I love cauliflower cheese and cauliflower soup but there it probably ends, it is usually an add-on to stir fry, cauliflower bhaji or roasted vegetables perhaps. Oh, in actual fact it seems that I quite like cauliflower’s versatility.
But a quick and easy dish is cauliflower pesto stirred through pasta. It really is easy and if you have left over piri piri sauce and/or spicy homemade tomato sauce from my baked beans recipe then either adds a nice kick to what can otherwise be a little bland.
Using a blender whiz chopped cauliflower to a breadcrumb consistency then empty into a bowl.
Place chopped garlic, fresh basil and parsley leaves, chopped parmesan, white pepper, a dollop of piri piri sauce and a little drizzle of oil into the same blender then whiz until you have a paste. Spoon the paste through the cauliflower crumbs.
Cook pasta of your choice, mine was spaghetti, according to the packet instructions less one minute.
Whilst the pasta is on a rolling boil heat a frying pan over a medium heat adding a little olive oil… add the cauliflower mixture and cook for 5 minutes adding some white wine and tomato sauce to keep things fairly loose. After another 2 minutes or so drain the pasta and add to the frying pan giving it a good shake so that all the strands are coated with the cauliflower mixture.
Garnish with ripped basil leaves and extra parmesan if you wish. A good grind of black pepper will not go amiss and neither will a glass of something very chilled either. Salud!
If you'd like cauliflower in a heartier form, my Silky & Garlicky Cauliflower Purée takes it a different way.
And if patties are more your thing, my Baked Spicy Cauliflower with Carrot & Potato Patties is worth a try too.
This recipe is part of my Veg, Fruit & Pulses collection. It joins a growing collection of vegetable, fruit and pulses recipes — from stuffed peppers to bean salads and the odd tagine — in my complete Veg, Fruit & Pulses Hub.
Wonky photos, proper produce, genuine adventures — The Flexible Chef
Cauliflower pesto collage
What an innovative way of using cauliflower! I had never heard of such a way of eating it. The recipe is so healthy and vegetarian. I am surely going to make this one.