This 3 ingredient Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust is easy to make, tastes like real thin crust pizza and contains 11 grams of protein per 2 slices!
We also love this high protein Greek yogurt pizza crust and cottage cheese bread!
Table of Contents
- Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Ingredients for Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust
- How to Make Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust
- Tips for Best Results
- Can I Make It Gluten Free?
- Pizza Toppings Ideas
- What to Serve Pizza with?
- How to Store
- FAQs
- More Pizza Crust Recipes to Try
- More Cottage Cheese Recipes
- Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust Recipe
After having tremendous success with viral cottage cheese bagels, I decided to try the same dough to make cottage cheese pizza crust. I could not believe how amazing it turned out!
It rivals any Neapolitan style pizza restaurant! Now when I say I’m going to make dinner, my husband and kids are asking if I’m going to make “that pizza crust with cottage cheese“. They are willing to eat it every night!
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Easy: Unlike my super popular cauliflower pizza crust, this crust needs just 10 minutes of prep.
- Quick: No waiting for yeast in dough to rise. Cottage cheese pizza dough resting time is 10 minutes.
- Only 3 ingredients: And if you have self-rising flour on hand, it’s just 2 ingredients.
- Higher in protein: 2 slices contain 11 grams of protein.
- Simple to make: My boys make this pizza crust now all the time because that’s the only way they can make their own pizza dough!
- Delicious: It is chewy, crispy on the edges and tastes like a real wood-fired pizza!
Ingredients for Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust
You will need only 3 simple ingredients plus your favorite toppings.
- Cottage cheese: I used 2% fat cottage cheese but you can use any cottage cheese. Good brand is Organic Meadow, Good Culture or even Daisy has clean ingredients.
- Flour: I tried this pizza crust recipe with both all-purpose flour and Bob’s Red Mill gluten free baking flour. Both turned out amazing and you can get more tips for making gluten-free pizza crust below. If you would like to use whole wheat flour, try to use 3/4 cup.
- Baking powder: It helps pizza dough to rise. Skip if you are using self-rising flour.
- Toppings: This time I made margherita pizza with marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese and fresh basil.
How to Make Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust
Here is step by step overview how to make it. Full recipe card is located below.
- Make self-rising flour: In a large bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Stir with a fork or whisk until well mixed.
- Make pizza dough: Add undrained cottage cheese. Start mixing the dough with a spatula and then continue mixing it with your hands until it barely sticks to your hands and a ball of dough forms. You can add a little bit more flour at a time, if you have to. Knead about 20-30 times.
- Let the dough rest: Leave the ball of dough in a bowl, cover with kitchen towel and let rest for 10 minutes.
- Roll pizza crust: Using a rolling pin, roll out pizza crust quite thin as long as it is fitting your pizza baking stone or baking sheet.
- Pre-bake the crust first: Roll the crust around the rolling pin and unroll onto the pizza pan. Bake in preheated to 450 F oven for about 5 minutes.
- Add the toppings: Now spread some pizza sauce on top, add your favorite toppings and finish with shredded cheese. I used marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese and fresh basil.
- Bake and slice: Bake cottage cheese pizza crust for another 15 or 18 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and puffy. Remove from the oven, let cool for a few minutes, slice and enjoy!
Tips for Best Results
Here are my top tips for the best pizza crust from the first try!
- Don’t drain or blend cottage cheese: The extra liquid in cottage cheese is necessary for proper dough consistency. There is also no need to dirty another appliance as cottage cheese completely melts into the crust during baking in the oven.
- If the dough is too sticky or wet: Your dough should be not too dry but barely stick to your hands. If you find it too sticky, add small pinches of flour and knead more.
- Don’t skip resting the dough: During resting, pizza dough will rise resulting in fluffy pizza crust.
- All ovens vary: Keep an eye on your pizza crust and remove it from the oven when pizza looks ready. It’s very hard to mess up baking pizza!
Can I Make It Gluten Free?
Yes, you can make cottage cheese pizza crust with gluten free flour. I knew this question would come up, so I tested it. Pictured above is pizza crust made with Bob’s Red Mill gluten free baking flour. Its main ingredients are rice flour and tapioca starch.
I know there is also this all purpose gluten-free flour made with chickpea flour. I think it will work, I just don’t love its chickpea taste or texture. But feel free to give it a try.
Recipe Tip
My biggest tip for making gluten free pizza crust is to roll it out on a piece of parchment paper, then grab by the flaps and transfer on a baking sheet and bake. If you roll it out on a countertop, pizza crust will break because it contains no gluten as you try to move it.
Pizza Toppings Ideas
You can top your cottage cheese pizza with favorite toppings like you would a regular pizza. Here are a few ideas from me:
- Margherita pizza: As pictured, it’s made with marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil leaves to celebrate the colors of Italian flag. Add basil after baking.
- Cheese pizza: Slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, shredded mozzarella cheese, garlic powder and dried oregano.
- Spinach artichoke pizza: Fresh spinach, garlic, artichoke hearts, mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese.
- Greek pizza: Tomatoes, bell pepper, spinach, red onion, olives, mozzarella cheese, feta cheese.
- Meat lovers pizza: Cooked and chopped bacon, crumbled sausage, diced ham, pepperoni and cheese.
- Mushroom pizza: Sauteed mixed mushrooms like baby bella, button, shiitake, and oyster; goat cheese, mozzarella cheese, chives.
- White pizza: Garlic, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, parmesan.
What to Serve Pizza with?
