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This gluten-free and vegan Black Bean Crust Pizza is bursting with savory flavor, texture, and healthy goodness. It’s easy to make, and perfect for the whole family. Add all of your favorite vegan pizza toppings, and bake to perfection. Get ready to meet your new favorite recipe!
What to expect | Black Bean Crust Pizza
As you’ll see in the video below, this recipe takes a while to make (unless you buy the sauce pre-made, and the veggies pre-cooked––which I don’t recommend), but it is well worth every minute. This is the ultimate comfort food. Sure, it’s a vegan gluten-free pizza that happens to also be guilt-free and healthy, but it’s honestly delicious. I love topping it with vegan cheese, seasonal vegetables, greens, and marinara sauce. My favorite toppings: roasted butternut squash or sweet potato!
Black Bean Crust?
Totally! I know it sounds strange, but with a few ingredients beans become the best gluten-free pizza crust alternative.
Flax Seed: Though black beans are the star ingredient, this pizza crust won’t hold together without flax––ground flax seeds to be exact. Ground flax seeds mixed with water create a “flax egg”. Flax egg is as good a binder as any egg.
Nutritional Yeast: The best pizza has amazing crust ,and nutritional yeast adds amazing savory flavor to your pizza crust. This essential vegan spice is also high in protein and fortified with B12.
Food Processor: You’ll need a food processor for this recipe to make the bean crust. A blender will work, but it isn’t ideal because the crust mixture is very low in liquid––thus difficult for a blender to handle.
Tips for cooking
Watch the video to see step-by-step how this black bean crust pizza is made. It’s really easy, but you’ll want to take certain steps to make sure it hold together.
- Spread the batter about 1/3 thick. Use a spatula coated in oil or dipped in water to prevent excess sticking.
- Use parchment paper. Aluminum foil is not a suitable swap; the crust will stick. I haven’t tried it on a silicone baking mat.
- Bake until the crust dries out and easily peels off of the parchment paper.
- Flip the crust onto another baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Gently peel the first layer off the underside of the crust. It should come off easily.
- Don’t overload the center of the pizza with toppings.
- Allow it to cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting. The crust will firm as it cools.
- While this pizza crust won’t be as pliable as a wheat crust (sorry NYers, you can’t fold it), it should hold together pretty well.
Great for kids
This Black Bean Crust Pizza is included in my roundup of Vegan Recipes for Kids. It’s high in protein, fiber, and important vitamins and minerals like iron, magnesium, and b vitamins. Kids will have a great time topping this black bean crust pizza. Get them involved in the whole process, and they’ll enjoy it even more.
Perfect Recipe Pairings
Butternut Squash Black Bean Crust Pizza
Video
Equipment
- 1 food processor
Ingredients
- 2 cans black beans, rinsed & drained well
- 3 tbsp flax seed +⅓ cup water, mix the two together to create flax “egg”
- 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 ½ tsp sea salt, only 1 tsp if your beans had salt in the can
- ½ tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 cups butternut squash, thinly sliced & roasted
- 2 cups shiitake mushrooms, sliced
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 3 cups kale, spinach, or arugula, chopped
- ½ cup tomato pizza sauce
- 1 cup vegan mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400° and line a baking sheet or cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Place beans, flax egg, nutritional yeast, garlic, salt and cayenne in the food processor. Blend until smooth.
- Spread the mixture onto the parchment paper in the shape of a pizza crust, about 1/3 inch thick. You’ll fill most of the width of the baking sheet.
- Bake for 20 minutes, then carefully flip the crust to bake on the other side 15-20 minutes. NOTE: To flip, I place another sheet of parchment and another baking sheet over the one the crust has been on, and using oven mitts I flip the sheets together. Then the crust will be on the new baking sheet. Slowly and carefully peel the original parchment off of the crust. Careful not to break 🙂 Bake 5-10 minutes longer.
- While the crust bakes, sauté the shiitake mushrooms and onions in a bit of olive oil. If you haven’t already, you can roast the squash now (toss with olive oil, and roast slices for 30 minutes at 350°F)
- When the crust is finished, top with the tomato sauce, vegan cheese, greens, squash, mushrooms and onions. Bake for 10 more minutes then serve.
Thank you for posting this recipe!
I made it this weekend with less salt – delicious!
By the way, if you wanted to increase the binding in the crust, you could consider adding up to 1/2 cup of water and 1 tablespoon psyllium husk. Your same instructions for thickness and baking time will work for those additions.
Thanks again for sharing,
Nichole
I tried this last night because I had a hankering for pizza and no other possible ingredients to make it with. I’m so happy I tried it! For me it turned out to be the kind of pizza you eat with a fork (totally fine!), but it was delicious and satisfying – and far more nutritious and filling than grains. Even my 10 year old son loved it.
Fantastic!! That makes me ecstatic to hear!! Good luck to you!
Does the “dough” mixture freeze well at all?
I wish I could say for sure, but I’ve never tried freezing it. I assume it will though since it’s just beans and flax as the base 🙂