg-Free Gluten-Free Baking!

Often, gluten-free pizza crust recipes, or any gluten-free bread recipe for that matter, will use eggs as a way to get some of that stretchy texture. It doesn’t work very well for the texture, it smells horrible, is not vegan, and is totally unnecessary. The psyllium husk powder, along with a few other things, creates a perfectly chewy crust.

Yeast for GF Bread 

When my kids were little and we made bread together, I told them it was yeast farts that made the bread rise. #momoftheyear But that’s a basically true description of how yeast works. #facts #science

Any yeast can be used and this works great with a GF sourdough starter, too. It’s important to first “proof” most yeast to start. That means just put it in a bit of warm (not too hot!) water with a bit of sugar and see what it does. If the yeast is viable it will poof up and make clouds of yeast colonies. This only takes a few minutes. 

So basically, Metamucil and yeast farts come together here with delicious GF flours to make the best tasting, best-textured vegan gluten-free pizza crust I’ve ever had. Watch the video above to see how soft and stretchy the dough is!

Here’s the recipe.  Let me know how yours turns out!

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Vegan Gluten-Free Pizza Crust

This vegan gluten-free pizza crust is deliciously chewy, bakes up nice and crispy, and will make you feel like you've had a "regular" pizza!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Vegan

Keyword gluten free pizza, vegan gluten free pizza crust, vegan pizza

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

rise time 30 minutes

Servings 12

Calories 105 kcal

Ingredients

Yeast Mixture

• 1 3/4 cups warm water 100 to 110 degrees f, divided
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoon yeast
• 3 tablespoon oil

Flours & Dry Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups cassava flour see notes for flour tips
• 1/2 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup corn starch
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1 tablespoon white chia seed finely ground
• 1 tablespoons psyllium husk
• 1/2 teaspoons lactic acid

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl, place 1 cup of the warm water and the sugar. Make sure the water is NOT warmer than 100 degrees F. Sprinkle in the dry active yeast. Let stand for several minutes until the yeast begins to grow.

2. In another large mixing bowl, add the flour, corn starch, xanthan gum, and ground chia (optional), lactic acid and whisk together.

3. Using alternative lemon juice method: In a small bowl, add the psyllium husk powder and mix with the lemon juice, Let this stand for a few minutes until the powder looks a little bleached. It will set up into a hardish blob. Scoop the psyllium husk powder mixture into a bullet-type blender with the 3/4 cup water left and puree until smooth. Pour the blended psyllium husk mixture into the yeast mixture, add the oil, and mix until everything is incorporated.

4. Add the flour/dry ingredients mix and, using a dough hook or by hand, knead for a few minutes until the dough is well blended and stretchy, Add more water or more corn starch, if needed, to get your perfect consistency.

5. Roll out onto a pizza pan or cookie sheet and let sit in a warm place for about an hour until the dough has risen a bit. Optionally, the rise time can be cut to as low as 10 minutes for a crispier crust.

6. Add your sauce and toppings and bake at 500 degrees F for 15-20 minutes.

Recipe Notes

If you'd rather not blend flours or don't have cassava flour then just use 2 cups of any all-purpose gluten-free flour mix.  For store-bought, I prefer Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour.

Nutrition Facts

Vegan Gluten-Free Pizza Crust

Amount Per Serving

Calories 105

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

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Lisa Viger Gotte

Hello! I’m Lisa, a vegan artist, photographer, author, Vegan Life Coach Educator, and RYT 200 yoga teacher. I love showing others how simple and delicious a plant-based diet can be. I draw and paint, cook, write, take lots of pics, eat lots of chocolate, and practice gratitude daily.