And by good ‘n proper we mean a killer-tasting yeast pizza dough! Yup, this gluten free, paleo and keto pizza crust is a fantastic dairy-free alternative to fathead dough. Plus, no eggy business and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to whip up!
Gluten Free, Paleo & Keto Pizza Crust 🍕
Super-Tasty!
As mentioned, this is not your typical eggy or crumbly keto pizza crust. Think less than half the amount of eggs of your typical recipe, and a few other tips and tricks to ensure killer results.
And if you’ve already whipped up our keto focaccia, you already know this pizza crust is legit. Though we did add a bit of flaxseed meal here to up the fiber and decrease the carbs. A slightly more ‘wholewheat’ version, with wonderful taste and texture.
The Deets 🔍
Making this paleo and keto pizza is incredibly simple really. But, like with any yeasted bread, it does require you take care of a few details to ensure the best possible outcome.
Also note that you’ll want to blind bake the crust before adding the toppings, which is typical for all gluten free pizza really. This ensures the best texture throughout.
Now, like with any pizza, the texture of the center will depend on the thickness and how wet your ingredients are. But the results are fairly consistent with a traditional Margherita-style pizza: a thicker outer crust and a thin and more moist center. Absolutely delicious.
The Method 🔍
The yeast in this keto pizza dough ensures a wonderful texture and taste. Now, how fluffy your pizza will be post-bake depends quite a bit on your altitude. But note that you still won’t get that gummy and wet texture here of most low carb breads. Plus, we’re baking at over 7,000 feet (Mexico City here!!), so if we can make this keto pizza crust work so can you.
Weigh your ingredients. This will forever be a staple recommendation for any sort of gluten free baking here at gnom-gnom. As aside from leading to less dirty dishes, it will ensure consistent results time and time again. Remember that gluten free (and particularly keto) baking is notoriously finicky, and measuring by cups is anything but accurate. And if you don’t own a baking scale, measure with cups by dropping the ingredients onto them rather than scooping them out (which often leads to overpacking).
Ingredients at room temperature. Self explanatory really, but incredibly important (particularly for the eggs). If you add cold eggs to the mix your pizza simply won’t rise much (if at all).
Proof the yeast. This involves mixing dry active yeast with water that’s just warm to touch (between 105-110°F to be precise) and maple syrup or honey for 7 minutes until foamy. And before you scream sugar (!!) remember that the yeast will feed on such sugar to emit carbon dioxide, so it doesn’t affect the carb count at all. And yes, this is a scientific fact.
Avoid abrupt temperature changes and air drafts. Like with any yeast bread, you need to cuddle your dough. Make sure it’s able to rest undisturbed in a warm space.
Baking at high altitude? Yup, so am I (Paola here!!). I’ve tried quite a few combinations, and the one modification I will suggest is to increase your oven temperature by 25°F. You may also need to decrease the baking time by 5 minutes, but that may change from oven to oven. I’ve made this dough also at sea level and it does come out more puffy, but it’s still awesome either way.
Before & After Rise
After Blind-Bake
The Flours
We like a mixture of super fine almond flour, flaxseed meal, psyllium husk and xanthan gum best. But if paleo, substituting the xanthan gum for twice the amount of flax seed meal yielded good results too.
As previously mentioned, for the rise you’ll want active dry yeast and a touch of baking powder.
Also, to ensure best texture always be sure to re-grind your psyllium husk and flaxseed meal in a (very dry!) blender or bullet.
In terms of brands, for the almond either Anthony’s or WellBees work great. Both are super fine grinds. And for the psyllium husk you’ll want to use the NOW brand, as others may stain your keto focaccia purple.
The Recipe Video 📽
We’re working on a unique video for the pizza crust, but in the meantime the focaccia methodology is exactly the same (plus some added flaxseed meal).
Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Paleo & Keto Pizza Crust
Oh, and if baking with cups rather than grams is your thing, just click on US Cups for an instant conversion.
