Vegan Soft Pretzel Crust Pizza? Instead of a classic yeast dough, a pretzel dough forms the basis of the pizza. And this combination tastes amazingly good. We don’t top the vegan pretzel crust pizza with Bavarian ingredients like white sausage, obazda and mustard though. Instead, fairly classic pizza ingredients such as cocktail tomatoes, green pesto, vegan crème fraîche, plant-based grated cheese and basil make the toppings.
To be honest, we don’t use any real pretzels at all for our vegan pretzel pizza. Frozen soft pretzel sticks are much more suitable for this than the soft pretzels that are also available. But why? Pretzels are dipped in lye, so it only coats the surface. If you knead the dough properly, the lye effect would be lost. However, the soft pretzel sticks can be flattened very well or pulled out for the edge without kneading it. This makes it easy to shape a pizza and the lye stays where it should be. Namely on the outside of the dough. The result is a wonderfully crispy brown soft pretzel pizza.
It is relatively unclear who actually invented the use of a pretzel dough for pizza though. Some Bavarian newspapers like the Allgäuer Zeitung claim that the Wirtshaus Wurstbendel from Aschaffenburg invented pretzel pizza in the course of the Corona crisis in 2020. So it was the Bavarians (or more precisely, the Franks) who made a virtue out of necessity? Sounds romantic, but it’s probably not really the truth. The American pizza chain Little Caesars launched a soft pretzel crust pizza in 2013, as this USA Today article reports. And different recipes for pretzel pizza from the last years can also been found on the Internet. But we don’t really care either. We are just happy that we have now discovered this great idea for ourselves.
Vegan Soft Pretzel Crust Pizza
Ingredients
Dough
- 6 frozen soft pretzel sticks, equivalent to 600 g
- flour, to roll out
Sauce
- 150 g pureed tomatoes
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp basil, dried
- 1/2 tsp oregano, dried
- 1/4 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder, alternatively some freshly chopped garlic
- salt + pepper
Toppings
- 75 g vegan grated cheese
- 75 g cocktail tomatoes
- 3 tbsp vegan green pesto
- 3 tbsp vegan crème fraîche, e.g. creme VEGA
- basil
- olive oil
Preparation
- Let the soft pretzel sticks thaw completely.
- In the meantime, mix the ingredients for the pizza sauce together and season well with salt and pepper.
- Place 4 pretzel sticks next to each other on lightly floured baking paper and flatten them to form a fairly round dough. Do not knead the dough as the lye is only on the outside of the pretzel sticks. The remaining 2 soft pretzel sticks serve as the crust. Pull them out and place them on the edge of the pretzel dough base. Press the crust a little bit so it sticks and sprinkle with salt.
- Now the pretzel crust pizza is topped. To do this, first spread the sauce on the dough. Put the vegan grated cheese on top. Halve the cocktail tomatoes and distribute them. Place small heaps of pesto and crème fraîche on top. Drizzle everything with a few drops of olive oil.
- Bake the pretzel pizza in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes. Top the baked pizza with a few basil leaves. Enjoy!
Song of the recipe:
The song Reunite by the Belgian folk band Isbells has been a good companion for many years. And yet it is still as beautiful as it was at the first listen. A track for dreaming.
(Would you like to listen to all the songs for the recipe? Find them collected in one playlist here)
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