Cauliflower Pizza Bites

Check out this very creative and delicious-looking charcuterie board. There's something for everyone with sweet and savory snacks.   

Looking for healthy? Try Cauliflower Pizza Bites 

Cook's Notes: A very tasty game day or snack food filled with loads of flavor. Each bite is only 101 calories. The ones I made were a bit more in calories as I was cleaning out the refrigerator. I added in crumbled Italian sausage and cheddar cheese. The recipe calls ricing a head of cauliflower which sounded like way too much work. I used a frozen bag of riced cauliflower and microwaved it according to package directions.

Then I placed cauliflower in the center of a thick dishtowel, rolled it to squeeze out the moisture.  For some inexplicable reason I was taken with the idea of serving each bite inside a parchment square. 

The recipe makes 10 cauliflower pizza bites. It does require a little extra preparation cutting out 10-5 inch parchment squares.

Cauliflower Pizza Bites

Recipe adapted from allrecipes.com

Ingredients: 

• 1 large head cauliflower, cut into large chunks or one bag frozen riced cauliflower (10 oz.)  
• 2 ½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning 
• ⅓ cup pizza sauce
• Optional 1 cup crumbled sausage and using some cheddar cheese

Directions: 

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 
• Grate cauliflower into a microwave-safe bowl using a fine grater. Chop up any remaining pieces that are too small to grate but too big for the crust.
• Microwave cauliflower until soft and tender, 4 to 6 minutes. Pour cauliflower into a clean dish towel roll to squeeze out moisture. Optional using microwave riced cauliflower. 
• Combine riced cauliflower, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, egg, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning in a large bowl. Refrigerate 30 minutes to firm up the mixture so easier to work with. 
• Scoop cauliflower crust mixture onto prepared parchment paper, dividing the mixture evenly among the parchment squares. I used a cookie scoop for this step. 

• Place each wrapped pizza bite in the muffin pan.  

• Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 12 minutes.
• Spoon a small amount of pizza sauce onto each cauliflower crust. Top with remaining 1-1/2 cups mozzarella cheese, dividing evenly among the crusts.

• Bake until golden brown and cheese is melted, about 15 minutes more. Let sit in the pan for 5 minutes before moving each bite to a cooling rack. Let cool for 10 minutes. Peel parchment paper squares off the crusts and serve on a platter or leave wrappers on.