How to have The Best Gluten-Free Pizza Nights

Today we’re talking about one of the hardest things to give up when going gluten-free — pizza.

Seriously, how many times have you heard—or maybe even said—“I could never live without pizza!” I get it. Pizza isn’t just food — it’s tradition, it’s comfort, it’s family game night and lazy weekends and celebration dinners.

But here’s the truth: going gluten-free doesn’t mean pizza night is over. Not even close.

In this episode, I’m sharing my top gluten-free frozen pizza picks, what to ask at restaurants to make sure the pizza is truly safe, and a quick and easy gluten-free pizza crust you can make at home and keep in your freezer for the next time the craving hits. Oh—and yes, that recipe is on my website!

If you’ve been missing pizza or just want to feel like you can finally enjoy it again without the stress, this one’s for you.

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Chapters

• 1:22 Episode Introduction
• 2:19 The Emotional Ties to Pizza
• 4:12 Best Gluten-Free Frozen Pizza Options
• 7:04 Tips for Ordering Pizza at Restaurants
• 9:50 Homemade Pizza Crust Hacks
• 13:27 Making Pizza Night a Family Affair
• 15:28 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Carrie Saunders: 0:41

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode. This podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. Today, we're talking about one of the hardest things to give up when going gluten-free pizza. Seriously, how many times have you heard, or maybe even said yourself, I can never live without pizza. I get it. Pizza isn't just food, it's tradition, it's comfort, it's family game night, it's lazy weekends and celebration dinners. But here's the truth Going gluten-free doesn't mean pizza night is over, not even close. You may even find your homemade pizzas, or the pizzas I'm going to suggest, even better than what you got at takeout. In this episode, I'm sharing my top gluten-free frozen pizza picks what to ask at restaurants. And a quick and easy gluten-free pizza pizza picks what to ask at restaurants. And a quick and easy gluten-free pizza crust you can make at home and yes, that recipe is on my website. If you've been missing pizza or want to feel like you can finally enjoy it again without the stress, this episode is for you.

Carrie Saunders: 1:39

Welcome to the Gluten-Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease a moment that changed everything, but I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything.

Carrie Saunders: 2:17

Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking all things gluten-free pizza, and let's start off with the emotional problem with pizza. It's such an American tradition and I know it's a tradition in many other countries as well. So what makes pizza feel like such a big loss One? It's tied to tradition, as I just alluded to. It's also tied to social gatherings. It's tied to a quick and easy weeknight meal. It's tied to celebrations, birthday parties. It's tied to Friday nights. We used to get pizza every Friday night before we went gluten-free. It was just our tradition on a Friday night, and it's hard to see friends order pizza. Sometimes when you feel left out, like many times, it'll make you feel really left out when you see your friends eat pizza, especially early on before that, especially if you're celiac before that fear kicks in on how pizza can make you super sick, obviously because it has gluten in it, and it's normal to have this grief, it's normal to have this sadness. But we're going to work through that and we're going to make pizza fun again if it's not already, and if it's already in a good place for you, and we're going to make pizza fun again if it's not already and if it's already, you know, in a good place for you. We're going to make it even better in this episode.

Carrie Saunders: 3:31

So let's first talk about where can we get some really good frozen pizza. It is in most of our grocery stores out there and there's. We've tried so many brands of gluten-free frozen pizza. I couldn't even count how many we've tried over the past 12 plus years, and I'll tell you one of my absolute favorite one. But let's start off with some ones that are still really good. So Udi's makes a really good gluten-free pizza crust. Digiorno also does too, and do note on these. We need to be checking the ingredients and the labels just in case, and if you're celiac, please make sure it is certified gluten-free and isn't processed in a facility that processes wheat. There are also some other really good ones, like California Pizza Kitchen. They have some gluten-free pizzas you can get Fresh. Cheddar also has a gluten-free pizza. Trader Joe's has a gluten-free pizza If you're in the area of the country where there is like a Kroger or a Walmart. Many times the generic brands have caught up anymore. This did not used to be the case, and they'll have certified gluten-free pizzas as well.

