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Before we get into it, let me just say that I understand that removing a major component of a dish may cause it to become something else. So cheeseless pizza may no longer technically be "pizza". To this I say: no one gives a fuck, please go officiate a spelling bee or whatever it is you do for fun, ya gatekeeping linguaFREAK.

I want to try to convince you to give cheeseless pizza a shot, because I think Big Cheese™ has been depriving humanity of the true deliciousness of pizza for millennia.

Cheese on pizza (and this includes the cheese substitutes that you might find on vegan or vegetarian pizzas) is like taking a carefully-crafted meal, flavoured and spiced to perfection, and then saying to the customer "hey, do you want me to dump a thick molten layer of bitter yellowish-white slime over everything? It'll completely overpower every other flavour on the dish, and will leave your mouth feeling weird and gross after you're done eating." and the customer is like "HELL YEAH!"

If you enjoy many toppings with lots of veg and whathaveyou, you are not getting the full experience when cheese is there cockblocking your tastebuds like an ugly friend at a bar. The sauce, the bread, the peppers, the onions, the 'shrooms, the pepperoni, they're all full of flavour and each flavour stands on its own and simultaneously complements the other flavours. Dumping a pound of cheese on top of it makes it all coalesce into a murky nondescript lump, something akin to trying to listen to music in a wind tunnel while wearing a thick deerstalker hat with the ear flaps down. It's like the difference between having an intellectually-stimulating conversation with a like-minded person, and trying to be heard as you discuss football stats with a drunk stranger in a bar where the sound system is cranked up to max volume at all times.

If you're someone who just likes a straight Margherita pizza, where cheese is very much the "main event", then this doesn't really apply. I concede that even the most delicious pizza sauce and most fancy base bread are not quite enough to blow anyone's mind with flavour if that's all you're working with. But if you like adding toppings, allow them to be the main event for one day, and when you do, give yourself over the involuntary urge to start singing A Whole New World when the flavours awaken hitherto dormant olfactory neurons that you didn't even know you had.

In many online pizza shops, you can untick "cheese" when choosing your toppings, and they'll respect your choice, and you won't receive a wellness check from the police or anything. You can do it with Domino's, and many of my local pizza places do it, too. You can also buy frozen pizzas sans cheese or cheese substitutes, although this is fairly rare (they think removing cheese means you need to replace it with some other gunk that does the same job, which is obviously not helping matters). And of course, you can make or buy bases and build your own pizza at home.

Try it. TRUST ME BRO.

#FuckCheeseOnPizza

top 28 comments
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[-] remon@ani.social 12 points 12 hours ago

Meanwhile I'm here putting extra cheese on my quattro formaggi ...

You take that upvote and go to hell!

[-] Honytawk@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 hours ago

Yeah, what is you biggest amount of different cheeses?

I once did an otto fromaggi

[-] remon@ani.social 1 points 11 hours ago

Only sette formaggi I think.

[-] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 9 points 11 hours ago

as someone who is at least 3 percent cheese, you're entitled to your opinion and i'm entitled to be a hater

[-] morbidcactus@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 hours ago

Last place I worked, any event someone would always bring a Sicilian style Pizza from a local place, looked a lot like this.

.

Really good bread and seasoned sauce works, definitely not that unpopular!

[-] werty@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 hours ago

The quantity of cheese on pizza has decreased so much in the last 30 years that I now require double extra cheese for sufficiency. I blame you cheeseless fuckwits for this.

[-] glimse@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Before we get into it, let me just say that I understand that removing a major component of a dish may cause it to become something else. So cheeseless pizza may no longer technically be "pizza".

So you haven't posted an opinion on pizza, have you? Your opinion is about the definition of the word

[-] ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 14 hours ago

I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

[-] 0ops@piefed.zip 15 points 16 hours ago

You're a freak, but I gotta upvote

[-] Digit@lemmy.today 1 points 9 hours ago

I too have evolved from pizza convention. Not just no cheese, but no tomato either!

I make a flatbread (with spelt flour, and a teaspoon of beetroot powder, and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper), and top it with curry sauce instead of tomato, and roast hemp kernels, ... and kimchi, balsamic, maybe chicken|beef|prawn|lamb|scalops|whatever, and a few pieces of dates.

Could use cheese, could use tomato, but this is just better. ;D

[-] Abyssian@lemmy.world 7 points 14 hours ago

You're a monster.

[-] PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@anarchist.nexus 25 points 19 hours ago

If you're someone who just likes a straight Margherita pizza, where cheese is very much the "main event", then this doesn't really apply.

Yeah exactly, I'm a margherita man. Although I do consider the sauce and crust also "main events". Upvoted for unpopularity.

