Healthy Barbecue Chicken Pizza with Sweet Potato Crust
Who says good pizza can’t be healthy? Or healthy pizza can’t taste good? Our famous Sweet Potato Pizza is topped with tangy BBQ chicken and delicious roasted veggies. It’s gluten free, dairy-free, and packed with protein. And it tastes ahh-mazing!!
Healthy Barbecue Chicken Pizza with Sweet Potato Crust
Pizza has been off the menu ever since I became lactose-intolerant about ten years ago. We also avoid gluten whenever possible, so that’s two strikes against those cheesy, doughy pies of deliciousness.
That is until my husband dreamed up the sweet potato crust pizza recipe that changed my life. Finally I can enjoy pizza without worry of an upset tummy! (Or busting a diet!)
And it is so so SO good.
I crave this pizza and once you try it, you will too!
The Critics Agree…this is the BEST Sweet Potato Pizza
Originally published in 2015, this is one of our all-time most popular recipes!
It has been featured in FitnessMagazine.com, Gourmandize, MSN.com, Daily Burn, and many, many food blogs!
We’ve also gotten tons of awesome feedback from readers who’ve tried our sweet potato crust, so I’ve added our favorite reader-submitted ideas and questions later in the post!
Why We Used Sweet Potatoes for the Crust
What makes this pizza different from other gluten free pizza recipes? Well, for one, sweet potatoes are super good for you!
Just a couple of the health benefits of sweet potatoes:
- Sweet potatoes provide a whopping 214% daily value of Vitamin A and 52% daily value of Vitamin C!
- Plus they’re a good source of manganese, B vitamins, biotin, fiber, and potassium! (Source)
So this is not only a recipe that fits into a gluten free or dairy free lifestyle, it’s actually a healthy pizza for anyone!
Another reason that we used sweet potatoes to make our pizza crust is that they create a fabulous texture and they’re gluten free!
It’s such a flavorful, hearty dish that you won’t even “miss” the real thing! And you feel good after eating it!
What you need to make sweet potato pizza crust:
Affiliate links provided for your convenience in re-creating this recipe; disclosure policy here.)
- Sweet potatoes
- Egg
- Almond flour
- Salt
- Dried oregano
- Dried basil
- Garlic powder
- Apple cider vinegar
Our Pizza Toppings:
- Barbecue sauce
- Tomato sauce
- Shredded rotisserie chicken (pre-cooked) – click here to learn how to make your own easy and thrifty rotisserie style chicken at home!
- Chopped spinach
- Red onion, sliced and sautéed
How to make sweet potato pizza crust
Pre-heat oven to 400°F.
Cook sweet potatoes in microwave until soft, peel, and add to a large mixing bowl with almond flour, egg, salt, dried oregano, dried basil, garlic powder, and apple cider vinegar.
(For an extra kick, add a pinch of chili powder.)
Mash ingredients until well combined and the mixture takes on a doughy consistency.
Spread on a Pizza Stone
(you could also use a Silicon Baking Mat
or greased baking sheet) and cook in oven at 400° for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and spread a mixture of barbecue and tomato sauce on top of the crust.
Layer with chicken, spinach, and red onion. Return pizza to oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes with toppings.
Remove from oven and drizzle with BBQ sauce.
Full printable recipe available for free at the bottom of the post. Click here to jump to printable recipe.
Can you cook the sweet potatoes in advance?
Absolutely! If you do meal planning, this recipe is perfect because you can cook the sweet potatoes at the beginning of the week, refrigerate, and use them to make the crust on the day you’re planning to serve pizza.
Simply cook the sweet potatoes, cool, and store in the fridge until ready to use. Cooked sweet potatoes last up to 5 days refrigerated.
How can I make the pizza crust crispier?
You can see from the photos there is a beautiful crispness to the edge of the sweet potato crust. It holds up really well with as many ingredients as we piled on, though it’s probably easiest to eat with a fork.
However, if you’re craving an extra crispy crust, this reader submitted tip works great:
- After cooking sweet potato crust for 30 minutes, flip and cook for an additional 5-7 minutes to get it extra crispy. Then add your toppings and cook as normal.
What can I use instead of almond flour?
If you don’t have almond flour on hand, or prefer to use something else, you can substitute all-purpose gluten free flour.
