Easy Vegan Pizza Recipe topped with Tikka Masala Smoked Tofu and dolloped with creamy Vegan Cheese Sauce. The spelt pizza crust is made with a no-rise no-yeast pizza dough. Toss on a couple more veggie pizza toppings and you have a simply delicious homemade vegan pizza recipe! Makes one medium crust 26-cm [10-inch] pizza.
With blizzards blowing outside, we’re confined indoors for most days of winter which is sometimes quite nice. Apart from soups and stews which I’ve been sharing during the past weeks, we often love a nice homemade vegan pizza with various traditional veggie pizza toppings like olives, mushrooms, basil…
With a well-stocked pantry and freezer, it’s easy enough to pull up pizza ingredients without the need to make a trip to the grocery store.
Pizza doesn’t require a lot of ingredients and if we’re not making some vegetable fried rice to clear the fridge, we just toss the veggies on a pizza dough and enjoy it for brunch or dinner. That said, we don’t resort to leftovers only for pizza toppings; we also love to jazz up the toppings.
Smoked tofu that is now available at various grocery stores around here, packs a lot of flavour. It doesn’t really require anything else apart from a little salt perhaps. We’ve used smoked tofu before in this Smoked Tofu Mushroom Stroganoff. If you can’t find smoked tofu, just regular firm tofu will work too.
In this vegan pizza, we’re rubbing the tofu with just a little of our homemade tikka masala for some subtle extra flavour that adds a little oomph to the pizza. You may add more if you want the masala to come through a little more but we still love our pizza to taste closer to a somewhat traditional pizza. The spices are there lingering in the background, adding just that little je ne sais quoi without turning the pizza into naan topped with tikka masala curry.
Homemade vegan pizza can be whipped up in little time. Prepping doesn’t take a lot of time and I tend to leave the ingredients on the chopping board itself as I move on to the next one. So, there are much less dishes to clean up afterward.
The crust is a no rise no yeast spelt pizza dough that comes together in no time. And to satisfy the cheese calling, a creamy coconut-based slightly stretchy cheese sauce is dolloped onto the pizza here and there.
If you use a thick tomato sauce out of the jar or tin, you don’t need to reduce it. Just season and spread it on the rolled out or hand pulled dough, top with the crispy smoked tofu, cheese sauce, veggies and herbs. Bake in a hot oven for 12 – 15 minutes and done. This is one yummy medium crust easy pizza recipe that sure is a regular at our place.
We also have some other vegan pizza recipes: Harissa Tempeh Pizza with No Knead Pizza Dough and Our Favourite No-cheese Pizza.
Easy Vegan Pizza Recipe - No Yeast Pizza Dough
Ingredients
Cheese sauce:
- 120 ml [½ cup] canned coconut milk (use soy or other non-dairy milk for lighter version)
- 1 tablespoon tapioca starch (or potato starch)
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (or ½ teaspoon Marmite/Vegemite)
- Pinch turmeric powder (optional)
- ½ teaspoon salt
Tomato Sauce:
- 80 ml canned/jarred crushed tomatoes [thick sauce, ⅓ cup, about 6 tablespoons, *see notes]
- 1 teaspoon paprika (or tikka masala if you want more of the spice to come through)
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup or sugar
- ⅓ teaspoon salt
Crust - Dry mix -
- 200 g sifted/light spelt flour [1 ½ cup + 2 tablespoons]
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 tablespoon tapioca starch (or 1 tablespoon cornstarch)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Crust - Wet mix -
- 120 ml [½ cup] warm non-dairy milk (I used soy milk)
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Toppings:
- 1 tablespoon coconut / vegetable oil
- 100 g smoked tofu (or vegan chick’n strips or seitan)
- 1 teaspoon tikka masala mix (see our homemade tikka masala blend
- Salt to taste
- 4 - 5 white mushrooms, sliced thinly
- 100 g [½ cup] broccoli florets, sliced flat
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- More oil for brushing (optional)
- Black pepper to taste
- Fresh basil leaves for garnish
Instructions
Preheat the oven at 230 C / 450 F.
Prepare the tofu:
Cut the tofu into small cubes or strips. Sprinkle on the tikka masala and salt to taste. Toss to coat each tofu piece with the masala. (Add more tikka masala to your taste).
The following pan-frying step is optional. It makes the tofu crispy. You may skip it if you don’t mind a less crispy tofu or are short of time.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. Once hot, place in the tofu cubes. Pan-fry for about 4 - 5 minutes on one side, then flip and continue frying for a few more minutes until tofu is a little crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Make the cheese sauce:
In a small saucepan, place all the ingredients for the cheese sauce and whisk to combine. Place the saucepan on medium-high heat while stirring occasionally. When mixture starts to thicken, stir constantly until the mixture is thick and somewhat stretchy. Turn off the heat and set the cheese sauce aside.
Prepare the tomato sauce:
Prepare the tomato sauce by mixing the crushed tomatoes, paprika, maple syrup (or sugar) and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
Prepare the pizza dough:
Combine the vinegar with the milk and set aside for about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile whisk all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
Stir in the rest of the wet ingredients into the milk-vinegar mixture.
Add the wet mix to the dry mix and form a dough.
Knead the dough a few times to a smooth ball.
Coat the palm of your hands with some olive oil and lightly pat the dough ball with the oil.
Place the dough on an oven-proof 28-cm round griddle or baking tray.
Shape the dough with your hands to stretch it out to the size of the pan.
Assemble the pizza:
Brush the dough with a little olive oil (optional but recommended as this prevents the dough from getting soggy).
Drop 3 - 4 tablespoons of crushed tomato sauce mixture on the dough and spread out evenly. Sprinkle with the dried oregano.
Then top with the crispy smoked tofu, mushrooms and broccoli.
Drop dollops of the cheese sauce here and there. (The cheese sauce would have set at this stage. Don’t add any liquid to it. Just use it like a soft mozzarella cheese).
Drop a few teaspoons of the remaining tomato sauce here and there.
Bake for 12 - 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before slicing. Garnish with fresh basil leaves and serve.
Notes
It’s important to use thick tomato sauce otherwise the liquid will make the pizza crust soggy. If the tomato sauce is not thick, reduce it by heating it in a saucepan. In this case, add more crushed tomatoes so that they reduce to about 80 ml.
Homemade Tikka Masala Spice Mix - https://veganlovlie.com/homemade-tikka-masala-spice-mix-recipe/
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