I live in a house of CrossFitters. There are four of us – six if you include significant others that we consider honorary roommates – and it’s no secret that we love to lift heavy and we LOVE to eat. Most of our interactions in the house happen post-WOD, when we’re all in the kitchen preparing our recovery meals, talking about meal plans, PR’s at the box or how much the workout sucked.
I kid you not, this is the truth. We’re like a freakin’ CrossFit parody from YouTube, but it’s real life.
Here at the house, we all have our ways different ways of eating. I am primarily paleo/primal, my roommate Jess is experimenting with the RP (Renaissance Periodization) diet, and the other two – Pete & Nicole – eat a clean diet that includes some dairy & grains. But there is one thing we all unanimously agree on – we all love pizza. There have been many weekends when we would all get back from the box, kick our feet up around the TV, grab our adult beverages of choice and order a few pizzas. Or, we’ll walk downtown and grab a pizza at Cravings with friends. It’s a big part of our life around here.
Following a paleo/primal diet, I have three choices when it comes to pizza time at the house. I can either enjoy it “as is” and choose not to feel guilty about it, order mine separately with a gluten free crust and light cheese, or I can make my own pizza with ingredients that I choose. For me, any of these options works. I follow a 80/20 rule when it comes to eating paleo – I just know that when I’m more strict about it, I feel better on a day to day basis. That’s why I prefer to order mine separately with a gluten free crust and choose my dairy wisely – my body will thank me afterward. But ultimately, my favorite thing to do is make my own, if I have the time. I have full control over the ingredients and I’ll feel the best with this option.
Diet and nutrition really boils down to educating yourself about how the body interacts with different foods, and then experimenting with that knowledge and finding out the right template for YOUR body. Then you can decide how to balance out things like pizza, desserts, and whatnot. You don’t necessarily have to cut them out to be a healthier version of yourself. You just have to be smarter about your intake.
Anyways, I swear there is a point to all of this. I’m here rambling about being smart with your pizza intake, and you’re like…
Alright, alright! The point IS….I made you a pizza! But not just any ordinary pizza, because, hello – we’ve all been there, done that. It’s time to expand your pizza loving horizon with a breakfast pizza.
YES.
The crust is a thin, crunchy, garlicky crust using cauliflower as the base. It’s a very simple recipe using only 3 main ingredients and some seasonings, so it’s easy to whip up quickly. If you’re a thin crust lover like myself, this crust is for you. Then you add a little tomato sauce (*see recipe notes on using tomato vs. marinara sauce), sautéed greens, and the best part – two sunny side up eggs. When you cut into the pizza and the yolk runs out and mixes in with the rest of the flavors…it’s just a little slice of heaven, my friends. And the best news yet – you don’t even have to share because each pizza serves one.
Does life get any better than this?
Sunny Side Up Breakfast Flatbread Pizza
Grain/Gluten Free, Paleo, Positively Delicious
Crunchy Garlic Pizza Crust Ingredients:
- 2 cups cauliflower rice (see notes)
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup tapioca starch (found at Safeway or Whole Foods)
- 1 & 1/4 tsp. sea salt
- 1 tsp. garlic powder, divided
Sunny Side Up Breakfast Flatbread Pizza Ingredients:
- 1 ‘Crunch Garlic Pizza Crust’ recipe, divided in half
- 1/4 cup tomato sauce, divided in half (I use TJ’s organic canned tomato sauce – see notes)
- 1/4 tsp. coconut oil
- 1 & 1/2 cups greens – I used kale, but spinach would work great as well
- 4 eggs – 2 per pizza
- sea salt & pepper, to taste
Other Tools Needed:
- Medium sized mixing bowl
- Measuring spoons/cups
- Large mixing spoon
- Parchment paper
- Flat baking sheet
- 2 frying pans
- Heat safe spatula
*Notes:
- To make the cauliflower rice, take the florets off a head of cauliflower and process them in a food processor until you have a fine, rice-like consistency. No head of cauliflower is made equal and each will produce different amounts, but generally speaking, a medium size cauliflower should produce around 4 cups.
- One may argue that a true pizza will have pizza sauce, a.k.a marinara sauce. The only difference is marinara sauce includes garlic & herbs and is cooked down to let the flavors of each element really develop. I’m all for that with this recipe if you have the time and want to put forth the effort. Most store-bought marinara sauces will have some refined sugar, but if you don’t mind, then go for it! Otherwise, regular tomato sauce works just fine in this recipe.
Method:
To make the crust, take two cups of cauliflower rice, the egg, tapioca starch, sea salt and 1/2 tsp. of garlic and mix together in a medium sized mixing bowl. Let it set in the fridge for about 15 minutes to firm up a bit. While the pizza ‘dough’ is setting in the fridge, take the baking sheet and line it with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375F.
Once the dough has set, remove from the fridge and split into two batches. Using a large spoon, take each batch and spoon it out on the parchment paper. Spread the dough out in whatever shape you want – circular for a traditional pizza, square for a hipster pizza or you can think outside the box and make whatever shape you want! You want it to be fairly thin but evenly spread out, because no one wants holes in their crust.
Bake the crust at 375 for about 40 min. During the last 10 minutes, it may look like it’s starting to burn. Obviously, you don’t want it to burn, but the last 10 minutes is where it really gets crunchy. Pull it a few minutes early if you need – all ovens cook a little differently.
While you’re watching the crust during the last 10 minutes, sauté the kale and cook the eggs. Begin with the kale by warming up the coconut oil in the frying pan on low heat. Season with a little sea salt and garlic powder, cover, and let cook down for about 3 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and set aside. You can also cook the eggs simultaneously, in a separate pan. Cook the eggs on low heat to achieve the sunny side up version. I usually cover the eggs to help steam cook the top a bit, but remove before the yolk starts to cook through. You can tell it’s time to uncover when the egg whites around the edges of the yolks turn from translucent to white. When the eggs are done cooking, remove from heat.
If you’ve timed it correctly, your crust should be out of the oven right around the same time the eggs and kale are done. Spoon half the tomato sauce on one pizza crust and half on the other. Put most of the sautéed kale on top of each pizza, but reserve a little for topping.
Then add two eggs to each pizza carefully – you don’t want the yolk to run prematurely! Hehe. Sorry. Yolk joke.
Last step – top with the leftover greens, cut into slices and devour!
Pizza + Breakfast = Love
Nutrition Facts & Serving Size:
This recipe makes two personal sized pizzas. The nutrition data below is calculated for (1) personal pizza. If you are following a meal plan, please adjust your servings to fit your meal plan as needed.
**CrossFit Livermore Weight Loss Challenge Participants – this recipe is a great post WOD recovery meal!
*Nutritional values given on this post are approximate. To obtain the most accurate representation of the nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe. You are solely responsible for ensuring that any nutritional information provided is accurate, complete and useful.
If you want more pizza action, check out my Mediterranean Style Pizza recipe by clicking here.
Well, friends, I’m one week into the spring semester at school and homework is calling my name loud and clear. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Cave Girl Out.
Steph's in the Kitchen 