Carrie Saunders: 4:40

A diet is also a really good one for those that also need to be dairy-free too. And then my absolute favorite is against the grain. We absolutely love this pizza. The pizza crust is so delicious. It is mixed with cheese, so you can imagine how yummy that would be if you can tolerate dairy. And for me, I don't do well on grains, and it's a grain-free pizza, so it doesn't have the rice, it doesn't have corn, it doesn't have those other alternative grains in it that are gluten-free, so for my stomach, I feel the best on against the grain pizza and, honestly, it is literally the best pizza crust I've ever had. That is a frozen pizza crust.

Carrie Saunders: 5:25

Now, one of the tips that I will recommend, though. Whenever you're making a gluten-free frozen pizza from home, no matter what brand, we always ending up end up adding fresh mozzarella to ours. We might add, like if it's a pepperoni pizza. I feel like frozen pizzas never have enough pepperoni for our household, so I'll add more fresh pepperoni to it, obviously making sure these things are gluten free when we add them to it and whatever other toppings you might want to just kind of fill out, because I find that frozen pizzas, while they're good, they don't quite have that hearty amount of topping that you would get in a takeout place. So we always add that on there of topping that you would get in a takeout place, so we always add that on there. And then another tip if you want it to taste like you know your local, you know pizza shop, bake it towards its normal directions.

Carrie Saunders: 6:16

But then, when it's done, put your pizza up close to the top of the oven and put the oven on broil. You need to watch this. So I'm going to warn you. You're going to need to watch the pizza between one and two minutes and that's going to really crisp up. Let's say you have pepperoni on it. You're going to really crisp up that pepperoni. It's really going to make that cheese nice and bubbly. It's going to create some nice crispies around the edge. But if you're not watching out, you're going to burn your pizza. So I do want to say with caution, you really have to be standing there watching your pizza when you do it on the broil method, but that can really make it taste and texture wise, like it came fresh out of one of those really super hot ovens at a pizza place. So that can really level up your frozen pizza.

Carrie Saunders: 7:03

Now what about dining out? You know how do we order pizza out at restaurants. We have successfully ordered pizza from Donato's. We have Donato's here locally as well as Mellow Mushroom. You is you want to call ahead, ask if they have a separate prep area for the pizza or a separate oven. In the case of mellow mushroom, they put a splatter screen over your pizza. When you tell them that you need to have a gluten-free pizza, they also bake your pizza on gluten-free only pizza pans as well. Double check, if you go to a mellow mushroom that they are still doing that in your area, because obviously policies can always change. So we do really well with those With our local Donato's. We can tell them.

Carrie Saunders: 7:55

You know, we have a gluten allergy is how I usually word it. People tend to understand that more than celiac, although celiac is getting a bit more popular as far as a term that restaurant owners and workers understand and I just ask them to be extra careful and I don't think we've ever gotten sick when we're really diligent at double checking with the restaurant to make sure they're extra careful. Make sure that they're not doing any cross-contamination. If you get sensitive to that and don't be afraid to ask detailed questions. Make sure they're using a separate pizza cutter. Your health depends upon it. Ask them not to cut the pizza if you would prefer them not to even risk cutting the pizza. So you know, look for some restaurants near you. Many times they will have gluten-free options.

Carrie Saunders: 8:42

I believe our Domino's here has a gluten-free option. I have not tried that so I can't speak to whether it's worked for our family or not, but I know a lot of the. You know more chain type pizza restaurants are, you know, bringing in the gluten-free pizza a lot more often, but you just have to double check to make sure that it's safe. Now I promised a hack that I have that is super fun and super easy and this can make pizza night pretty fun with your family. I have a really quick and easy gluten-free pizza crust recipe. That's on our website, theglutenfreeengineercom, so you want to make sure that you check that out.

