Why You Should Roast Your Cauliflower

There are a ton of great ways to cook cauliflower, but some people are a little daunted by the process involved in that. Cauliflower rice is awesome, but the head of cauliflower has to be riced of course. (Although there are places where you can buy it as such.) But roasting a cauliflower whole is a great option for cooking it as well.

You bascially just season and it and cook it in the oven, and when it’s done it can be sliced up as a meat alternative that’s low in calories but high in fiber of flavor. For this recipe we are offering up a simple dressing option, but as always you are free to make things as interesting as you want.

Ingredients

One head of cauliflower

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Salt to taste

For the dressing:

The juice of one lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon mustard

Salt to taste

Directions

1. Start by preheating the oven to 425 degrees.

2. Next take a baking dish and lightly grease or spray it down with cooking spray. Slice off the base of the cauliflower but just so that it can stand up and stay intact. Then drizzle the olive oil and any desired salt over the top which will help it brown along the edges.

3. Bake the cauliflower for one hour or until it starts to brown. This might seem like a while, but it gives you the perfect opportunity to do the rest of your meal prep in the meantime.

4. Set this aside once it is removed from the oven when you are ready to start the dressing. To make the dressing you bascially just need to mix together those ingredients and whisk them up. Pour the dressing right over the still warm cauliflower and then slice it up to serve.

This dish could feed as many as six people, but you could also devour a lot of it on your own. Whatever you don’t wat can of course be refrigerated and sliced up for lunches or other dinner. The nice thing about roasted cauliflower is its versatility. You can eat it as the main part of a meal, or you can keep it as a side to the main protein that you’re eating. Since it does not have an overpowering flavor naturally there are endless ways that it can be flavored and enjoyed.

It’s also healthy. Cauliflower is a great source of vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, pantothenic acid, and vitamin B6. It is a good source of good source of choline, dietary fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, manganese, phosphorus, and biotin, as well as vitamin B2, protein, vitamin B1, niacin, and magnesium.

That’s a lot of nutrients for a seemingly simple veggie. Cauliflower also contains a sulpheric compound called sulforaphane that has been shown to kill cancer stem cells which can slow the growth of tumors. You can’t really go wrong when you’re cooking with cauliflower.