How to Cook Cauliflower

Cauliflowers are in season right now, and are an incredibly versatile, nutrient rich veg. Plus, they taste beautiful! If you’re wondering how to make cauliflower rice or just how to cook cauliflower, look no further.

Cauliflower Rice

This is a really nifty little kitchen hack, and especially great if you don’t feel like the heaviness of white rice, or are just looking to mix things up and get a bonus serving of vegetables in your life.

If you have a food processor, pop in roughly chopped chunks and blitz until you’ve got pieces roughly the size of rice grains. If you haven’t got a food processor, a box grater will work to – simply grate the head of cauliflower through the medium sized holes. Once your rice is ready, it just a matter of cooking on a medium high heat in a frypan with with a little olive oil for 5-8 minutes, steaming for 3 minutes and popping in the microwave, covered, for 3 minutes on high. Voila! Your rice is now ready to be served up in any way you like.

Cauliflower Steak

For an impressive vegetarian supper, I love this way of serving cauliflower, as a whole ‘steak’. Too often we shunt veggies to the side like an afterthought, when really their flavour is more than impressive enough to justify being the centrepiece of the dish. Garlic and lemon is a classic Lebanese combination for cauliflower, and with burnished edges and nutty tahini as a sauce, we defy any meat eater not to enjoy this. For a classic side, we love it with a pomegranate, beetroot, carrot and fetta salad.

Take a whole cauliflower, remove the leaves and trim the base of the head. Place right side up on a cutting board and carefully slice through the width of the cauliflower, so you end up with ‘slices’ about 3 or 4 inches think. Cut a garlic clove in half and rub on both sides of the cauliflower ‘steak’. Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Heat a little olive oil in a medium fry pan or griddle pan and cook the steaks for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until a knife will go through the thickness easily.

Serve with another squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of tahini, if you like!