The Secret to a Low Carb Pizza

My craving for eating healthy and love for cooking stems from my mom who has always cooked tasty, diet friendly recipe's at our house. A plus for going home to visit my family is the fact that I know I will be eating healthy. I miss having those meals available every day.

While visiting home during my Spring Break, my mom showed me a recipe she recently made and wanted me to try called Portobello pizzas. My first thought was just a normal pizza with cheese and Portobello mushrooms so I wasn't sure what was so exciting about it. I realized the dough of the pizza is substituted with the caps of Portobello mushrooms.  Brilliant!  This simple switch cuts out many carbs and calories compared to regular pizza dough; one Portobello cap only contains 22 calories and 4 carbs, while a serving of pizza dough ranges around 130 calories and 24 carbs.

The recipe is simple. All you need are large Portobello mushrooms, a grill, olive oil, garlic salt, pizza sauce, basil seasoning, shredded mozzarella cheese, and your choice of favorite pizza toppings.

First, rinse and break off the stems of the mushrooms so you only have the caps. Brush olive oil on the front and back of the mushroom caps and sprinkle both sides with garlic salt. You can bake the mushrooms in the oven on 375 for 30 minutes, flipping the mushrooms after 15 minutes, but my mom and I cooked them on the grill which adds a lot more flavor than baking.


After the mushrooms are prepared, the rest is easy and you can create the pizza's to please your own palate. The toppings will be placed on the bottom of the caps of the Portobello mushrooms (the smooth side will be the bottom of the pizza). After spreading the pizza sauce, my mom and I chose mozzarella cheese to sprinkle of top because this type of cheese is a healthier choice compared to regular pizza mix shredded cheese. We added onions, tomatoes, turkey pepperoni, and topped the pizzas off with a shake of basil seasoning to add one last pop of flavor.

After the pizzas were ready to be devoured, I thought we should have made more because the mushrooms shrunk a little bit after they were cooked. My mom then said, "Don't let those little things fool you, they fill you up more than you think." and she was right! They were small and healthy so I knew I would be hungry after dinner, but those ‘shrooms proved me wrong. The fact many carbs and calories were cut out from subtracting the pizza dough made the meal even more satisfying.