Whole Roasted Curry Cauliflower

Simple whole roasted curry cauliflower, the perfect easy side dish for any kind of meal.

The simplest way of cooking this vegetable. Rub it with oil and spices and make whole roasted curry cauliflower. And if you like this veggie combined with curry, try this Cauliflower and Potato Curry.

Gone are the days when eating cauliflower only meant struggling through a mushy plate of overcooked white something. Actually, I pretty much avoided eating it as a side dish for years, I loved it in form of a creamy soup or a typical Romanian Salad, but never enjoyed it as a side dish.

It was always so soft and overcooked and it smelled weird. I rarely cooked it myself as a side dish, it used to be a “treat” I was actually having in restaurants or at parties.

But then I discovered that it can actually be roasted instead of boiled to death. What a revelation!

What do you need?

Cauliflower:

• Either two mini ones, like those pictured, weighing about 300 g/ 10.6 oz or a regular-sized one.
• Usually, I would divide the head into smaller florets, spice them well, and roast them. But from time to time, as a special treat, I bake a whole cauliflower. And I do that mostly when I have the luck of finding such beautiful colorful mini ones.
• The small pieces need about 45 minutes roasting time, until they were cooked through, but still retaining a good bite.
• If you are using a regular-sized head (they weigh about 800 – 1000 g/ 1.7 – 2.2 lbs around here) increase the roasting time. Usually, I would need about 1 hour and 20 minutes or maybe a bit more for a large head of about 1 kg/ 2.2 lbs.
• Make sure to start checking after about one hour and 10 minutes roasting time and keep checking until the vegetable is done to your liking.

Spices:

• I chose to spice the veggies with cumin and a rather spicy yellow curry powder, so Indian-style, so to say.
• But any spices or mixtures you like are absolutely fine.
• I often spice them with a mixture of oil, crushed garlic, and paprika (sweet and hot) or with other oil spice mixtures including ground coriander and cumin, some cinnamon, different sorts of curry powder, za’atar, dried herbs and so on.
• Really, the spice mixture can be different every time you cook the recipe, this way it will never get boring.

How to serve?

Serve the whole roasted curry cauliflower as a side dish for any kind of roast, for chicken, stews or goulash or even as a main meal with a dip on the side, some really good flatbread, olives and maybe a good tomato and cucumber salad. Or serve it over couscous or bulgur, again with a nice yogurt dip on the side.

More cauliflower recipes:

Cauliflower in White Sauce

Cauliflower in Tomato Sauce

Baked Broccoli and Cauliflower Balls

Cauliflower and Potato Mash

Vegan Cauliflower Mac and Cheese