Portobello Pizzas
Cheesy and flavorful, these Portobello Pizzas are the perfect app or entree! Savory mushrooms are loaded with sauce, vegan cheese, and veg!
Equipment
- 1 Baking Dish or Rimmed Baking Tray I prefer a deeper dish to contain my pizzas nicely, but whatever you have will work!
- 1 Parchment Paper or aluminum foil
- 1 Silicone Basting Brush or you can totally use your hands
- 1 Blender for making the vegan mozzarella cheese sauce
- 1 Large Shallow Spoon for easily moving the delicate cooked pizzas, like a spider strainer
Ingredients
- For the Pizzas
- 6 medium/large portobello mushroom caps, try to find ones with rims (looks like a bowl; so the toppings don't run out)
- 1-2 tablespoons coconut aminos, see notes for salt-free options
- 1-2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning
- 1 jar of your favorite pizza sauce, see notes for what I used
- 1½ cups chopped vegetables, such as red onion, bell pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, finely chopped broccoli, spinach, etc.
- For the Cheese
- 16 ounces silken tofu, see notes for substitutions
- ⅓-½ cup unsweetened soy milk, just enough to blend. You can use any unsweetened, unflavored plant-based milk here.
- 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons non-fortified nutritional yeast, regular is fine
- 1½ teaspoons granulated onion
- 1½ teaspoons granulated garlic
- 2-3 teaspoons white or yellow miso paste, to taste, see notes for substitutions
- 3 tablespoons tapioca starch sometimes referred to as tapioca flour, but do not get cassava flour because that is something different (the starch is distilled, where as cassava flour is the whole root, dried and powdered)
Instructions
- Prep the Oven and Baking Dish: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) and line a baking dish with parchment paper. I used a deeper baking dish but I think a rimmed baking tray should also work fine. With the baking dish, I cut diagonal slits at each corner so I could line the walls of the baking dish too. This helped contain any mess and made cleanup a breeze.
- Make the Cheese: If you haven't already, blend the cheese ingredients in the blender until smooth. Taste. It will taste a little chalky from the tapioca starch, but that flavor will go away after baking. Now is a good time to adjust the saltiness, spices, lemon, etc.
- Clean the Mushrooms and Remove the Stems: Clean the Portobello mushrooms with a damp cloth, making sure to gently clean the gills and inside rim as well. Use a small knife to very carefully remove the stem. I save the stems to eat at another time (I chop them up and throw them in a cooked vegetable side or something).
- Season the Mushrooms: Place the mushroom caps upside down in the lined baking dish. Add about a teaspoon of coconut aminos (or balsamic vinegar or unsalted vegetable broth if totally salt-free) to each mushroom cap and use a silicone basting brush or your fingers to gently brush the whole mushroom with the coconut aminos. Sprinkle dried Italian seasoning on each mushroom cap.
- Assemble the Portobello Pizzas: Add a spoonful of pizza sauce to each mushroom cap. Then place a large spoonful of the cheese over the top of where you just put the sauce. Finally, sprinkle your toppings onto each pizza.
- Bake: Place the baking dish on the center rack in your oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the cheese looks solidified, the veggie toppings have softened, and the mushrooms look cooked. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
- Serve: Carefully scoop out each pizza and place on a plate. For a full meal, my partner and I each eat 3 pizzas along with a starch like a serving of air fried French fries (recipe coming soon).
Video
Notes
- Don't Choose Flat Mushroom Caps: To contain all our pizza sauce, cheese, and topping goodness, you really want to pick Portobellos that have a ridge along the underside. If you flip the mushroom upside down, it should look like a bowl. If not, a lot of the sauce and cheese can run off and get a lot messier.
- Coconut Aminos: This allows us to give our mushrooms a little flavor without adding too much liquid. If you can't have any added salt, try using balsamic vinegar or unsalted vegetable broth instead.
- Pizza Sauce: Use the pizza sauce of your choice! I really like the fat-free pizza sauce from Trader Joe's (it's oil-free!), but it does have sodium. If you need a sodium-free pizza sauce, you can easily make your own by blending canned tomatoes with basil, oregano, onion powder, and garlic powder.
- Silken Tofu: This is the base of the cheese sauce and it makes the sauce very silky and smooth but low in fat and high in protein. You can substitute a cup of white beans, soaked raw cashews, or soaked raw sunflower seeds, but you will need water to make it blend (the silken tofu has enough water in it to blend without adding liquid).
- White or Yellow Miso Paste: This is to replace the salt in the recipe, but I also love the little hint of umami flavors. Per Dr. Michael Greger of Nutritionfacts.org, the soy in miso has a protective effect so the sodium in miso paste will not affect us negatively. Please feel free to omit or use a pinch of salt if that is what you prefer.
Nutrition
Calories: 64kcal
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!