Roasted cauliflower goes from boring to crave-worthy when tossed with Indian spices. Serve this alongside curry or Sunday's roast chicken. It's that versatile!
Roasted Cauliflower Recipe with Indian Spices
I'm not sure anything I write about roasted cauliflower can do it justice. Perhaps it's enough to tell you that I ate this with my fingers, popping the cumin and coriander-spiced florets into my mouth faster than a teenaged girl pops M&Ms after a bad breakup. What is typically considered a side dish became an afternoon snack. But I had competition for these tender, golden brown morsels - he's 7 and he has a penchant for veggies. Did I ever mention that, as a baby, my son's skin started to turn orange from eating too many helpings of pureed sweet potatoes and carrots? What's worse is that I didn't even notice until a friend pointed it out to me. What do you mean that's not a natural skin color? Not one of my finer maternal moments.
Over the past week, I have been craving healthy meals. Well, besides those Peach Crumb Bars and my son's chocolate cake. I'm pretending that those don't count. Humor me. Aside from those indiscretions, my cravings led me to make several vegetarian dishes, including Black Bean Cakes, Mushroom & Cannellini Ragout and a batch of my Crockpot Chickpea Stew with Caramelized Onions. Cauliflower became the next target.
Roasting cauliflower lends a nutty flavor to this otherwise mellow-tasting vegetable and transforms it from a vegetable that often sits on the bottom of the vegetable list to one that is positively irresistible. This recipe requires a minimal amount of ingredients and only a few minutes of active prep time. Simply toss the cauliflower in a mixture of olive oil and spices, and then let the oven do the rest of the work.
The roasted cauliflower recipe:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Cut one medium head of cauliflower into florets, about 1 ½-inches each. Transfer the florets to a baking sheet.
In a small bowl, stir together olive oil, ground cumin, ground coriander and kosher salt.
Pour the olive oil mixture over the cauliflower and, using your hands, toss to coat the cauliflower.
Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and roast the cauliflower, turning occasionally, until it is tender and golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve.
Other cauliflower recipes:
Cookin' Canuck's Ginger, Jalapeno & Coconut Brown Rice with Cauliflower
Cookin' Canuck's Sage & Gorgonzola Cauliflower Soup
Indian Simmer's Aloo Gobhi (Potato & Cauliflower)
No Recipes' Farro & Roasted Cauliflower Salad
Printable Recipe
Roasted Cauliflower with Indian Spices (Cumin & Coriander) Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 2 ½ pound head cauliflower
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Cut cauliflower into florets, about 1½-inches each. Transfer the florets to a baking sheet.
- In a small bowl, stir together olive oil, ground cumin, ground coriander and kosher salt.
- Pour the olive oil mixture over the cauliflower and, using your hands, toss to coat the cauliflower.
- Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and roast the cauliflower, turning occasionally, until it is tender and golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Serve.
Nutrition
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Donna
Cauliflower just screams out "autumn" to me - must try your spiced and roasted version!
Chris @ TheKeenanCookBook
Great job on TV! I would have been nervous and throwing in a lot of uh and ums, probably with a few deer in head light looks 🙂
When I saw this recipe title I thought you were going to include curry, which would have made me sad. See, my first run in with curry was in Japan during a summer abroad. My first day walking to university I stopped in a local bakery for breakfast with fellow foreigners and, to my pleasant delight, saw a jelly donut. What luck! Comfort food at its finest thousands of miles from home. Just what I needed on this first day of school in a foreign country.
I buy my sugar frosted donut and merrily continue my walk to the university. I take a big bite out of that donut as I'm walking. Only instead of the sweet taste of jelly I got hit with the quite strong flavor of curry - yes, it was filled with curry. I had never had curry before, and expecting jelly only made this mistake worse. I had no drink to wash it down. It was 90 degrees already at 7am. My new friends are laughing at me (It was funny, in retrospect) Unpleasant? Yes! Needless to say, I am still recovering from that incident and only occasionally venture something with curry flavoring.
Anyway... Long comment here. Sorry. Glad you didn't include curry. This looks like a tasty and healthy recipe, and encourages me to cook a little healthier 🙂
CJWiggs
My daughter turned orange for a bit, too, as a baby. Hard not to when all the baby vegetables seem to be green or orange. Only her "orange" was on her nose and her chin. So we had a dirty-looking orange baby. Everyone always wanted to wipe her face. 🙂
Big City Eater
Looks good. We have been trying to eat more cauliflower as it is so good for you and I will try this one for sure. I made a gratin with it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here it is if you want to try a different approach - http://bigcityeater.blogspot.com/2011/04/cauliflower-gratin.html
Keep up the good work my fellow Canadian. 🙂
Jack Etsweiler
I added some Turmeric for color (as much as anything), and I put the spices, salt and olive oil into a large-enough bowl, stirred everything into a paste (you might need a bit more oil), and then tossed the cauliflower florets, with "impeccably-clean hands" (nod to Julia Child there) with the spice paste. Seems to make slightly less of a cleanup mess, and you can line the baking pan with parchment paper or a Matfer to simplify things further. Lovely recipe. Greetings from Ann Arbor, MI.
Tara @ Chip Chip Hooray
Yum! It always makes me sad that cauliflower gets no love amongst its vegetable breathren...I think this spice kick will fix that. 🙂
Louise
I've got a recipe for Roasted Balsamic Cauliflower that is delish!
http://basildevelopment.blogspot.com/2010/12/roasted-balsamic-cauliflower.html
naomi
Great recipe I love cumin with most everything. I would be popping them like crazy as well.
And gorgeous photos!
carolinaheartstrings
This cauliflower looks fantastic. So did the video. Nice job.
My German Kitchen...in the Rockies
I always roast my cauliflower. It brings out the best flavors. I like your spice combo with it!