Whether you’re gluten free or not (I’m not), there’s no denying that eating a high fiber diet is the healthiest way to go. As a country, we don’t consume enough fiber. There are too many refined products on the market for us to grab, too many cheaper items made with bleached and enriched flours…and none of those things are good for us. Eating more fiber is just a really easy way to make our bodies function better. I always up the fiber count in all of the meals I feed myself and my family. And I don’t eat a lot of packaged foods but when I do, that’s the number I’m looking at- not calories or fat, but fiber.
So if we’re eating rice in my house, it’s brown. If bread is on the menu, it’s 100% whole grain. When we’re having pasta night at home, I’m boiling up whole wheat, or buckwheat (soba) noodles, or even brown rice or farro pasta, just so we can get a little bit more of the good stuff in our bodies. And when it’s pizza night, I make my own dough. It’s either whole wheat…
…or lately I’ve been experimenting with gluten free dough recipes. The first one I wrote was good…
…but then I revisited it and came up with an even better one.
This pizza crust provides you with 3 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein per slice. And if you top yours with a lot of vegetables, you can double that!
*Super Healthy/High Fiber/Gluten Free Pizza Dough
(Makes enough dough for 2 medium pizzas)
•In a small glass or plastic bowl, combine the following:
-1 TB active dry yeast
–1 tsp sugar
–3/4 cup warm water (should feel like bath water- very warm and almost hot, but not scalding.)
•Stir together until everything is fully combined.
•Allow to sit for about 5 minutes, or until the mixture foams and swells.
(If nothing happens in your yeast mixture, your yeast was bad or your water was the wrong temperature. Start the process again.)
•In the bowl of your standing mixer, combine the following:
-1 cup brown rice flour
–1/2 cup potato flour
–1/2 cup teff flour
–1/2 cup coconut flour
–1/2 cup tapioca starch (or cornstarch)
–1 tsp ground flax
–1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
•Turn the mixer on to stir the flours together using the paddle attachment
•With the mixer on low, pour in your yeast/sugar/water mixture and
-3 TB extra virgin olive oil
–3/4 cup warm water
•Mix on medium speed until it becomes a dough.
•Switch to the dough hook and knead your dough on medium to medium-high speed for 5-7 minutes til the dough is a smooth ball.
•Place your dough ball into a large, oiled glass bowl and oil the top of the dough before covering with plastic wrap. Set aside in a warm place and allow to rise for anywhere from 2-4 hours.
(You won’t see a big rise on the dough but it will slightly. The longer you let it sit- the stronger the flavors will be.)
•After it rises, split the dough in half and place each half into two greased sheet trays. Press it out with your fingers to about 1/2 an inch thick.
•Bake in a preheated 350 oven and bake for 15 minutes.
•Remove the par-baked crusts from the oven and bump up the heat to 400 while you add whatever toppings you’d like.
•Cook your topped pizza at 400 for about 10 minutes, or until your cheese has melted.
As you saw in the recipe photo, we like to make ours a veggie pizza and top with pre- sautéed or roasted veggies and finish with some lemon zest and grated parm. It’s so good!
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