Ingredients
For the paleo & keto pizza crust
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons maple syrup or honey, to feed the yeast (NO SUGAR WILL BE REMAIN POST BAKE)*
- 80 ml water lukewarm between 105-110°F
- 96 g almond flour
- 30 g golden flaxseed meal finely ground (or more almond flour**)
- 28 g psyllium husk finely ground
- 1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum or 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 egg at room temperature
- 2 egg whites at room temperature
- 13 g extra virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Topping suggestions for a classic pizza Margherita
- our keto marinara sauce
- fresh mozzarella
- basil leaves
Instructions
For the keto pizza crust
- See recipe video for guidance!
- Add yeast and maple syrup (to feed the yeast, see notes) to a large bowl. Heat up water to 105-110°F, and if you don't have a thermometer it should only feel lightly warm to touch. Pour water over yeast mixture, cover bowl with a kitchen towel and allow to rest for 7 minutes. The mixture should be bubbly, if it isn't start again (too cold water won't activate the yeast and too hot will kill it).
- Mix your flours while the yeast is proofing. Add almond flour, finely ground flaxseed meal (or more almond flour, see notes), psyllium husk, xanthan gum (more flaxseed meal), baking powder and salt to a medium bowl and whisk until thoroughly mixed. Set aside.
- Once your yeast is proofed, add in the egg, egg whites, olive oil and vinegar. Mix with a whisk or electric mixer for a couple minutes until light and frothy. Add the flour mixture in two batches, mixing until thoroughly incorporated. You want to mix thoroughly and quickly to activate the xanthan gum, though the dough will become very thick by the end and form into a round.
- Line a pizza dish or baking tray with parchment paper and grease with olive oil (so the dough doesn't stick while you spread it). Dip a spatula (or your fingers) in water and spread the dough until even in thickness of choice. Fold the edges inward to create thicker edges (optional). Cover with a kitchen towel dome (don't rest the towel directly over the dough), and place in a warm draft-free space for 40-50 minutes until lighter in texture. You don't want the dough to double, but it will puff up noticeably (see pictures for reference).
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C while the dough is proofing. And if you're baking at high altitude, you'll want to bake it at 375°F/190°C.
- Transfer the dish gently into the oven and blind bake without toppings for 10-14 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from oven, add toppings of choice, and return to oven for 15-18 minutes.
- Serve right away (extra fresh basil highly suggested!).
Notes
Nutrition
I’m medically allergic to flax. What do I do to substitute it??
Hi
Has anyone ever done this recipe in a wood fired pizza oven?
Thanks,
Alexander
Oh I wish I had access to one!
I love this recipe – thank you!
How can I freeze the blind baked base ?
Any tips
Tastes delicious… BUT make sure you use Aluminum Free Baking powder – as my beautiful dough turned purple in the oven! I didn’t know baking powder even had aluminum until I googled this issue. So off to get aluminum free powder… but we all were entertained by purple pizza for the night!
Certain brands of psylium husk turn baked goods purple. It’s thoroughly addressed on another keto website (not sure it’s allowed to mention here). Never heard or seen baking powder turn things purple.
Correct its the psyllium Geri! Even some of you have reported back that the NOW brand also does it on occasion.
p.s. you can definitely drop the name of other Keto blogs here! Not to sound cheesy, but we’re all in this together 😉
This is my favorite replacement pizza crust. I have tried a lot of them, and I had almost given up. I didn’t like any of them especially fathead. This one has a really great flavor. I give it 4 stars only because it is quite difficult to work with in my opinion. It always cracks when I roll it out. It’s very soft when I’m kneading it but when I take it out of the fridge, it’s really difficult to get a good size. I am constantly piecing the edges back together. I follow the recipe exactly. My only thought, is that I leave it in the fridge to long (about 3 hours) and maybe I should add more liquid?
Either way I love the taste !
