Light and fluffy, shredded cauliflower is a delightfully refreshing side dish. This low-carb treat is a wonderful replacement to rice, and gladly absorbs sauces and smooths deep flavours. Cauliflower rice is a staple in every healthy kitchen.

One of the challenges of low-carb diets is side-dishes or carrier ingredients. There are numerous ways to produce sauces and rich mains, but pairing them is a problem. Things like rice, or pasta, or bread, accompany meals to help even out flavours and also add some bulk. Shredded cauliflower is an excellent substitute. It has a character that it easy to adapt, and never overpowers the main.

Lacking a great food processor, the actual shredding of the cauliflower is the problematic part of this recipe. Put too much in the machine at a once and it’ll get jammed up, leaving large chunks of cauliflower. Put too little in at once, and you’ll find yourself turning the device on and off a lot.

If you’re lucky, I hear some stores stock pre-shredded cauliflower. Assuming this is reasonably fresh, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it instead. That would make this recipe super convenient.

I’ve used a limited mix of spices in this recipe. I wanted to keep it light, as I was pairing it with a strongly flavoured roast pepper and tempeh dish. You can play with the flavours a lot — anything goes!

Roasted Cauliflower Rice

Ingredients

  1. 1 medium
    Cauliflower
  2. 1 whole
    Spring Onion
  3. 1 clove
    Garlic
  4. 1 teaspoon
    Fennel Seed
  5. ¹⁄₄ teaspoon
    Salt
  6. 65 g 1 cup
    Parsley Leaves

Equipment

  • large mixing bowl
  • oven
  • baking tray
  • baking paper
  • food processor

Directions

Shred Cauliflower

  1. Clean the cauliflower can cut away the greens and the bottom of the stem, about 1cm.
  2. Cut the cauliflower into smaller pieces.
  3. Put the cauliflower in small amounts into a food processor. Chop until they are roughly rice sized. It depends on your food processor how much you can chop at once. I need to do 4-5 bunches with my hand-held blender.
  4. Put the shredded cauliflower into a large mixing bowl.

Mix

  1. Chop the spring onion. Put it in the mixing bowl.
  2. Dice the garlic. Put it in the mixing bowl.
  3. Add the fennel seeds and salt to the mixing bowl.
  4. Mix the ingredients in the bowl thorougly.

Roast

  1. Place a sheet of baking paper on the baking tray. Spread the cauliflower mixture evenly over the paper.
  2. Place the tray on the top rack of the oven.
  3. Bake at 200°C for 10 minute. Open the oven once or twice to let out moisture. Be careful! Stand to the side while doing this.
  4. Turn your oven to top roasting and watch it carefully for another 10 minutes. It will become darker as it roasts. If black peaks start appearing then it should be removed from the oven.
  5. Remove from the oven and dump back into the mixing bowl.
  6. Chop the parsley and mix it into the cauliflower when ready to serve.