Carrie Saunders: 9:18

After this episode and whenever you use this, the really great thing is you, you know, pre-bake the pizza crust, so you bake it, for I think it's like don't quote me on this, I'm trying to remember the recipe but like eight to 10 minutes, I believe, and then what you can do is let it cool down, and let it completely cool down, and then you can stick it in a Ziploc big gallon, Ziploc baggies or some other container you might have that can fit the pizza crust and you can freeze it for months, like three to six months, depending on how good your freezer is, and you can make multiple of these and freeze them ahead of time. And then, whenever you want to make pizza homemade, you just pull them out of your freezer, put your toppings on them. It will thaw as you're putting your toppings on them and then you can bake them for another like 10 to 12 minutes to 14, depending upon your oven and you're going to have a, you know, homemade gluten-free pizza that you've made yourself and you can use that tip I suggested with our frozen pizzas and turn your oven to broil that last minute or two. Again, watch it, because it's really easy to burn and that's going to make it taste like, um, a restaurant down the street, uh pizza. And then another tip is let's say that you, um, don't want to make it from scratch. You can also buy Bob's Red Mill pizza crust that's gluten-free. There are some other brands too that are really good that are gluten-free. Um, the Bob's Red Mill is the most popular in our house. The only problem with that one is you do need to let the yeast rise in that one. My recipe that's on our website doesn't even need a yeast rise on it, so it's a bit quicker to make. But I have a couple of kids that prefer the Bob's Red Mill, and then I have the rest of us, don't mind, you know like the one that I have on our website.

Carrie Saunders: 11:10

And then another tip too if you're making your gluten-free pizza crust the nice thing about that you can add in herbs and spices to it. So I love to mix in oregano into the pizza crust, maybe some garlic powder, maybe a little onion powder. So if you want a little bit more taste to your pizza crust, you know, play with some ingredients and add those in. Add those little dry herbs into your pizza crust. It's going to work. It's going to turn out really great. I do that a lot, as I will put oregano and or garlic or onion powder in to my dough as I'm making it and that can really elevate the flavor of it as well. And that's actually a tip I forgot to say when we use the pre-made frozen pizzas. Many times we do add oregano to our pizzas, because we just love oregano on pizza. So think a little bit outside the box.

Carrie Saunders: 12:04

Whether you're making your own homemade gluten-free pizza or you're using a frozen pizza and you're adapting it a bit, even before we went, you know, had to realize we had to go gluten-free. We would like finesse our frozen pizzas anyway, because I just felt, like about any frozen pizza, it's good many times, but you can even make it a little bit better with some small little tweaks. And then when you're making this gluten-free pizza crust from scratch and these pizzas from scratch this is a great way to have some family time Many times what we will do is we will have, we will pre-cook, like sausage and bacon, and we'll chop it up, and then maybe we'll, you know, make some, chop up some veggies that people might like, like peppers or onions or mushrooms, and we'll let the kids or family make their own pizzas. So they're making their own personal pizzas, they're making it how they like it, putting the toppings on that they like it, and they're getting some experience in the kitchen as well as some family time with you. So take the opportunity whenever you do make homemade gluten-free pizza or the frozen pizzas even if you use the frozen pizzas and augment them make that some family time. You know, kind of make a dual effort out of this and you're going to have a lot more fun and you're going to probably find that the homemade pizzas you make sometimes and many times are way better than ones you might go get at a restaurant.

Carrie Saunders: 13:31

So I hope you enjoy some of these quick tips on how we can still make pizza fun and many times actually, what we would do when all three kids especially when we're in marching band I would make pizzas the night before a competition and then we would take cold pizza with us to a marching band competition and, honestly, many times their friends were a bit jealous and or wanted a piece of their pizza because they were just eating concession food and here my kids had homemade gluten free pizza. So their friends were like, can I have a bite? And you know we're wanting some too. So make it fun, you know. Figure out how you want to take it to a potluck or take it to another pizza party that you're going to that has normal pizza there. That way, you can still enjoy your pizza. I even went so far as to considering buying pizza boxes so I can transport our pizza even easier, and those actually aren't that expensive online to buy a stack of pizza boxes.

Carrie Saunders: 14:29

So be creative, have some fun with the pizza. Be creative, have some fun with the pizza. It can be so much fun to create, to modify, to make it your own and just have everybody have their own wonderful, personal pizza. So I hope this episode gave you a big slice of encouragement. Yes, the pun was intended. I thought that was kind of funny. And remember, gluten-free living doesn't mean you're missing out, so you just need the right tools, tips and a crust that won't let you down.

Carrie Saunders: 14:58

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten-Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreeengineercom. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode and we will see you next week. The Gluten-Free Engineer podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten-free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide a medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns or advice specific to your health.