More of our favorite sweet potato recipes:
- Loaded Sweet Potato Donuts
- Homemade Sweet Potato Pie
- Scalloped Sweet Potatoes with Candied Pecans
- Sweet Potato Mac & Cheese
- Apple Pie Sweet Potato Donuts
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Healthy Sweet Potato Pizza with BBQ Chicken - Gluten Free, Non Dairy
Equipment
- Pizza Stone
Ingredients
Sweet potato crust ingredients:
- 3 sweet potatoes medium
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Toppings:
- 1 cup pre-cooked rotisserie chicken shredded
- 1 cup spinach chopped
- 1 red onion thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
- 1/2 cup tomato sauce
Instructions
To make the sweet potato crust:
- Pre-heat oven to 400°.
- Cook sweet potatoes in microwave until soft.
- Peel sweet potatoes and add to large mixing bowl with almond flour, egg, salt, dried oregano, dried basil, garlic powder, and apple cider vinegar. (For an extra kick, add a pinch of chili powder.) Mash ingredients until well combined and the mixture takes on a doughy consistency.
- Use rubber spatula to spread on a Pizza Stone (you could also use a Silicon Baking Mat or greased baking sheet.) You want the crust dough to be no more than 1/2" thick to cook evenly.
- Cook dough at 400° for 30 minutes.
To finish the sweet potato crust pizza:
- While pizza dough is baking: shred 1 cup of pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, chop 1 cup spinach, and sauté one thinly sliced medium red onion until soft.
- Remove pizza dough from oven and spread 1/2 cup barbecue sauce and 1/2 cup tomato sauce on top.
- Cover pizza with shredded rotisserie chicken, chopped spinach, and red onions. Drizzle with barbecue sauce.
- Return pizza to oven and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Slice and enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Pin our healthy sweet potato pizza recipe on Pinterest:
More of our favorite healthy gluten free pizza recipes:
Spicy Gluten Free Buffalo Chicken Pizza w/ Sweet Potato Crust
American Flag Gluten Free Fruit Pizza
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I picked a great night to invite myself for dinner! It truly was delicious and satisfying in the way real pizza is.
Just about every night is a good night to come over for dinner! But the pizza WAS amazing!
Do you have the nutritional information for this recipie?
Hi Megan! I don’t have nutrition data because there are quite a few variables that could affect the exact amounts (example: the type of barbecue sauce, the size of the sweet potatoes, etc). I don’t count calories on a regular basis, but what you might try is looking up a nutrition search website and entering in the exact ingredients you used (a lot of these sites will have brand-specific data). That way you could get a rough estimate for your pizza as a whole, and then divide that by the number of servings. I don’t think that this would be a “low-calorie” food, but it is gluten-free, dairy-free, and packed with vitamins and protein, so in my book that is a healthy food 🙂
I made this for dinner tonight and it was amazing! Even my husband, who doesn’t really care for sweet potatoes loved it! Thank you for sharing this recipe
I’m so glad that you loved it Jacqueline and thank you for letting me know! I was just thinking that I need to request it for dinner again soon 🙂
Could I use another type of flour to replace the almond flour?
Sure! We use almond flour because it’s one of our favorite gluten-free options, but you could use whichever type your prefer.
Hi, I just made this for dinner and was super pleased with the taste and getting more vegetables on my plate. Just one question, how many grams of sweet potato do you use? Cause 3 medium Australian sweet potatoes was way too much and I had to add more flour to get a dough texture.
Hi Kylie! I’m so glad you enjoyed the sweet potato pizza! I honestly couldn’t tell you the exact amount in grams, as we don’t have a food scale. Generally, my husband does exactly as you did– if there seems to be a bit too much potato, he’ll add more flour to balance it out.
This was SO good!! The first good pizza we’ve tried! I can’t stand most paleo-ish crusts, they usually have arrowroot or tapioca flour which make the crust have this weird texture. Your crust recipe is outstanding- we love the flavors and the texture. We made a couple allergy friendly modifications, we used a gelatin egg in place of the egg and I made two AIP bbq sauces to put on the pizza. Soooo so so good. Thanks!!
Hi Jessica- I’m so glad that you loved this!! Thank you for letting me know! 🙂 I’m sure your allergy-friendly substitutions could come in handy for other readers.
