Cauliflower seems to be everywhere you look at the moment! I have never been a big fan of cauliflower, but there is something about cauliflower wings that elevates this rather neutral vegetable and turns it into something fantastic! I choose cauliflower wings whenever I can, as a side with a Papa John’s vegan pizza or in a restaurant, I can’t get enough. So I thought, why not make my own?
Making your own cauliflower wings is a lot easier than you think, and you don’t need many ingredients. The best thing is you can make them as spicy or calm as you want, the choice is yours. I don’t like too much fire, maybe you do, the choice of the sauce is yours!
To make this you need a few important ingredients. The first one is obvious, a whole head of cauliflower! This vegetable is relatively inexpensive which is perfect. Just chop off the heads and then chop it into bite-sized pieces! Next up, we need to make a batter for these bite-sized pieces of cauliflower. As I mentioned before, cauliflower is a neutral flavour, which is a nice way of me saying, it’s a bit boring! This batter will give the cauliflower some flavour and a bit of a coating to help get them nice and crispy. I flavoured mine with garlic, smoked paprika and a bit of chilli, but you can flavour yours to be whatever you want it to be! Once the cauliflower has been baked and soaked in those flavours, it’s time for the main event, the sauce!
My favourite sauce to use for these wings is a fermented chilli sauce made by a friend of mine. It doesn’t have too much of a kick so you can still taste the batter underneath, it’s delicious! Perhaps you would like to separate the wings into a few different batches and have them spiced differently! That way you can cater for different spice levels! Have fun and experiment, let me know what you think of this recipe and I hope you enjoy it.
Cauliflower Wings
Ingredients
- 1 head Caulliflower
- 180 ml Plant-based milk
- 110 ml Water
- 160 g Plain Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 2 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Black Pepper
- 1 tsp Mild Chilli Powder
- 2 tbsp Your favourite hot sauce
Instructions
- Cut the cauliflower into bite sized floretes. (Leave them fairly large or they will go soggy)
- Mix all of the ingredients apart from the cauliflower and hot sauce into a bowl. I used a whisk to ensure a smooth consistency
- Put the cauliflower into the bowl and fully coat all of the pieces
- Leave to marinade while you preheat the oven to 220, Gas Mark 7
- While the oven is preheating, put some baking paper onto a oven tray
- Once the oven has reached it's temperature, place the cauliflower onto the baking tray. Try and remove any excess batter from the cauliflower before putting it on the tray. This will help make it crispy.
- Cook the cauliflower for 25 minutes
- Take the cauliflower out of the oven and transfer it into a clean bowl
- Add the hot sauce to the bowl and fully coat the cauliflower
- Return the cauliflower to the baking tray. I put a fresh baking sheet on the tray so that it wouldn't stick to any of the batter that had stuck to the sheet.
- Cook the cauliflower wings for a further 15 minutes. Serve and enjoy!
