What is pizza with chickpea flour?
This pizza dough is not made with chickpeas, but with chickpea flour.
I love using chickpea flour for these savory recipes because it is a very low moisture flour which makes it easy to work with. Also, while the pizza dough will have a slight chickpea aroma, the taste is not really felt in the final result.
To be honest, I don’t usually make recipes with chickpea flour. It’s perfect for pizza though, really perfect.
To achieve a better result, I combine it with a little starch or tapioca, thus giving it a better texture and flavor. The combination of starch and chickpea flour makes for a very healthy, high fiber pizza.
Chickpea flour is simply dried chickpea that has been ground into a fine powder. You can buy it already made in many supermarkets or health food stores or you can also make it at home. In fact I have a post on how to make chickpea flour at home.
How to make pizza with chickpea flour
Have you tried the socca? It is a traditional Italian pizza. This pizza dough is slightly similar to a socca but slightly crispier.
Like socca, it is a yeast-free, gluten-free dish and is also pan-fried.
Also to make it we use a combination of chickpea flour and starch. We also add olive oil (or the oil you prefer) and cheese to the mixture to give our dough more elasticity.
Ahh and obviously we also added a little salt and some herbs to it for an extra touch of flavor.
Once we have the dough made, we don’t have to wait for it to rise because it is yeast-free. Think of a texture more similar to a thin and crispy crust like some Italian stone pizzas.
We take the dough and stretch it in a hot pan over medium heat covered where we are going to cook it until it is golden on the bottom.
It is really a very easy dish to make and perfect for those moments when we have a craving for something tasty and quick.
What is the texture of the chickpea pizza dough?
In short: A slightly crunchy and delicious texture.
By adding olive oil and cheese to the pizza dough itself it has a very good richness and flavor. The starch gives it a bit of that chewiness or squishy that we get used to with breads and doughs.
In addition, the starch also helps the pizza dough to brown in a more even and uniform way.
How to Substitute Recipe Ingredients: Something for Every Taste and Food Allergies
Cheese and dairy:
This recipe has cheese in the batter and as a topping.
The topping is really easy to substitute and you can choose practically any plant based cheese that you like. On the other hand you can just skip it and choose your favorite vegan toppings.
The Parmesan that we use in the dough is a bit more difficult to substitute. Vegetable cheeses have a higher water content and are therefore more moist than traditional Parmesan. If you are going to use one of those cheeses in the dough, use only 1/2 cup of water and taste. whether or not it needs more moisture.
Starch:
I really don’t recommend substituting the starch in this recipe. If you don’t have tapicoa flour you can try it with cornstarch and the result will be similar. Potato starch is also a good substitute.
Chickpea flour pizza recipe
Ingredients
For the pizza dough
- 2/3 cup chickpea flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca starch
- 1 tablespoon of dried herbs such as oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Pinch of pepper
- 3/4 cup of warm water (reduce to 1/2 cup if you use a plant based cheese)
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese
For the pizza topping
- A handful of cherry tomatoes cut in half
- 1 cup of grated cheese
- Optional: Kale or spinach
Directions:
- To make the pizza dough, in a small bowl add the chickpea flour, starch, dried herbs, salt, and pepper. Mix.
- Add the water and 1 tablespoon olive oil and mix until well incorporated.
- Add the Parmesan cheese and with the help of a spoon mix well until it is a smooth table.
- Put the rest of the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the dough and spread it into an even layer. Cover with the tomatoes, cheese and with the toppings of your choice. Cover the pan and let it cook for about 5 minutes. The center should be set and the edges should be lightly browned.
- Take the pan to the oven and cook for 3 more minutes at about 200 degrees Celsius so that the cheese bubbles.
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