SIBO Diet Pizza Frittata Recipe

One of the things that people with SIBO often miss is the taste of pizza. Gluten-free pizza crusts won’t work, since they contain things like rice flour, potato starch, xanthan gum, and yeast; a cauliflower pizza crust won’t work either, since cauliflower is in the higher “orange” column of Dr. Siebecker’s SIBO-Specific Diet Food Guide chart.

The idea for my pizza recipe began when I saw several bloggers using zucchini for their crust base, and since zucchini is (within reasonable limits) still in the safe “green” column of that Food Guide chart, I decided to give it a whirl.

Surprisingly, zucchini made a passable “crust” (when prepared properly), and when topped like a pizza, it even looks and tastes reasonably close.

“Topped like a pizza” being the important words… in the time it took to drain, make, and pre-bake those crusts, we got so hungry, we ended up piling on a lot of toppings, and then… well… it looked a lot more like a frittata than a pizza. 🙂

If you can show more restraint on your toppings, go ahead and call it a SIBO-friendly pizza. If you’re more like us, try calling it Chicago-style SIBO-friendly pizza. Just don’t tell anyone from Chicago. 😉

SIBO-Friendly Pizza Crust

I must have really strong hands. After squeezing out the moisture from my grated and drained zucchini, I did not end up with enough “crust” for two people as the other recipes indicated. The following is a tried and tested ratio that lets YOU decide how many pizza “crusts” you want to create. For ONE 8-10″ pizza crust:

1 medium Zucchini (roughly 2×8″ after stem is removed)
1 Egg
1/2 cup aged Parmesan cheese, grated fluffy (versus shredded)
1/8 cup Coconut flour

Preheat oven to 450°.

Grate zucchini, place in a mesh colander, sprinkle with a bit of kosher salt and a few squeezes of lemon juice, toss well, and let the zucchini sit for 10 minutes to drain (top photo).

Using your hands or a piece of cheesecloth, squeeze as much moisture out of the drained zucchini as possible… the more dry it is, the better your crust will crisp up (middle photo).

Place zucchini in a bowl with eggs, Parmesan cheese, almond flour, salt and pepper to taste, and mix well (bottom photo).

Line a cookie sheet with a Silpat (I forgot this step, and clean-up took quite a bit more time).

Pat zucchini mixture into a thin round (roughly 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick) and bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes.

As the zucchini crust is baking, stir together the tomato sauce ingredients:

SIBO-Friendly Pizza Sauce

For ONE 8-10″ pizza crust:

1-2 TBL of organic tomato paste*
1/3 to 1/2 cup of tomato sauce*
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil

*These ratios depend on how thick you like your sauce. Start with one TBL of paste + 1/3 cup of sauce. Mix and taste. Add more of whatever you prefer.

SIBO-Friendly Pizza Toppings

• Shredded aged Parmesan
• Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half or thirds
• Thinly sliced eggplant
• Thinly sliced red peppers
• Thinly sliced fennel
• Thinly sliced delicata squash
• Arugula or spinach
• Olives
• Pancetta or prosciutto
• Ground pork or beef (not seasoned)
• Shredded cooked chicken
• Small bay shrimp, pre-cooked
• Thinly sliced green scallion tops or chives
• Fresh basil
• Fresh oregano

Final Instructions:

Once your pizza crusts are pre-baked, top them with sauce, add your choice of toppings, and return to the oven for final baking… roughly 8-10 minutes, depending on how wild (and thick) you got with your toppings (ours took closer to 12 minutes as you can well imagine).

P.S. I don’t try to be a great photographer. This is just what food looks like when it’s prepared by a really busy person on a really busy work day. 🙂