This looks so good! And I love the idea of making sweet potato crust. My family is also made up of pizza lovers so it’s nice to have a healthy alternative to the traditional carb and cheese loaded pizza. I did recently find a great tool on Registered Dietician Sofia Abdelkafi’s website that analyzes my recipes to tell me whether they are healthy or not. It’s been really helpful because it lets me put my family’s favorites to the test to see if I need to make any changes. You can check it out here: http://sheismynutritionist.com/recipe-analyzer/
Sounds like a useful tool!
Do you think substituting another kind of flour would be ok? Right now I have brown rice flour, whole wheat, and white ?
Nevermind I see this already been asked and answered!
Let me know which you use and how it goes! 🙂 Any flour with gluten will change the consistency slightly, but it should still taste fantastic!
I used brown rice flour…. It came out delicious! I also just used marinara sauce because I realized I was out of bbq in the midst of the recipe, and piled on veggies. I’ve had bad experiences trying to make cauliflower crust, but this was incredibly easy. Thank you so much!
That sounds amazing! I’ve been curious to try cauliflower crust, but so far I haven’t heard any positive reviews. I might have to see if my husband is up for the challenge!
The taste was fantastic and I love the concept but I can’t believe you recommended baking it on a pizza stone! The whole thing stuck. I managed to chisel pieces off and put on a parchment lined cookie sheet before the topping stage and it turned out messy but yummy. I had a bad feeling about putting it in my well seasoned pizza stone but I figured you knew something I didn’t about the stickiness of the dough… Too bad. Next time, I’ll cook on a parchment-lined pan.
I’m sorry that you had trouble with the pizza sticking — it could be the type/brand of stone is different than ours. Glad you were able to enjoy it even if it turned out a bit messy 🙂 Thanks for sharing the tip about the parchment paper– it could be useful to readers who don’t have a pizza stone too.
I just made this for my husband and I this evening–it’s amazing! Thanks for sharing it!!
Awesome!! Thank you for letting me know!
Do you preheat the pizza stone before spreading the mixture on?
Hi Justin- you don’t have to preheat the pizza stone, but if you want the crust a little crispier, you can brush it with olive oil before baking.
How do you soften sweet potatoes in the microwave? Should they go in a bowl or just straight in? About how long does it take to soften enough for the dough? Thanks!
I poke a few holes in the sweet potatoes first with a fork (so the steam/pressure doesn’t build up while cooking) and wrap them in a completely dampened (but not dripping wet) dish towel. Microwave times vary based on your machine, but generally 5-8 minutes. You want them to be almost as soft as if you were going to eat them right away by themselves– this way you can work with them into a dough. Hope that helps! 🙂
What if you don’t have a microwave (eek, i know!). Do you think you can boil the sweet potatoes first?
Hi Dana- that should be fine! You could also bake them, though that would take longer.
This was absolutely fabulous. Best gluten free pizza ever. This was our super bowl fare. Thanks
Awesome Deb! Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it!
How many servings does this make?
It depends on how hungry you are 🙂 But one pizza feeds our family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids), usually with a couple pieces leftover.
Do you think a regular nonstick cookie sheet would work or do you think it would burn the crust
Hi Laurie, usually non-stick sheets cook faster, so I would adjust the cooking time (maybe 5-10 minutes less) and keep an eye on it. You can always let it cook fore more time if needed.
Would you double the recipe to put it on a cookie sheet?
Hi this looks delicious! I was just wondering how many servings this pizza typically makes?
Wonderful!! The crust came out perfect! I did pulled pork instead of chicken because I had leftovers. It was delicious! We are trying to eat healthier in our house and pizza has been the biggest struggle, but this fixes my cravings without ruining my diet. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it Sara! This recipe takes care of my pizza cravings too! Good tip about subbing leftovers 🙂
Hi, just made this but the base was crispy on top but soggy everywhere else. Any ideas?
Hi Martin, you could try rolling the dough out a little thinner. You might also try cooking the dough a few extra minutes…but be sure to watch it carefully! Even still dough will be a bit softer than a traditional wheat crust, due to the nature of the ingredients.
Omg this was amazing! Absolutely loved it!!