[-] Mok98@feddit.it 18 points 18 hours ago

By paragraph:

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_marinara

  2. there's merit to both pizza with and without cheese, also pizza without tomato exists in cases where it would clash with other toppings

  3. bitter? I think there's something wrong with the cheese(burnt?) or maybe you taste it weird? It may be also that there's too much cheese, rexucing the amount may fix the overpowering aspect

  4. see 2, if the cheese is too much or clashes you are right to take it out.

  5. see 1, 2, 4, but cheese is NOT the main ingredient of a margherita, there must be a balance between the cheese and the sauce, and a good crust.

  6. yup

#cheesebelongsonmostpizzas

[-] xytaruka@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

I think of this as it's own thing, pan con tomate or just tomato toast is a quick snack i rather enjoy it's on my list of veggie breads like avocado toast that with some seasoning and oil or butter on the bread i find it quite pleasant

[-] GottaHaveFaith@fedia.io 3 points 12 hours ago

i do the opposite, remove the tomato sauce, we call them red/white pizzas.But yeah, here the "cheese" used is mozzarella/bufala/burrata, not some orange stuff

[-] foggy@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Cheeseless is incorrect.

Apizza, which is what a tomato pie is, still has a TON of cheese. It's just all blended into the sauce. Usually all romano and Parm. No melty stuff.

So this opinion isn't just unpopular. It's wrong. Because I guarantee the tomato pies you love contain cheese.

[-] doingthestuff@lemy.lol -1 points 8 hours ago

This entire post is a crime. Also vegan burgers aren't burgers.

[-] frisbird@lemmy.ml 7 points 17 hours ago

Fuck this! I think removing the sauce makes a far superior pizza. White pizza, ricotta, olive oil, garlic.. perfection. You don't want the cheese? Send it over here, and I'll ship all my sauce to you. In fact, maybe, maybe we're just so opposite that we could actually form a fruitful/cheeseful alliance. Maybe a multi-polar world is possible.

[-] boaratio@lemmy.world 0 points 8 hours ago

You're eating bruschetta, not pizza.

[-] Pennywise@quokk.au 8 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Reads like lightly edited AI slop.

Good job. I find this opinion unpopular.... Take my upvote.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

Dammit I came here to say how that would probably more accurately be called just a flatbread and you read me like a BOOK

[-] schwim@piefed.zip 5 points 19 hours ago

Big Dairy doesn't want you to hear about this one simple trick!"

[-] unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 13 hours ago

Conversely, tomato-based pizza sauce is nasty. In fact, tomatoes and pasta is just a nasty combination. Unless you just put unprocessed tomato slices on as a topping. But it's pizza, needs cheese.

[-] LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 19 hours ago

Look, I’ll give it a shot, but I kinda doubt I’ll like it more without cheese. :3

[-] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 4 points 19 hours ago

You’ve sold me on giving it a shot!

[-] toomanypancakes@crazypeople.online 3 points 18 hours ago

I don't know that I can completely agree because I've had a couple pizzas with vegan cheese before that blew me away, but for the most part I agree with you. For your everyday pizza cheese is so not needed, it's usually overkill or a detriment.

[-] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 2 points 18 hours ago

Fun article that kinda sags off reality, so let's give it an updoot! (check the sublemmy name, haha)

I'm disabled now, and rarely make much pizza-from-scratch anymore, but I'm totally with you on the experimentation aspect. Way back when, I was in fact educated upon the idea that early pizza (or progenitors) were basically flatbread, featuring olive oil, herbs & toppings, with a classic one including fruit slices! (like figs)

Cheese was a later addition, and the basic template may go back to Ancient Rome, I forget, exactly.


https://thecozyapron.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/crispy-prosciutto-flatbread-pizza_thecozyapron_06-12-16_featured.jpg

But, no-- it's never easy to just handwave-away cheese like it doesn't do some critical things in modern pizza, such as adding a boatload of umami, unifying texture that wraps the whole dish together, and adding a pleasant chewiness that's very hard to replicate with almost anything else.

Me, I've tried any number of restaurant-grade cheeseless pizzas, and I've also substituted all kinds of things in my personal experiments, but it's never the same, and never even comes close, really. That said, cashew-butter enhanced with some MSG, garlic powder and ingredients X arguably comes closest.

Also, let's not forget that just as cheese became super-popular upon pizza, proto-pizzas didn't originally have cheese, and can arguably be perfectly-well enjoyed in flatbread form!

[-] SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 0 points 18 hours ago

Ever had a gluten-free crust? Even bitter slime that leaves your mouth feeling weird and gross would improve it. Even better, lots of cheese.

(Seriously, it sounds like you have a dairy allergy.)

this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
88 points (88.6% liked)

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