Paola, this was excellent. I used it to make a cheeseburger bacon pizza. My kids said the crust tasted like “cake”. Ha! I’ll take that as a win. 😉 Though next time I may blind bake it a little longer. Still, it wasn’t soggy, which was a very pleasant surprise. Thank you!
My dough is brown ish, not crispy at all – very mushy after the blind bake and the taste is a little funky – not sure what I did wrong
Hi
Am wondering how to replace Psyllium Husk? I caanot eat it
Thank you!
Karen
Hi, I made this for dinner last night. I doubled the recipe, used the extra flax seed option in place of xanthan gum, and halved the psyllium as am having a few irritation problems with psyllium.
Pressed into a large rectangular baking dish. 15 inches x 10 inches, and had a little leftover for a small circular pizza as well. Put the dish to rise for 20 minutes above the fire (chilly spring here in NZ).
The result was delicious deep pan pizza texture, with toppings!
Next time, I may try reducing the psyllium further, and the time after that seeing what happens if I exclude the eggs and just use the flax seed as the binder and thickener.
This recipe is a keeper, and what’s more I have dinner already made for tonight! Yahoo! More time in the veg garden. Thank you very, very much for sharing your final recipe which I know is the tip of the iceberg for recipe development!
Is there a recommended substitute for the egg and whites?
I made a flax egg with decent results. Might not be as fluffy as with egg, but it worked!
Can sugar free syrup be used instead (I use Lakanto which is sweetened with monkfruit) or does the yeast need the sugar to rise properly?
Yeast needs a little sugar, but it does not up the carb count. I just added one tablespoon of honey and the recipe worked just fine.
This was great! Thanks! Looking forward to using more of your recipes!!
I did half a recipe yesterday. I arranged the recipe using one egg (was hard to have half an egg plus one white). I made one small pizza (2 servings) and I put the other dough in the fridge (to use later). I didn’t blind bake the pizza before adding the toppings. I put Roma pepperoni cheddar sweet green peppers and mushrooms. It was DELICIOUS😁😋. Thank you. I wanted to know… if I prepared more dough, do you know if it could be frozen ?
Are you able to make this into a calzone?
Search the site hit calzone 😉
Does inulin have the same result as the honey?
Yet again, another amazing recipe from your blog. This was better then any pizzaria keto crust, so fluffy and light. I will be making again. Next time I will add Italian seasoning to the dough!
Hi is it possible to substitute the yeast with baking powder or baking soda instead as we can’t use yeast?
Also did anyone find a way to make this by replacing the egg with something else?
Thanks!
Trying this tonight… the only place I could find psyllium husk in my grocery store was the fibre supplement section, so I grabbed the one that said ‘100% organic psyllium husk’ only to find as I was making the recipe that it also had organic cane sugar mixed in 🤬🤬🤬
I used it anyway and I’ll just deal with the extra carbs, but it’s a good reminder to ALWAYS READ THE LABEL lol I did find some regular husk in the local health food store afterwards so that will be my go-to from now on. Thanks and I can’t wait to see how this turns out!!
I started making the dough, went to the pantry to grab the psyllium and Oh No!! the jar is empty! So I increased the amount of flaxseed meal to equal the 28 g of psyllium. Well after beating in my mixmaster the dough was still much tackier/wetter than it should’ve been. Knowing psyllium is hygroscopic I decided to add chia seeds to absorb the moisture to get a better consistency like in the video. I sprinkled in 2 – 3 tsp. of the chia. They worked like a charm! the dough raised up nicely and baked like a dream. The calorie count will be higher due to the fats in the extra flaxseed and the chia seeds but the carb count should remain the same due to the offsetting fibre. The pizza was great and the chia made a great substitution.
Can this crust and then topped pizza be done in a gas bbq?
I cooked mine on an oiled Silpat on a pizza stone preheated for 20 minutes. The flavor was very good, but did not get a crusty bottom and there was the occasional chewy doughy section.
