Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower is a flavorful and low calorie side dish or appetizer for game day. Cauliflower florets are tossed in buffalo sauce and oven roasted.
Buffalo sauce is an easy and low calorie way to add flavor to any dish. I like to serve oven roasted buffalo cauliflower with a side of blue cheese or ranch dressing for dipping.
This recipe is perfect to serve as a side dish with dinner, or to serve as a snack or appetizer at your next party. The best part about this recipe is that you only need four ingredients and about 20 minutes in the oven to make these addictive and flavorful cauliflower bites.
Ingredients
This recipe is incredibly simple – all you need is a head of cauliflower, pepper, garlic powder, and buffalo sauce.
First, you’ll want to chop up your cauliflower into bite size florets, like shown.
Buffalo sauce
Don’t have buffalo sauce on hand? If you have hot sauce and butter, you can make your own buffalo sauce right at home. Here is a great recipe for a simple homemade buffalo sauce: How to Make Buffalo Sauce.
If you want to keep your cauliflower low calorie, I suggest grabbig a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot Wings Sauce – Buffalo, which has zero calories per serving.
Once your cauliflower is chopped, simply toss in buffalo sauce until evenly coated. If needed, use more buffalo sauce to coat your cauliflower to your liking. I like to give the cauliflower a very light coating of buffalo sauce so that it doesn’t get soggy in the oven.
Last, season your cauliflower with pepper and garlic powder.
Oven roasting cauliflower
Toss your prepared cauliflower out onto a parchment lined baking sheet and spread into an even layer. One head of cauliflower should fill a half sheet pan.
Next, bake your cauliflower until it can be easily pierced through with a fork. Last, turn on the broiler for 2-3 minutes to give your cauliflower some color and crisp up the edges.
Keep in mind, your cauliflower bake time will depend on the size of your florets. The larger the cauliflower pieces, the longer they will take to cook through.
Roasted cauliflower texture
Roasted cauliflower is not going to be “crispy” or crunchy. While it may look like crispy fried chicken in the photos, cauliflower is made of 92% water, which means it would take a lot of roasting (and burning) to become crunchy.
Roasting at a high temperature will ensure that it doesn’t get soggy, and broiling at the end will brown the cauliflower and add a little crispy texture to the edges. However, your buffalo cauliflower will have the texture of a cooked vegetable.
Over-baking will cause your cauliflower to get mushy and overcooked, so check occasionally by trying to pierce your cauliflower with a fork. A perfectly cooked piece of cauliflower can be pierced through with little resistance, but will not fall apart.
More buffalo recipes
More buffalo recipes
Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower
- 1/3 cup buffalo sauce *
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- Cut cauliflower head into bite-sized florets and place in a large bowl. Add buffalo sauce and toss to coat, adding more sauce as needed. Cauliflower should be lightly coated in sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
- Pour cauliflower onto a parchment lined baking sheet and spread into a single layer. Bake for 18 minutes, then test cauliflower by piercing with a fork. If needed, continue cooking until cauliflower is tender-crisp. Then, turn on broiler and cook for an additonal 2-3 minutes, or until cauliflower is lightly browned and crisp around the edges.
- Optionally, serve with blue cheese or ranch dressing.
Equipment
Notes
- *start with 1/3 cup of buffalo sauce and add more as needed based on the size of your cauliflower head. Cauliflower can also be tossed in more buffalo sauce before serving if desired.
- Baking time will vary based on size of cauliflower florets. The larger the cauliflower pieces, the longer they will take to cook through.
- Baking too long will cause your cauliflower to be mushy and overcooked, so check occasionally by trying to pierce your cauliflower with a fork. A perfectly cooked piece of cauliflower can be pierced through with little resistance, but will not fall apart.
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