Vegan Cheese Pizza

Personally, I never get tired of pizza. Well, how could anyone?

However, the best part for me has always been gooey melted cheese. (I still find it pretty genius to put nothing but cheese on top of pizza crust and enjoy it as it is.) So if you’ve been vegan for a while, you probably know by now that no frozen vegan pizza can compare. I’ve tried them all hoping to find one that would sit securely in the freezer and save me in the rare and unexpected onset of evening laziness.

Nah, that didn’t happen. And as the story goes, if you can’t find anything that would fulfill your needs – create it yourself!

Thus, for this particular recipe, I use store-bought dough here on purpose – to save time. Of course, you may make one yourself, but keep in mind that most of the packaged pizza dough is vegan anyway, so you might want to grab a pack or two while shopping for other ingredients.

And now, the cheese sauce – like there could ever be a more important pizza ingredient. I use cashews as the base and add some nutritional yeast for cheese flavor and extra good-for-you ingredients.

Once the dough is rolled out, and the first tomato paste layer is ready, you may either mix spinach with cheese sauce (that way you make sure that the spinach won’t burn, and the cheese sauce won’t dry out) or put the spinach on first and then spread cheese sauce on top of it (this method saves you from having to wash one extra dish – we all have our own priorities).

Finally, a few extra touches of crunchy red onion and sliced black olives and the Vegan Cheese Pizza ready to go into the oven!

Oh wait! One more thing. If you feel extra fancy today, you may as well sprinkle some vegan parmesan cheese on top. It takes 2 minutes to prepare, and it makes a nice add-on, not only for this particular Vegan Cheese Pizza, but for pastas, casseroles etc.

And now we’re ready! Let’s dive in.

Vegan Cheese Pizza

Ingredients

½ bag of Trader’s Joe herb pizza dough
3 oz (85 g) tomato paste
2 cups (60 g) spinach
½ small red onion, sliced
9 black olives (40 g), pitted and sliced

For cheese sauce:

½ cup (60 g) soaked cashews
½ cup (125 ml) almond milk
2 tbsp (30 g) all-purpose flour
1 tbsp (15 ml) grape seed or extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp (5 g) nutritional yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion salt

For vegan parmesan:

½ cup (60 g) raw cashews
2 tbsp (10 g) nutritional yeast
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 F (220 C). Roll out dough onto floured surface and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Set aside.

Prepare vegan parmesan by pulsing cashews, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, and sea salt in food processor until a fine meal is reached.

Prepare cheese sauce – blend all the ingredients together in a blender until smooth. Now add spinach and mix until spinach is nicely coated.

Spread tomato paste onto the dough, then top with the cheese-spinach mix.

Add red onion and black olive slices on top. Sprinkle with parmesan and bake for about 10 minutes.