I would be inclined to increase the temperature up to 400°+. Thoughts?
Same thing happened to me! I was wondering the same, if I raised the temp… also I will try to making the dough thinner, and use a pizza stone next time, in hopes that it will get crispy! Other than that, I loved it!
I cooked it at 425 for half of the time hoping it would get crispy but it just kind of burned and didn’t get crispy.
If you want it to get crispy you gotta do the opposite, lower temp for longer time 😉 xo!
hello
what can the flax seed powder be substituted with that is also high in fibre . I dont like the fishy taste it leaves in the pizza crust.
Please and thank you.
Are you using regular flaxseed or golden? Makes a world of difference (ie. you shouldn’t be tasting it)
Can the psyllium husk be left out? I cant stand the taste. I’ve thrown away so many recipes because of that one ingredient. I made this tonight and it cooked beautifully but, threw the crust away and only ate the parts with the toppings.
I just started eating under the keto lifestyle and your site is my favorite. I feel sorta ignorant in some areas though. I had tried to read many recipes because they have lots of helpful info in them however there are a few things I need guidance on. When you say weigh your ingredients, does that mean use metric? When I researched it I found that a cup of different flours weigh different oz then I got really confused. And just weigh the ones with grams? Also, when you say regrind, even when the Now psyllium is like powder? can i use a ninja? I’ve tried to make items with the products I can find near home but wow, what a variety! I’ve spent a small fortune on Amazon trying to get exactly what you use to hopefully make things a little better. So far marginal success …and the pizza dough sorta discouraged me. i spent too many hours cuz I was wanting pizza with the family and it was a bit too slimy,undone for me to stomach. I thought I was exact on everything. I probably didn’t spread the dough out enough because it started breaking apart.
I really appreciate how you answer everyone and was wishing you had a number to call lol! I’ve never baked from scratch and you are inspiring!
Thank you for your obvious time and effort in helping others eat healthier without missing too many ‘regular’ foods!
I gave you 5 stars because i’m sure any errors were mine!
Can I use coconut four instead of almond flour? thank you
Hi, perhaps I missed it in the recipe but wondering the diameter of the pizza dough when you roll it out.
Thanks!
Cindy
What about subbing psyllium husk powder for the flax? I don’t tolerate flax very well.
Can this dough be made in advance and kept in the fridge or even frozen?
Hi MJ! I have frozen the extra fluffy pizza crust (a variation of this one) after blind baking it for about 25 minutes. Then I thawed it out overnight, added toppings and baked for about 20. hope this helps!
Is it ok to make the dough, keep it in the fridge and then bake it the next day? Or should you bake it, refrigerate and then rebake the following day?
Fantastic site Paola ! This recipe was so close to perfect, but one major problem. This asked for 6 times the usual Xanthan Gum. (1.5 tsp). I thought this was a misprint ? I pushed forward with the 1.5 tsps. While the pizza was baking I noticed in our kitchen sink a piece of the pizza dough had touched water and literally turned to brown slime. The combination of Psylum Husk and Xanthan Gum made each bite of pizza slide slimily down with each swallow. Perhaps fix / update this recipe with 1/4 tsp Xanthan, and 3 TBSP of Vital Wheat Gluten intead ?
Hi John! 1 1/2 tsp is actually fairly standard for a yeast type bread in gluten free baking. I’m not sure what ingredient could’ve caused the sliminess… I unfortunately can’t help you with the vital wheat as I have celiacs so that stuff is literally poison to me xo!
The oil in grams sounds confusing and difficult to measure.
How much would that be in tbsp please?
Just click on US Cups below the ingredients 😉
Made this tonight for dinner. Husband and I both loved it! I did forget to grind my psyllium husk (oops), I usually keep whole husk on hand and grind what I need. Still turned out great. Followed the rest of the recipe exactly. The dough was very wet at first, I’m guessing because of my oops earlier. Baked find and tasted great. Can’t wait to try more of your recipes.