Are you planning on making pizza but are short on cheese and are wondering if the end result would be worthwhile?
Absolutely.
Pizza without cheese is a slightly healthy option and can be made to be as good as a pizza with cheese on it.
Let’s quickly find out why cheese-less pizzas are good and how they can be made at home.
How does pizza taste without cheese?
A pizza made without cheese would have a taste reminiscent of normal bread or pastry having the same cheese-less toppings on it.
Because cheese is an ingredient naturally dominant in whatever recipe it’s being used in, its absence in pizza would mean that some ingredients would no longer be muted, and you’ll be able to taste each and every one of them better.
More than ever, then, the quality of ingredients you start out with becomes very important.
The tomatoes for the sauce have to be fresh and tasty, or the sauce itself has to be very good, and the herbs and condiments must be on point.
The meat, if used, must be properly cooked and juiced up, and there should be a drizzle of fresh olive oil (or any kind of healthy and tasty oil) as a replacement for the cheese.
Is pizza better without cheese?
Whether or not pizza is better without cheese is a question that is subjective.
Vegans believe pizzas are so much better without cheese and there’s never been a time they didn’t enjoy pizzas that way.
Those who enjoy animal products love a generous sprinkle of mozzarella or whatever cheese they prefer on their pizzas, and they believe all pizza eaters should develop such liking too.
Some people, in fact, believe that without cheese, no pizza can ever be complete (and we’re coming to that subject matter in a moment).
But all in all, pizza with cheese is an absolute joy in the mouth and it brings in that extra protein and calories for those who need it.
Likewise, pizza without cheese is typically less dense than its cheesy counterpart in terms of nutrition, but it can be made very enjoyable using different ingredients, except that you may find it difficult to keep the toppings together when taking a bite as the stickiness of cheese isn’t there to hold things together.
So do what you want!
Is pizza without cheese still pizza?
As promised, we’ve returned back to the question: is pizza without cheese still considered pizza?
In order for us to answer the question properly, we first need to go back to the origins of pizza.
Let us understand how the Modern pizza came into being and what specific ingredients were the heart of its composition.
So where is the origin of pizza?
In a very concise manner, the origin of pizza is Naples, Italy. And the original pizza from there is known as Neapolitan pizza: they come in two varieties — the Pizza Marinara and Pizza Margherita.
There is a non-profit organization called “The True Neapolitan Pizza Association” that seeks to preserve and protect the identity of these two pizzas, and on their page explaining the fundamental rules and essential ingredients for making these pizzas, cheese wasn’t mentioned as a requirement for making Pizza Marinara.
It has a very basic ingredient list consisting of tomato, oil, oregano and garlic.
It’s Pizza Margarita that contains buffalo cheese either grated, cut into strips or chopped.
In essence, this means that truly, there is pizza without cheese. Because one of the original recipes of Pizza itself did not include cheese in it.
What is pizza without cheese called?
As evident from the explanation above, pizza without cheese is called Pizza Marinara. Its basic ingredients include oil (preferably extra-virgin olive oil), canned peeled tomatoes, garlic, and a pinch of oregano.
How do you make pizza without cheese?
You can make pizza without cheese by simply omitting the cheese from the recipe. It’s that simple.
Carry on with all of the procedures for making a standard cheese, and when it comes to adding the cheese, hold back.
There are countless recipes online on how to make different types of pizzas without cheese, and some will even show you how to substitute for cheese in a pizza. You can check these out if you need to spice things up a bit.
To learn the original recipe of making pizza without cheese, you can refer to the document below.
Original Pizza Recipe Without Cheese
What ingredients can you omit when making pizza?
Taking the original and most basic recipe for pizza as reference : the Pizza Marinara, it appears that you can omit every other kind of ingredient on pizza with the exception of the following:
1. The tomato sauce
2. Olive oil
3. Garlic
4. Herbs
These ingredients, together, make up an old time classic, and as a result, you want to preserve them as much as possible in order to stay as close as possible to the original food we learnt to call pizza.
What is the weirdest thing to put on a pizza?
Goat cheese
Now the original cheese recommended for making pizza is the Buffalo mozzarella cheese, which is obtained from the milk of buffalo.
So a weird way to go about cheesing up your pizza is by adding cheese other than that. Like going the route of a rather strange cheese addition; the goat cheese — obtained from the milk of goat.
One of the things that makes goat cheese even stranger on a pizza is the way it tastes. Goat cheese has a gamey flavor that is pronounced in every recipe you purpose it for.
Fruits
Fruits are very foreign food items in the pizza world. They’ve never been a bolded item in the ingredient list for the original pizza recipe, and you’ll not find them used in its birth home either.
In many geographical locations however, for instance Canada, fruits as pizza toppings have really gained grounds, but as modern inventions. You can find anything from fresh to dried fruits used alongside other toppings on pizzas.
Honey
Honey is the type of ingredient that really affects flavour wherever it is used. Somehow, people find it comfortable to spread a bit of honey on pizza and call it tasty.
When you’re going this route, just be aware of the repercussions.
Calamari
It’s uncommon to find seafood used as toppings on pizza. It’s mostly meat either from poultry or four legged mammals. So the thought of calamari on pizza is a bit out of context.
The truth is though, unless you want to stick with the original recipe of pizza, which means you’re not even going to have some of the ingredients you consider as normal on your pizzas nowadays, whatever you end up slapping on your pizza is totally fine so long as it satisfies your taste buds and makes the stomach feel good.