I think to complete a meal with pizza you just need a nice salad to go with it. I like to serve my pizza with wilted spinach salad, Caesar salad or Italian chopped salad.
Not to mention it goes amazing on its own as an appetizer!
How to Store
Store: Store leftovers tightly wrapped in plastic in the fridge for up to 2 days. Reheat in air fryer or microwave.
Freeze: Freeze the dough wrapped in a few layers of plastic wrap and placed in a resealable bag. Thaw on a counter for a few hours or in the fridge overnight and then bake as per recipe.
You can also freeze pre-baked pizza crust for 5 minutes and then thaw, add toppings and bake as per recipe.
FAQs
I use 2% cottage cheese to make my pizza crust. You can also use 4% or 0%. The higher the fat content, the more rich and flavorful the pizza crust will be. Any will work!
I have not tried to make it with vegan cottage cheese but I think it will work. Lactose-free cottage cheese should be OK!
Yes. Replace 1 cup of cottage cheese with only 1/2 cup of plain Greek yogurt, then follow the recipe. Or just check out my Greek yogurt pizza dough recipe.
Sure. This pizza crust recipe makes 1 pizza crust with 8 slices. Good enough for 2 people or 1 hungry person. Feel free to double or triple the recipe to feed more people or to have leftovers.
More Pizza Crust Recipes to Try
- Oatmeal pizza crust
- Almond flour pizza crust
- Sweet potato pizza crust
- Cauliflower pizza crust
- Vegan cauliflower pizza crust
More Cottage Cheese Recipes
- Cottage cheese flatbread
- Zucchini cheddar cottage cheese scones
- Pumpkin cottage cheese scones
- Cottage cheese cookie dough
Be sure to check out all of our cottage cheese recipes!
Cottage Cheese Pizza Crust
Ingredients
- 1 cup + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour or gluten free flour more for dusting
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup cottage cheese
- 1/3 cup marinara sauce
- 1 cup cheese
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add flour and baking powder; whisk well to combine.
- Add cottage cheese and stir with spatula to combine, then proceed to mix with your hands until a ball of dough forms. Knead it about 20 times. Dough should be not sticky but not dry. Cover with a towel and let rest for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Place dough on a floured surface and roll into a pizza shape with rolling pin as thin as possible, while still fitting on your baking surface. Roll crust onto a rolling pin, transfer onto a baking sheet or pizza stone and unroll.
- Bake pizza crust for 5 minutes, then top with marinara sauce, your favorite toppings and cheese, and bake for another 15-18 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Gluten free crust will require less baking time.
- Remove from the oven, cut into 8 slices and serve.
Video
Notes
- Store: Store pizza leftovers tightly wrapped in plastic in the fridge for up to 2 days. Reheat in air fryer or microwave.
- Freeze: Freeze the dough wrapped in a few layers of plastic wrap and placed in a resealable bag. Thaw on a counter for a few hours or in the fridge overnight and then bake as per recipe. You can also freeze pre-baked pizza crust for 5 minutes and then thaw, add toppings and bake as per recipe.
- Gluten free pizza crust: Because gluten-free flour doesn’t contain gluten, it isn’t stretchy and your crust will break during moving. Place a ball of dough onto a parchment paper, roll into a crust and transfer by holding onto the flaps of paper onto a baking sheet or pizza stone.
What kind of gluten-free flour did you use? Was it all purpose or measure for measure?
I mention it in the post a lot, including the link so you can see which one it is.
Happily surprised with the taste and texture of this crust made with gluten-free flour. Very easy to make, which is a huge plus. I’m fairly new to the GF way of eating and had almost given up hope of a good pizza crust. Thank you! Pizza is a very important part of a happy life 🙂 It’s true!
Awesome! Pizza is an important part of life I agree haha! Glad to help!
I made a double batch of this with gluten free flour (and a bit of xantham gum) tonight and it was incredible. We put vegetarian toppings and some tasty cheddar and feta on top, it was absolutely delicious and very filling!! So great to have the extra protein in it 😊😊😊
Yay, awesome!!! I loved it with gluten free flour too. Enjoy!
I have celiac so have to use gluten free flour. I can say this is the best dough I have ever had in over a year of being gluten free. I also make it and cut it into smaller dough balls to make like little flat breads. Thank you so much it’s amazing
Yay, so happy to hear, Theresa!!!
So I have been testing different things with this dough and wanted to say I love love this dough so much. I now use this for so many different recipes. I made cinnamon rolls with it. I added sugar and cinnamon to the flour rolled it out and added cinnamon sugar and butter spreading on the dough adding extra baking powder and soda put in a round baking pan baked on 375 for 30 minutes they were so good my son was like no way these are gluten free. Thank you so much
Wow, I love this idea!!! Thank you so much for sharing!
Made this for our pizza night. I doubled the recipe and I blended the cottage cheese with my immersion blender to get rid of the chunks. I added like a quarter teaspoon of salt but next time I will increase it. The crust was amazing! I liked the crunchiness of the edges and it rose pretty well. Best/easiest crust ever!
Awesome to hear! Yes you need to double or triple the crust for a hungry family. Next time try not to blend cottage cheese. It will melt into the flour, there are no chunks of it. Saves you a step.:)
Could whole wheat flour be used in this recipe?
I personally have not tried. But if I were I would use 3/4 cup whole wheat flour instead of 1 cup of all purpose flour.
Could I substitute almond flour for the all purpose?
Unfortunately not. But I have Almond Flour Pizza Crust recipe