“But… you can’t eat pizza?” That’s the standard incredulous sentence I hear when I tell people I’m gluten intolerant. Well, that or something sad about baguette. Quebeckers really love their breads. I know. I’ve eaten them (pre-gluten intolerance). I even essentially wrote a love letter to one once.
But I admit that I don’t miss pizza that much, because even if I could eat the crust, I couldn’t eat the cheese (fake cheese, e.g. oil- or nut-based faux vegan cheese, just isn’t cheese) and I choose not to eat most of the standard pork-based and processed toppings.
But sometimes there’ll be a gluten free pizza option at a restaurant and it’ll remind me how good pizza can be, like at Miguel’s in Red River Gorge. The classic climber hangout in one of North America’s best-known rock climbing destinations has a gluten free crust that you can top with any of the 30 or so options (from hummus to sweet potato to barbecue sauce) for a delicious gluten free, dairy free pie.
So every now and then (when I’m not in rural Kentucky) it’d be nice to make my own pizza at home, and when that desire strikes, I don’t want to have to invent the gluten free pizza crust wheel.
Thank goodness there’s Oggi. These Italian-chef created frozen crusts are made in St. Laurent, just north of Montreal. There’s even some cauliflower in there to market it as healthier, but the cauliflower is just added to the gluten free base, which is already awesome – and proprietary; the chef who came to make some pizza for the Global Morning Montreal TV segment I did about it wouldn’t give me his secrets, but because it’s a commercial product, I could read the ingredients and the nutritional info on the side of the box, and I knew that there weren’t too many preservatives in there.
Disclaimer: The company did give me samples for the television segment I did, but I was not paid by OGGI to promote its products. I just really like these pizza crusts.
They’re non-GMO and made with a gluten free flour blend of corn starch, rice flour, potato starch, dextrose, psyllium, fructose, hydroxypropyl, methylcellulose, inulin and sorbitol, plus water, yeast, extra-virgin olive oil, cane sugar and sea salt. It’s certified gluten free, and though it’s not low-FODMAP (inulin, dextrose and fructose), I didn’t have a problem having a few pieces of pizza.
So my advice to gluten free-ers to go buy some Oggi cauliflower frozen pizza crusts and take inspiration from Miguels on toppings. Then make your own.
Mine was a frozen crust topped with homemade pizza/pasta sauce, spinach, gluten free and local duck sausage (more on those here), green peppers and tons of mushrooms.
I don’t have a wood-fired oven like at Miguel’s, but since the bottom of my pizza wasn’t touching the flames anyway, this baked version was pretty stellar. Next time, sweet potato, chicken and anchovies…
Where Can You Buy Oggi’s Crusts?
In the frozen foods aisle of most grocery stores, including Metro, Maxi, Rachelle-Béry, Provigo and IGA.
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