Basil Tofu Pizza

My family has been making this pizza for several years. I think it all started when I found a pizza dough recipe. I don't know where I found the recipe, but I have it saved on my handy dandy TextEdit filed titled "Online Recipe Winners." I created this back on August 18, 2009. The recipe is attributed to Joy of Cooking. I'm afraid I don't know who the original blogger was that posted it, but it's a super simple dough recipe that can be ready in about an hour and a half.

We make this sans cheese, with Isa Moskowitz's Basil-Tofu Ricotta. The first time I made this, I really thought it tasted like cheese.

What's great is for my family, it makes enough for two meals. One pizza yields about 6 large slices.

I use a preheated pizza stone to make pizza, but I'm sure you could sub a regular baking sheet.

What kind of toppings do you like on your pizza?

Basil Tofu Pizza Adapted from Joy of Cooking and Vegan with a Vengeance

Makes 2 pizzas

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

• 2   1/4 tsp instant yeast
• 1   1/3 cup warm water

• 3   1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Basil Tofu

• 1 pound pressed firm tofu 

• Juice of one lemon
• 1 clove of grated garlic
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp dried basil leaves, or to taste
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

• 2 tsp olive oil

Assembly

• 1 jar of tomato sauce - try your favorite pasta sauce

Instructions

Pizza Dough

Combine yeast and warm water in large bowl. Let sit for five minutes.

Add flour, salt and oil. Stir to combine. Knead for five minutes.

Place dough in floured bowl and allow to rise for one hour.

Basil Tofu

Press tofu.

Mush pressed tofu with your hand until it resembles fine crumbles. Add in ingredients from second column (lemon juice, garlic, salt, basil leaves, nutritional yeast) with your hands. Once combined, drizzle in olive oil and stir to coat.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 450 degrees 30 minutes before baking time. Place pizza stone in oven. 

Divide risen dough in half. Roll into circle on a floured surface. Once desired size, transfer dough to preheated pizza stone. Top with half of one jar of pizza sauce. Top with half of basil tofu.

Bake 10 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Note: If making extra pizza next day, place dough in refrigerator. Pull out of fridge two hours before making pizza.