Pieology Giveaway: New Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Cauliflower is cool these days, as Pieology‘s new cauliflower crust can attest. Once the wallflower of the veggie world, cauliflower has become a stealth ingredient to rival  zucchini. It’s being sneaked into all kinds of recipes — mashed potatoes, creamed soups, and yes, pizza crust.

The folks at Pieology, a custom-build-your-own pizza chain, invited me to stop in and try the new crust. I also have 4 cards to to give away, good for one regular custom pizza each.

Since Pieology’s only Utah stores are in Lehi (near the Traverse Mountain shopping center) and St. George, it took a couple of weeks to get there. But I was interested in trying a cauliflower crust, as one of my friends who has lost over 100 pound in the past couple of years often touts his homemade cauliflower-crust pizza. According to Pieology’s website, the company’s version is made with whole cauliflower, brown rice flour and mozzarella cheese, so it’s gluten-free.

According to the website’s Nutrition Facts, half of a cauliflower pizza crust is 230 calories (that’s before you throw on all the toppings). It also has 35 grams of carbs, six grams of protein and 1 gram of fiber.

I found the cauliflower crust to be comparable in texture to a thin-and-crispy type.The edges seemed to get darker brown than most pizzas. Since you can choose as many toppings as you want, and since I like lots of sauce and veggies on mine, I really couldn’t taste any difference once the pie was baked in the hearth oven. It was loaded with artichokes, bell peppers, olives, spinach, Canadian bacon, mushrooms, pesto, and more.

Just like cauliflower, these build-your-own pizza places are trendy right now, with Pieology, MOD Pizza, Pizza Studio, Blaze Pizza, and others leading the way. Which trend will last longer — custom-made pizzas or cauliflower? Hard to say.

Meanwhile, if you want to enter my drawing for a gift card for a free personal pizza, leave a comment at the end of this post. Tell us, what toppings will you put on your pizza? On Monday, I’ll pick the 4 winners and post their names here. Then you can contact me with a snail mail address and I’ll put your card in the mail. Easy peasy. Or, easy pizza.