Pizza if done well is actually a good healthy food. Get the dough right and avoid meat and ‘four kinds of cheeses’, and it’s a great simple way of getting veggies into reluctant tummies, and top with vegan grated cheese. In Italy, pizza slices are sold from street carts, although ‘pineapple’ is not considered an authentic flavour!
This vegan pizza (Jessica in the Kitchen) is super-simple to make. This is a basic cheese and tomato pizza, you won’t need much else apart from dough and a little cornmeal to dust the baking sheet. Use a homemade pizza sauce (or at least a good one, without high water content – otherwise Jessica says you’ll end up with soggy pizza!)
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people & pets (many ingredients like fresh dough, onion, garlic and mushrooms are unsafe near animal friends). Just bin onion and garlic scraps (also citrus and rhubarb) due to acids that could harm compost bin creatures).
Don’t give leftover pizza to garden birds or wildfowl, as it can choke (salt is toxic and fat can smear on feathers, affecting waterproofing/insulation).
Make Your Own Pizza Dough (no palm oil)
This Italian pizza dough (Ela Vegan) is a classic recipe that once mastered, means you can avoid store-bought pizza dough, and just top with passata, veggies and vegan cheese to make your own pizza, anytime you want. Keep fresh dough away from children and pets.
All you need is a blend of flour, pizza flour or 75% spelt flour blend, with warm water, active or fresh yeast and salt. If you want, you can add dried herbs/spices, Italian seasoning or red pepper flakes to the dough, to make it more Italian-tasting. Also Michaela has recipes for gluten-free or potato pizza dough.
The Northern Dough Co offers palm-oil-free pizza dough in plain, Italian, chilli, herbs or wholemeal. Made with high-protein flour. Just defrost, roll out, add your toppings and bake.
Vegan Cheese Pizza Toppings
Mozzaloumi is a plant-based hybrid of mozzarella and halloumi cheese, ideal for all Italian and Greek dishes. This Somerset company sells vegan cheeses in glass jars or compostable packaging. Bluffalo Notzarella (London) is another option, sold in a plastic-free pouch with a mild ‘milky’ flavour. Or make your own stretchy cashew mozzarella.
Dreamfarm is a vegan mozzarella from fermented Italian almonds, which can also be used for Caprese salad and Stracciatella (in Italy there’s a soup of the same name that translates to ‘priest-strangler’). Not due to murder, but because gluttonous priests would eat so much, they would choke.
Avoid unpasteurised miso and cultures during pregnancy/nursing and for weak immune systems (including children). Keep nuts (macadamia, cashews, almonds) away from children and pets. If home-delivered, keep dry ice away from children and pets.
Tasty Vegan Pizza Toppings
Sgaia is a Scottish company (founded by two Italian foodies) that make ‘vegan meats’ made from seitan (made from wheat) including a plant-based pepperoni to top homemade pizza. You can recycle packaging at kerbside or supermarket bag bins.
Seitan is easy to cook and tastes just like meat, though not for allergies or gluten intolerance. Once open, store in the fridge and eat within a few days.
Amazing Vegan Pizzas (sold in supermarkets)
Pizza is one of the world’s most popular foods. Unlike in Italy (where pizza slices are sold on street carts), in England pizza tends to be nothing like the original (for a start, Italians don’t put four cheeses on their pizza, and neither do they class pineapple as a pizza flavour!)
One Planet Pizza is a family company (father and son) that makes wonderful pizzas, made with sustainable plant-based ingredients. These pizzas have a far lower carbon footprint, and boy are they good (but fattening!) If you want a vegan pizza that tastes like ‘the real thing’, you’ve found it!
Most ready-made pizzas are made with factory-farmed meat and cheese. If you prefer to buy ready-made, stash a few good vegan pizzas in the freezer, ideal to enjoy with a salad and cold beer. You can recycle pizza boxes, but not greasy parts (tear off and bin them).
Dad had been vegan for years (long before it was trendy to order a plant-based latte). After his son followed suit, they realised that nobody was offering good ready-made vegan pizzas, so they got to work. Today, this best-selling brand is sold everywhere, from Asda to Booths. The range includes: Tex-Mex (cheese, jalapenos, sweetcorn, peppers)
- Sourdough pepperoni (with tomato & cheeze)
- Sourdough margherita (with tomato, cheeze & oregano)
- Hawaiian (tomato, cheeze, ‘bacon’ & pineapple – just don’t tell the Italian ambassador!)
A Popular Chain of Vegan Pizza Restaurants
Purezza is England’s most popular chain of vegan pizzerias, in London, Brighton and Manchester. It also sells its homemade vegan pizza cheeses wholesale. Most ingredients are local and organic, all sold in sustainable packaging.
The menu includes:
- Veggie (nee four seasons)
- No Cheese Marinara
- BBQ Bourbon
- Vegan Pepperoni
- Four Vegan Cheese
- Vegan Chicken Roast Pizza
