Vegan flatbread pizza

Time to veganize some flatbread pizza!

I've tried this recipe for crisp rosemary flatbread before in my omnivorous days. I love the simplicity of it - great to throw together even on a workweek evening and still have pizza from scratch - and how nice it comes out. It's put together very quickly especially since there's no yeast or rising cycles involved, so it's become my standard recipe to use for flatbread pizza. It's also really nice to just make the flatbread, break it up, and use it for dipping into hummus, baba ghanoush, or a nice cucumber-dill dip. It smells so wonderful from the olive oil!

Working on parchment paper.

Olive oil applied on flattened dough with a Misto sprayer.

Veganization here was easy. I made a simple sun-dried tomato pesto out of tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic powder, basil, oregano, a little paprika, and pesto amounts of olive oil.  As for toppers, I sauteed some of that yummy smokey "fakin' bacon" tempeh and crumbled it on top of the pesto, and then topped it all off with some Daiya mozzarella cheese shreds.

With sun-dried tomato pesto and tempeh crumbles.

 

Topped with Daiya on its way to the oven.

And after baking at 450F for around 10 minutes on a pizza stone:

Yum.

Daiya melts but the appearance is a little on the dry side. Nevertheless, it tastes pretty good, with the pesto going well with the smoky tempeh crumbles. The flatbread came out tender but not so much that when you lifted a piece it would droop down. Each piece held its shape nicely. I think if I were to want it crispier I might prebake the flatbread a little on its own first, then add the toppings and broil to melt the cheese.

Veggies would be great on this, as would a margherita version with halved cherry tomatoes and fresh basil leaves.  This one's definitely a keeper. Who said you have to give up the fun stuff when you go vegan. :-)