- Blaze Pizza on July 15 became the first national chain to announce a rollout of an official keto-diet-approved pizza crust.
- The new keto crust contains three grams of carbohydrates per slice, compared to the classic crust's 14 grams per slice.
- I went to the Blaze Pizza on Staten Island, New York, to try the new keto-approved crust, and I was surprised by how well it imitated a classic wheat flour crust.
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Blaze Pizza on July 15 became the first national chain to announce a rollout of an official keto-approved pizza crust.
The high-fat, low-carb keto diet is one of the most popular diets of this generation. It requires replacing carb-heavy foods with high-fat and high-protein alternatives, so it follows that pizza is usually off-limits for the keto dieter.
But no more.
According to the Blaze nutrition calculator, a pizza with classic dough packs 14 grams of carbohydrates per slice. Blaze's new keto crust weighs in at only three grams of carbs per slice. It substitutes wheat flour for flaxseeds, eggs, cheese, and other ingredients.
I went to the Blaze Pizza on Staten Island, New York, to try Blaze's keto crust, and I was surprised by how similar it was to a classic carb-filled crust:
My first surprise was that the keto crust is pre-baked. In contrast, the classic crust traverses the assembly line as raw dough before it meets the oven.
Its stiff texture gave me pause. It was like a frisbee of baked dough-like composite.
Like every outsider with radical new ideas, the keto crust was to be subjected to trial by fire.
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The crust had a slight crisp around the edges, but my pizza was, overall, slightly undercooked.
Maybe I'd simply gone a little overboard with the cheese. I popped a lactose pill and dove right in.
The keto crust felt like any other crust in my hand. It held together remarkably well.
It was perhaps slightly less crispy than a flour crust, but otherwise successfully mimicked the texture and feel of a flour crust.
The texture was slightly grittier than flour dough, and it didn't quite have the same chew factor. However, it was close enough. There was also a vague cauliflower aftertaste, but it wasn't distracting.
I was surprised by how well the keto crust functioned as a pizza crust. It held together stunningly well, and the texture was similar enough to that of a wheat crust that it could have fooled me if I'd gone in blind. Even though I'm a die-hard carb stan and will still probably get a classic crust next time, Blaze's keto crust is a game changer for pizza fans on the keto diet.
