Vegan Margherita Pizza with sweet potato crust

A classic vegan margherita pizza with creamy cashew mozzarella on an easy 4 ingredient sweet potato pizza crust. Delicious and simple to make!

4 ingredient sweet potato pizza crust

This healthy sweet potato pizza crust is perfect if you want to add extra vegetables in your diet or simply don't want to wait for pizza dough (made with yeast) to rise! It's vegan, gluten free, high protein, paleo, keto and grain free.

You only need mashed sweet potatoes, chickpea flour, ground flax/chia seeds and baking powder to make this thin pizza base. As this is an eggless pizza base, the ground flax/chia seeds helps bind the ingredients whereas the baking powder gives it a little rise.

As always, ingredient amounts are in the grey recipe box at the bottom of this post.

How to make the crust

To make the sweet potato pizza crust, simply add all the ingredients to a bowl and mix until combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste, although the chickpea flour tastes very different once it's cooked. There's no kneading and no waiting time!

The batter should be like a very thick paste. If it's too thin, simply add a little more chickpea flour. If it's too thick, add a teaspoon of water at a time and mix until needed. From experience, the thicker the batter, the better!

There are 2 ways to shape the sweet potato pizza crust before your margherita topppings.

First, you can use a spoon to spread the batter on a lined baking sheet or pizza stone. It's a very thick and sticky batter which may stick to your spoon. However, keep persisting and if needed, you can dip your clean spoon in water to prevent sticking!

Alternatively, you can place another piece of baking paper (or parchment paper) on top and flatten the pizza with a rolling pin. Slowly and carefully peel away the top piece of baking paper and you'll have a pizza crust!

I spread my pizza crust so it was about 5mm thick. It puffs up a little in the oven to create a perfectly thin pizza crust!

I found that just 10 minutes in the oven was enough to pre-bake the crust. We're going to bake it a little more with the vegan margherita pizza toppings so we don't want to pre-bake it for too long.

How to make a vegan margherita pizza

The toppings for any margherita pizza are simple. However, to make it vegan and dairy free, you can either make your own cashew mozzarella sauce or use store-bought vegan mozzarella cheese or vegan pizza cheese.

I made my own soy free cashew mozzarella sauce using raw cashews, dairy free milk (or vegetable stock), nutritional yeast and a few other condiments/spices. I simply blended all ingredients in a blender until smooth. The result is a umami packed creamy cheese sauce!

Recipe ingredients and ratios are at the bottom of this post.

Assembling the easy pizza

Now that you have a par baked pizza crust, simply spread the tomato pasta sauce on top. When making pizza, I always spread the sauce very close to the edge so I can add more toppings!

Then top the pizza with sliced tomato and dollop your cashew mozzarella sauce on top. It's a thick cashew sauce so dolloping or adding spoonfuls of the sauce is the best way to use it!

I baked my pizza in the oven for another 10-15 minutes which was enough time to bake the tomatoes and cheese. We don't want to bake the pizza for too long as it'll dry out the base!

If you'd like to brown the surface of your mozzarella, you can also place your pizza under your grill or broiler for just 5 minutes.

Customising the pizza

Alternate toppings for the sweet potato pizza crust include:

• Veggie Supreme including pre roasted capsicum, zuchinni, eggplant, mushrooms, olives etc. You can also top it with vegan pepperoni, just like Amy's Kitchen Vegan Supreme Pizza!
• Hawaiian including vegan ham, pineapple and dairy free cheese.
• 'Meat Lovers' including all the vegan mock meat and vegan cheese you can find!

Alternate pizza crusts with the vegan margherita pizza toppings include:

• Pumpkin pizza crust where you substitute mashed pumpkin for the mashed sweet potato in the recipe
• Classic yeast pizza crust. You can use my basic yeast pizza base from my deep dish pizza recipe but just bake the pizza on a baking tray or pizza stone rather than in a casserole dish.
• Healthier yeast pizza crust using buckwheat flour.

Check out my other vegan comfort food

• Vegan Rainbow Lasagna
• Vegan Pastitsio (Greek pasta bake)
• Moroccan vegetable tray bake
• Sweet Potato and Cinnamon Bundt Cake

This post was originally published in 2018 and updated in 2021.

Please leave a comment below if you made this recipe, have any questions or thoughts! Your comment will help other readers and Rainbow Nourishments.