Vegan Pizza Bread with Homemade Dough

Growing up, one of my mom’s default recipes was pizza bread. 

If we needed a snack for a road trip? Pizza bread. What about if we needed an easy weekend meal? Pizza bread. And if we needed to bring something to Football Fridays in high school? You guessed it: Pizza bread.

It was the answer to so many of our snacking and meal dreams. It was pizza, but somehow better.

So… What Exactly IS Pizza Bread?

Simply put, it’s a version of stromboli. For some reason, we’ve always called it pizza bread — and I do think it gives it extra flair (more likely it’s just my childhood nostalgia, but hey, I’m here for it). 

An Italian immigrant to Pennsylvania named Nazzereno Romano invented the Stromboli Sandwich in 1949, and his version was made up of bread dough, meat, cheese, and peppers. It might sound a lot like its cousin from Naples, the calzone — and they are similar, but with minor differences. 

For one, a calzone is like a pizza folded in half, while a stromboli is like a pizza rolled up into a log. As Alex Delaney of Bon Appetit puts it in his impassioned plea for people to understand the difference, “a calzone is like a taco, and a stromboli is like a burrito.”

Anyway, the inventor of stromboli/pizza bread sure knew what he was doing, because people generally love a cheesy, meaty, bready situation. 

Now that I’m plant-based, though, I avoid cheese — and that led me to create this recipe so that I could still enjoy a nostalgic meal from my childhood days.

And folks, it’s amazing, if I do say so myself.

About this Vegan Pizza Bread Recipe

To make this perfect little entree, I made a whole wheat crust (because, you know, health) and added:

• Crushed tomatoes
• Spices
• Garlic
• Jalapeno
• Red onions
• Kale
• Pepperoncini
• Orange bell pepper

But the beauty of this recipe is that it’s easily customizable! You don’t need to feel restricted to my ingredients. Basically, make a pizza with all of your favorite toppings — and roll it up! 

The garlic, jalapeno, and italian seasonings really do add a lot to the crushed tomatoes for a sauce, so don’t be shy with them. If you’re sensitive to spice, you can always take the seeds out of the jalapeno to reduce the heat factor. 

As you probably noticed, I did not put any cheese in this pizza bread. This is the whole reason I’m able to call this version plant-based. Adding cheese makes it more familiar to those of you who are not living the dairy-free life, but personally, I think it’s amazing without it! 

Tips on Making Your Own Pizza Dough from Scratch

If you’re nervous about making your own pizza dough, don’t be! 

This dough is so easy and there is very little you can do to mess it up. Plus, unlike those refrigerated tubes of premade dough you can buy at the grocery store, you’ll know exactly what’s in it. That’s worth a few extra minutes (not to mention saved $$$), right?

1. First, make sure to use warm water when proofing your yeast. If it’s too hot, it’ll kill the yeast, but if it’s too cold, the yeast won’t activate. Your goal is to let the yeast grow enough to create a light, fluffy bread; but if you kill it early or don’t activate it at all, that definitely won’t happen.

2. Also, make sure you use force when you’re rolling out the dough. This is not a fragile pie crust, so use your muscles and roll that thing out! The dough tends to stretch when you roll it, then shrink as soon as you pick up the rolling pin. I promise that if you keep rolling and using those muscles, it will bend to your will (and you’ll get a nice little arm workout, so it’s a win-win).

This vegan pizza bread recipe is an amazing way to ease into eating vegan pizza, since the slightly different presentation helps you not notice that the cheese is missing. I promise, once you try it, you’ll realize how good pizza can be without dairy!

Speaking of which: if you’re interested in the same discovery about cheese-less quesadillas, check out my recipe for vegan quesadillas with pinto beans and sautéed veggies.

Overall, this vegan pizza bread is quick, fun, family friendly, adaptable, and nutritious.

If you try it, please rate and comment on this post to let us know how it went! 

Cheers,
Elana

Vegan Pizza Bread

This easy and endlessly customizable recipe is a great option for game nights or a weekend snack!

5 from 2 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Resting time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 25 minutes mins

Course Appetizer, Main Course

Cuisine American, Italian

Servings 8

Ingredients

  

Dough Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 Tablespoon sugar maple syrup, or honey
• 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour + ~1/2 cup more for kneading/rolling out

Pizza ingredients

• 15 oz canned crushed tomatoes
• 1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 4 cloves of garlic minced
• 4 stalks kale
• 1 orange, red, or yellow bell pepper
• 1/2 red onion
• 2 jalapenos
• pepperoncini pepper
• ~2 Tablespoons coconut or olive oil
• ~1 teaspoon garlic salt

Instructions

 

Dough instructions:

• Proof the water (1.25 c), sugar (1 Tbsp), and yeast (2.25 tspns) in a large bowl until the mixture looks foamy (~5 minutes).
• Add oil (2 Tbsp), salt (1 tsp), garlic powder (1/2 tsp) and mix.
• Add flour (2.5c) one cup at a time and stir until mixture roughly resembles a ball.
• Transfer ball of dough to floured surface and knead with your hands for ~5 minutes, adding flour as dough gets sticky to form a more cohesive ball.
• Split dough in half to have 2 pizza rolls.
• Use a rolling pin (or long glass bottle such as a wine bottle) to roll out each dough into desired size. Once rolled out, the dough needs to resemble a rectangle to roll it later.

Pizza instructions:

• Derib (take the leaves off the center stalk) the kale (4 stalks), roughly chop, and massage with your hands for 1-2 minutes.* Dice the rest of the toppings (1 red/orange/yellow bell pepper, 2 jalapeños, 1/2 red onion, 4 cloves garlic) as small/large as desired to put in your pizza roll.
• Add half of crushed tomatoes (7.5 oz), Italian seasoning (1.5 tsp), oregano (1 tsp), and garlic (2 cloves) to the dough as the tomato sauce base. Then add half of the rest of the toppings in whatever order you’re feeling in the moment!
• Roll the longest edge of the pizza over itself multiple times (see pictures) to form a neat, long, roll. Tuck each end of the roll under to close it up and keep the ingredients inside. Place on greased cookie sheet.
• Repeat steps 2-3 with second pizza roll.
• Let rise for ~30 minutes, until you can see the edges of the dough rising.
• Brush with coconut/olive oil and sprinkle with garlic salt.
• Cook in oven preheated to 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes — until the top of the pizza bread is light brown.
• Serve with marinara sauce as a snack or with marinara sauce and salad as a full meal!
• Best when fresh, but keeps in fridge for 2-3 days.

Notes

*Massaging the kale makes it slightly easier to digest and easier to roll. It’s not absolutely necessary if you know kale doesn’t upset your stomach and you’re in a hurry.

Keyword easy, healthy, vegan, vegetarian