Cauliflower Risotto

This cauliflower risotto is a great, easy meatless meal any day of the week. It starts with one head of cauliflower, paired with chickpeas, spinach, walnuts and apricots.

When you need an easy, colorful and delicious lunch or dinner make this vegetarian meal, if you feel you want to add meat you can add grilled chicken.

Leave it to me to came up with a dinner recipe that highlights cauliflower as the main ingredient. I love cauliflower. And am always thinking of ways to use it. Then the light bulb went off in my head, when I wanted to make a risotto, but I didn’t have rice,what I did have was a beautiful head of cauliflower.

Why not a cauliflower risotto, I mean cauliflower has gone from being a blah side dish to the super hero in recipes from pizza to cauliflower steaks. I wasn’t sure how it was going to come together , but I knew it was going to be delicious.

How To Make Cauliflower Risotto

Start with the cauliflower. It needs to be pulsed raw in the food processor in batches into rice like consistency. Cut some of the cauliflower by hand into small florets for varied texture.

This is an important step, you want the cauliflower rice like, over pulsing will give you mashed cauliflower. I knew if  I was going to make cauliflower into a risotto the cooking process had to be similar to cooking risotto.

First…..  use a large saute pan, cook the onions and garlic then add the cauliflower in batches to brown.

Second…. unlike risotto don’t add any liquid unless you want a looser consistency. in that case add 1 cup vegetable stock.

Let me just say as someone who isn’t vegetarian and thinks plain cauliflower can be a bit boring, I can confirm this cauliflower risotto is delicious, a prefect way to make the most of natural veggie ingredients

If you make this recipe please leave me a comment and don’t forget to tag me on Instagram, hearing and seeing your creations from my recipes is my favorite part.

Ingredients

1 medium head cauliflower

1 medium onion chopped

3 Tablespoons chopped garlic

3 cups chopped spinach

1 15 oz. can chickpeas rinsed and drained

1 cup grated  parmesan cheese

1 cup each chopped walnuts and dried apricots

1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. 1. Place cauliflower in a food processor in batches pulse coarsely to resemble rice
   2. In a large saute pan in the olive oil and butter saute the onion and garlic until tender and just starting to brown
   3. Add cauliflower cook until brown stirring occasionally about 10 minutes
   4. Add rest of ingredients  cook an additional 5 minutes
   5. Sprinkle with additional parmesan and Italian parsley