Awesome!! Thanks for letting me know Vanessa 🙂
Just made it tonight, and the crust tastes amazing! Unfortunately even with extra time in the oven it didn’t crisp up at all. We used parchment paper on a baking sheet. The crust was very soft and broke apart upon contact. A yummy but messy dinner! Any tips for next time?
Hi Alena, the problem could be in the parchment paper, which is moisture-resistant and would have the effect of steaming the bottom of your pizza crust. Try cooking on the baking sheet alone and butter the pan so it doesn’t stick. I usually end up eating my pizza with a fork anyway because I load it up with sauce and toppings 🙂
Thank you THANK YOU for sharing! We are a sweet potato family PLUS non dairy. And LOVED the pizza!!!!
Awesome!! So glad your family loved the pizza – thank you for letting me know!
I loved this so much! I was questioning whether it would taste good during the cooking process being that there’s no cheese, but I am so glad I gave it a shot! The sautéed red onion and BBQ sauce gave it a great kick! I will definitely be making this again in the future. Thank you for this recipe!
So glad you loved it Shannon!
I used my SILPAT…I baked the potatoes, so they give off a bit more liquid this way… therefore, I added about 1/4 more almond meal. After baking the crust, I added caramelized red onions, then bbq sauce, chopped cilantro, then shredded chicken breasts I’d baked and shredded, topped with just a little cheddar. I would have used spinach, but I was at the grocery at opening Sunday morning and ugh…Fresh and packaged, not worth the money, it didn’t look well. Pizza was lovely and husband was happy. I did drizzle a little ranch over our plated slices… Leftovers are sort of a mix mash as they did not come off in a pizza slice way, but it will not change the flavor, I am sure. Thanks so much, my husband has already thought of variations of toppings! Cheers!
Glad it was a hit! We’ve been thinking of some new toppings to try as well and might share new recipes soon 🙂
Can you please tell me roughly how many cups of sweet potato? I baked 4 medium size ones but its hard to tell how much I need.
Hi Rachel- 3 cups would be a good estimate.
Can’t wait to try this but i have a question: Usually I need to put the pizza stone in the oven while it preheats. I thought the stone would crack if it is put into a hot oven? What do you think?
If your stone needs to be pre-heated, I would do so for this recipe as well. Just keep an eye on the pizza in case it cooks a bit faster.
Can the dough be prepared early like the night before?
Hi Jacqueline, you can absolutely make the dough the night before if you like. Simply cover and refrigerate until you use it the next day. Enjoy!
I have celiac disease so I’m careful not to eat gluten. What about the rotisserie chicken? I think it’s made with flour sometimes. Would a torn up chicken breast work?
You can absolutely make your own chicken – we do that sometimes too. 🙂
When you freeze it how long in the oven do you think it would take on 400*?
Hi Shana, Do you mean the dough? Or the finished pizza?
Absolutely love this pizza recipe. It’s the only one I use. I make it every Friday night, my husband and kids love it. ???? I’ve also done it for other members of the family and they can’t believe how amazing and authentic the pizzas turn out ?
I’ve been using a shop bought pizza sauce but would love to make my own.
After many failed attempts with pizza dough…… This recipe was perfect!!!! I’m very picky when it comes to pizza, and this is now my go to recipe! Thank you so much!!!
I love colorful recipes indeed, and this pizza is absolutely flavorful!
Love this so good, our family really enjoyed it… saved it to one of my pins for pizza night! thanks! ?
We tried this last Friday at the shop, wasn’t sure about the sweet potato crust but it wasn’t bad. Thanks for the great recipe!
Glad you liked the sweet potato crust! Thank you for letting me know!
Great content, thanks for posting this wonderful pizza recipe.
Looks delicious…mouth watering
I just made this for dinner and while the flavors were really good, I think I did something wrong on the crust. It just was more like a thick 3/4 inch casserole instead of a pizza crust. I never got anything really dough like. It was more like just thick, soft potatoes. So even after 45 min in the oven it was never like a pizza crust. I used a pizza stone too. Wondering if I needed to add more flour? Was your dough actually like a dough?
Hi Kirsti, I think thickness might be the issue here. 3/4″ is pretty thick and probably won’t cook all the way through. We usually spread our crust out to 1/2″ or less. It won’t ever be exactly like a traditional wheat crust (I use a fork to eat this pizza) but it should cook through. Hope this helps!