Pizza is the food of the Gods. If it weren’t so, you wouldn’t read these pages. But, what if some food intolerance – let’s say: lactose intolerance – impedes us to have it? Our life has no more meaning.
Before falling in the deepest depression, let’s take a look to some dairy-free pizza recipes that are so tasty and satisfying that even Italians can have them.

Pizza and cheese: a long lasting marriage

You say pizza and you say mozzarella cheese, right? Wrong.
Mozzarella hasn’t always been on the top of pizza, as we know it nowadays, but pizza topped with mozzarella is surely the most well-known and beloved.
If you read the history of pizza, you should have found out that, at its beginning, pizza was just a flat oven-baked bread, usually seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil (of which there is plenty in Italy and in Mediterranean countries in general). At the end of the XIX century it probably was already usual to top pizza with tomato sauce and herbs, but not much more than this. Let’s keep in mind pizza has always been a poor man’s meal, so there was no reason to add expensive ingredients to something that was already satiating and tasty enough.
According to the legend – which very likely is actually history – mozzarella cheese came on pizza only when a special one was cooked in honor of queen Margherita of Savoy, just with the purpose to add a white ingredient on it to depict the flag of the Kingdom of Italy (using tomato sauce for red and basil for green).

Being true, mozzarella matches with bread and tomato like almost anything else, that’s why, once it was first put on pizza, it became one of the fundamental ingredients of the most beloved food of the world.
Despite this, we must not forget that pizza wasn’t born with cheese on it and that we can still have a great one without it.

Three tasty dairy-free pizza topping recipes Italians eat, too

Let’s see the bright side of the matter: a lactose intolerance is not such a tragedy for pizza lovers, as what matters – the bread – doesn’t contain dairy products. It’s just a question of topping, and there are more pizza topping choices than stars in the sky, so, let’s look for something fitting for those who can’t have milk and cheese.

1. Sea food

Mussels, clams, shrimps and squids taste great on pizza.
Just clean and sauté shellfish to let shells open, simmer with white wine and season with freshly chopped parsley and garlic when seafood is about to be cooked. Remove molluscs from their shells and put them aside.
Remove the skin of the shrimps and keep the lean meat aside.
Clean squids and cut them in rings.
In a large pan, heat two spoonfuls of extra-virgin olive oil, add tomato sauce, a hint of salt, and let it dry a little. Then add sea foods and let it cook, together with a few thin slices of garlic and a hint of white wine. Adjust with salt, if needed, and spread this sea food sauce on partially baked pizza bread, before completing oven cooking.

You’ll see in “Pizzerias” they serve sea food pizza with mozzarella, too. It’s extremely common, so that, if you want to have sea food pizza without mozzarella, you’ll have to ask the waiter for it. Despite this habit, fish and sea food taste better without cheese.

2. Onion and tuna fish

This is a classic Italian topping for pizza: tomato sauce, mozzarella, tinned tuna fish and this slices of red onion. It’s easy and it’s tasty; it’s cheap and quick to make, what do you want more?
Just avoid adding mozzarella and here’s your dairy-free pizza. Again: fish tastes better without cheese, just have it and see.

3. Marinara

And the best comes at last.
This is not a dairy-free version of a classic pizza topping, this is a true pizza recipe in its full dignity: pizza marinara. According to many pizza lovers, this is the actual pizza, the one and only original one, even more classic and original than pizza margherita.
Just spread on your rolled pizza dough tomato sauce, extra-virgin olive oil (don’t be stingy!), chopped garlic and oregano, and bake.
Here’s the archetype of pizza. Don’t you here the music of a mandolin in the distance, on a sweet Italian summer night?

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