I love exploring the farmers market and taking in all the beautiful fruits and vegetables. I’m the type of girl that gets excited over good produce! (And if lovin’ produce is wrong… I don’t wanna be right!)
There’s so many vibrant colors and textures to tap into. Some veggies are entirely new to me, others are more ordinary, but can be seen in a whole new way with a change of color. Cue this cauliflower…
I found this vibrant orange cauliflower sitting next to some purple cauliflower at the farmers market. It looked way too inviting not to pick up!
I love cauliflower for so many reasons. It’s incredibly versatile. You can blend it and make a vegan Alfredo sauce out of it. You can grate it and blend it into cauliflower breadsticks, or make cauliflower rice out of it. You can sauté it, grill it, bake it or eat it raw… so many options for this cruciferous veggie.
I had my mind set on roasting it and making a nice salad out of it. I’m always trying to switch up my salad-game and had eaten a salad with purple and orange cauliflower a few weeks prior at a restaurant and wanted to recreate that, but put my own spin on it.
I started by chopping up the cauliflower. Then I lightly seasoned it with olive oil, pink Himalayan sea salt and a few dashes of red chili flakes.
I spread it onto a pan and added a few dashes of my favorite seasoning…
…nutritional yeast. It’s basically inactive yeast that gives anything you bake a nice crisp to it (great for kale chips), plus a mild cheese flavor (for more info on Nutritional Yeast click here). It’s what many vegans use for ‘cheese.’ It *is* optional, but worth adding if you have it.
I then searched the pantry for a few more ingredients to add to my salad. I thought pecans would be great for texture and… that’s really all I had. The rest would be left to seasoning and a dressing.
Cooking well just basically comes down to how you season things. It’s an art to know how to marry flavors. Taste is so subjective, however, and everyone’s taste is different (I mean, have you seen how some people dress?! ;), so when you’re coming up with a dish you just want to try and balance out flavors as best you can: sweet, salty, spicy, sour and savory. Let that be your guide and then run with it.
Since I brought some heat to the dish with chili flakes, I thought I could bring in some sweetness by drizzling a little syrup over the pecans, plus a dash of sea salt, and then roasting everything together.
The pecans were ready in 5 to 7 minutes. The cauliflower took about 30.
All that was left was to assemble my salad. You can use any greens you like. I had a few heads of radicchio, so I chopped up one of them. I love it for its crisp, slightly bitter flavor. I mixed it with a little spinach I had as well.
I tossed it all in a bowl and then added the last element to round out the flavors, “sour,” by adding in some citrus.
I bought these blood oranges at the farmers market and they were the perfect finish to this hearty salad.
I drizzled a tiny bit of dressing over the top (although it needn’t any) and I had one amazing salad, bursting with flavor.
The crisp cauliflower had fantastic texture with just a little kick. When paired with the sweet, yet smokey pecans, plus that little burst of citrus, it was a party in my mouth! So flavorful and so hearty!
Who said salads have to be boring?!? This one is definitely worth trying!
Roasted Cauliflower & Maple Pecan Salad Ingredients:
1 head of cauliflower
1/4 tsp red chili flakes
1/4 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 c. pecans
1 Tbsp grade b maple syrup
dash of sea salt
1 blood orange (peeled & sliced)
1 head of radicchio, chopped
5 cups fresh spinach
Dressing:
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt
Directions:
- Chop cauliflower into pieces, toss into a bowl and mix in chili flakes, sea salt and olive oil. Coat evenly. Spread cauliflower onto a non-stick baking pan.
- In another bowl mix pecans, syrup and sea salt, coat evenly, then spread onto baking pan with cauliflower.
- Place pan in oven set to 400 degrees, cook pecans 5 to 7 minutes, or until crisp, then remove from pan.
- Continuing cooking the cauliflower. 15 minutes on one side, flip, and then cook on the other side another 10-15 minutes or until cauliflower turns slightly brown and crisp.
- Once cooked, let cauliflower cool and then assemble salad.
- Peel and slice one blood orange.
- Place greens of your choice in a bowl, take 3/4 c. of the cauliflower, a handful of pecans and a few slices of orange and place on top of salad.
- Whisk dressing in a small bowl, drizzle one to two tablespoons over the top and serve.
~Serves 4
*Notes*
*You can adjust the flavor of the cauliflower by adding more sea salt or chili flakes. You may need to add more olive oil if entire head is not coated. You want it coated evenly before cooking.
*You can add in other things to your salad as well, a few stems of raw, chopped asparagus, raisins or chopped dates.
*If you don’t want to roast the pecans, just chop and add to salad after cauliflower is done cooking.
*Store leftover dressing in an air-tight container. Will last a week.
