Gluten Free Garlic Pizza Breadsticks

These gluten free garlic pizza breadsticks will satisfy your craving for takeout. They make a great appetizer or side and are ready in minutes!

This thick pizza crust with tons and tons of cheese and garlic pressed into a gorgeous paste makes pizzeria-style pizza breadsticks that will bring you right back to your pre-GF days. Whether you’re missing Pizza Hut (no shame!) or you’re just longing to bite into a thick, crispy crust that’s smothered in cheese, this recipe is for you.

About all that garlic

Maybe you’re like my brother, who refuses to eat either one because he can’t tolerate the way it makes him smell. Don’t tell him, but I guarantee you he’s eaten garlic and onions, since it’s so hard to cook good food without them.

If you don’t have fresh garlic, I actually really like freeze-dried garlic or minced garlic in oil from one of those jars. For freeze-dried garlic, just soak it in the melted butter, and maybe add a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil. It will soften quickly.

If you can’t or won’t eat garlic, you can of course still make pizzeria style breadsticks like these. I’d use a bit more Parmigiano-Reggiano, since it has a lot of that umami flavor you’ll be missing without garlic. You can also add some salt to brighten the flavors.

Which gluten free pizza crust should you make?

I consider our thick crust pizza dough recipe to be the savior of all things. It does require a bit of planning, since it performs best when it has a 12 hour refrigerator rise. But you can skip that step if you just can’t spare the time.

Even though a long, slow refrigerator rise might be unfamiliar , I promise that it’s a time-tested way to proof bread dough. And since it can be done up to 5 days ahead of time, you’ll have pizza dough at your fingertips at a moment’s notice.

If you’re in a rush, this recipe would also work great with my yeast free gluten free pizza crust recipe. And of course our basic gluten free pizza crust recipe works in all pizza-type situations.

The method

The main differences between these gluten free garlic pizza breadsticks and a pizza pie are the lack of cheese, the garlic butter, and the extra cheese that goes alllll the way to the edges of the crust.

The longer the pizza dough has chilled in the refrigerator, the easier it will be to handle. Your shaping technique will also vary a bit based upon the dough recipe you’ve selected.

The main secret to shaping the dough into is to keep it moving. That way, it doesn’t have much of a chance to stick. In the video, I’m shaping the dough on something called a “Bethany pastry board and cover,” and it really helps to prevent sticking.

Once you’ve rolled the dough into an oval, gently fold it into thirds and transfer it to a sheet of parchment. Brush generously with garlic butter, and top with lots and lots of cheese. Bake at 400°F for barely 10 minutes, slice and serve.

Ingredients and substitutions

This is such a simple recipe that the only additional allergen I imagine you might face is dairy. It’s really important to the recipe, but I’ll still provide my suggestions for replacing it.

Dairy

If you make these breadsticks with the thick crust gluten free pizza recipe from GFOAS Bakes Bread, it’s made with gluten free bread flour. That bread flour is necessarily made with whey protein isolate, almost pure dairy protein.

If you’d like to replace whey protein isolate, you can try by using pea protein or rice protein isolate, but you’ll need to use a lot more water and the dough won’t behave the same. If you’re avoiding dairy, I recommend using our basic gluten free pizza dough recipe instead, which is already naturally dairy-free.

The butter that is used to brush the pizza dough can be replaced with Earth Balance buttery sticks. The cheese is harder to replace, but it’s not impossible.

The best hard cheese is made by Violife, but it can be difficult to find. In recent years, I’ve found that Daiya brand cheeses have improved a ton. Miyoko’s Kitchen brand is also quite good.