Eats: Cauliflower Wings

Growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee there’s one thing that every kid is taught, that is all about UT Football. Every Saturday in the fall, your schedule revolves around what time the game is. With football comes snack food. My dad and stepmom had season tickets to the games (which the never let my sister and I use, hey parents we will take those tickets if you don’t wanna go to a game sometime). During high school and college I pretty much always ended up working during the games because I was a server, so you normally made pretty good money.

Now that I not working during the games, we get to enjoy all the great snack food and drinks that go along with football. Being a vegetarian, chicken wings are a something that I miss out on pretty often. I love everything hot, so I needed a good substitute for wings. PS, the only times I’ve had eaten meat since becoming a vegetarian where chicken wings.

Shortly after moving out to San Diego, Josh and I started picking up new cook books about once a month to learn some new recipes. One of the books that we love cooking out of is Thug Kitchen, where I picked up how to make these Cauliflower Wings. Oh man, am I so excited once I discovered this recipe! I make these when we are having a snacks and cheese board dinner night.

For the cauliflower, cut up a head of cauliflower. Combine one half a cup of water and half a cup of flower, mix together until its completely smooth. This step is really important because you don’t want any lump in the flour mixture. Then toss the cauliflower in the flower until all the flowerets are covered. Bake the cauliflower for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.

While the cauliflower is baking you need to make the sauce for the “wings”. I tend to change it up every time I make this recipe. For this batch I mixed two tablespoons butter, half a cup of Sriracha, one fourth a cup of rice vinegar, two tablespoons of cayenne powder, one tablespoon of honey, and one tablespoon of soy sauce. Heat this mixture in a small sauce pan for about fifteen minutes over medium heat, then remove from heat.

There are so many different ways that you can make this sauce. Take any type of wing sauce that you like and toss. You can take to trust ol’ Pinterest where there are hundreds of wing sauce recipes. All of the good. If you don’t want something as spice you can do a lemon pepper or barbecue sauce.

Once the cauliflower flowerets are finished baking, put them in a large mixing bowl and pour you wing sauce over the cauliflower and toss. Then put the flowerets bake on the baking sheet and bake for ten minutes at 425 degrees. This will help the sauce stick to the flowerets better.

Next up is the dipping sauce. While you can pull out some ranch or blue cheese, which are always good. We don’t usually buy them, I usually make a version of ranch dressing. Because we limit the amount of mayonnaise that we use, I substitute it for greek yogurt.

For the sauce combine half a cup of greek yogurt, two limes- juiced, one fourth of a bunch of cilantro, three sprigs of green onion, one teaspoon of garlic salt and pepper to taste. If you want the dipping sauce to be more like ranch dressing replace the cilantro for a teaspoon of parsley and a teaspoon of dill. I make this sauce all the time for everything from a sauce to top enchiladas to a salad dressing. I just change the amount of greek yogurt to get the desired thickness.

Cauliflower

1 head of cauliflower, cut to flowerets
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup flower

Wing Sauce

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup Sriracha
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons cayenne powder
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Ranch Style Dipping Sauce

1/2 cup greek yogurt
2 limes, juiced
1/4 bunch cilantro, diced
3 sprigs green onion, diced
1 teaspoon garlic salt
pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 425 degress.
2. Combine water and flower, mix together until its completely smooth. This step is really important because you don’t want any lump in the flour mixture. Then toss the cauliflower in the flower until all the flowerets are covered. Bake the cauliflower for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.
3. Mix butter, Sriracha, rice vinegar, cayenne powder, honey, and soy sauce. Heat this mixture in a small sauce pan for about fifteen minutes over medium heat, then remove from heat.
4. Combine baked cauliflower and toss in wing sauce. Bake for an additional 10 minutes at 425 degrees.
5. For the sauce combine greek yogurt, lime juice, cilantro, green onion,garlic salt and pepper to taste. Mix until combined.