Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust (High-Protein Recipe)

A high-protein cottage cheese pizza crust is easy to make for pizza night at home. Deliciously crisp and tender and finished off with your favorite pizza toppings, it packs 8 grams of protein per slice!

To be clear, this does not replace the wood-fired pies at Pizzeria Bianco or my beloved BBQ chicken pizza from Jet's Pizza. I wholeheartedly embrace eating "real" pizza. 

So what's the purpose of this recipe? It's replaced the frozen pizza that we used to buy for pizza night at home. This recipe is super easy to make, tastes shockingly good, and best of all, my kids love it. 

It also has 8 grams of protein and only 7 grams of carbohydrates per slice! I'm not on a keto diet, but I do love extra protein when I can get it. And I serve it alongside our family's famous Caesar Salad.

Ingredients

If you're like me and always have cottage cheese on hand, aside from the toppings, you might already have all of the ingredients in your kitchen.

• Flour - I used bread flour since it has a slightly higher protein content, but all-purpose works great here, too.
• Baking Powder - Helps the dough to rise as it bakes and become nice and fluffy.
• Salt
• Cottage Cheese - I'm a full-fat fanatic for blood sugar balance so I stick with the 4% milkfat cottage cheese. 2% works great, too. You can use fat-free cottage cheese, but I'm not personally a fan of the taste.
• ​Egg
• Garlic Powder - I would say this is optional, but truly garlic makes everything better.
• Pizza Sauce - Be sure to get pizza sauce and not regular marinara sauce. Pizza sauce is thicker than pasta sauces, so it won't make your pizza soggy. I love Rao's.
• Cheese - Low-moisture mozzarella cheese for a classic pizza, but feel free to try different cheeses!
• Toppings - Pepperoni, bell peppers, mushrooms, black olives, sausage, Italian seasoning, go bonkers!  

See recipe card for quantities.

Developing the Recipe

I first saw cottage cheese pizza crust as a viral trend on TikTok and, out of curiosity, gave it a go. I couldn't believe how good it tasted!

I also knew that it could also be improved. I tried different ratios of ingredients, played with quantities of pizza dough, and different baking times.

At first I followed the viral version's recommendation to just spread the pizza dough on a piece of parchment paper, but it's pretty wet and I also found it would get a little too thin at the edges for my taste.

That's how I landed on spreading it in a 9 inch cake pan. It helps the dough keep its shape and the food stylist in me loves how uniform the edges turn out. Just like the Boboli pre-made crust I grew up with.

Instructions

Watch how easy this is! Start out by preheating your oven to 375°F (190°C) and rub olive oil all over the inside of a 9-inch cake pan to help prevent the dough from sticking. Once that's done, let's make our 'za.

1. Make the Dough In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cottage cheese, egg, and garlic powder.

2. Form the Crust Put the cottage cheese mixture into the pan. Build up the edges slightly to create a crust, keeping the center thinner since it will puff as it bakes.

3. Bake the Crust Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden and firm.

4. Cool & Transfer Let the crust cool for 5 minutes then remove it from the pan and transfer it to a baking sheet. You can do the whole recipe from start to finish in the cake pan, but transferring it to a sheet pan at this point makes it easier to slice and serve later.

5. Assemble the Pizza. Spread ¾ cup pizza sauce evenly over the crust. Sprinkle 6 oz shredded mozzarella on top. Add pepperoni or your favorite toppings.

6. Final Bake Bake at 375F for 5 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the pepperoni is crispy. For extra crispiness, broil for 10 - 20 seconds at the end. Keep an eye out, though, because it can quickly burn!

7. Serve with parmesan cheese, fresh basil and red pepper flakes!

Hint: I like to save money on cheese by shredding my own, but pre-shredded works great here, too!