This delicious, summery salad is perfect for Sunday lunch or a mid-week dinner. Remember the soggy, sad boiled cauliflower your Mum used to dish up… forget that – this scrumptious recipe takes cauliflower to a whole new level. Enjoy!
Note: You can be hit and miss with the exact quantities when cooking this one. You can’t really get it wrong, so if you love roasted seeds, or lots of garlic, or lots of pomegranate… go for it.
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower
- A grain, cooked. You can use quinoa, brown rice, barley… or even lentils or chickpeas if you’ve got them!
- 1 cucumber
- Seeds of half a pomegranate (if you don’t know how to de-seed a pomegranate.
- A bag of spinach
- Goat’s cheese or labne
- Smoked paprika
- Olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- Half a red onion
- Some mint, if you’ve got it
- A handful of pistachios, if you can be bothered!
- Caramelised balsamic vinegar (to dress)
Method
Pre-heat the oven to about 200 degrees celcius.
Cut the cauliflower into small-ish pieces and pop them on a baking tray. Drizzle (or glug) on olive oil and sprinke with paprika and chopped garlic. Use your hands to coat the cauliflower with the paprika-y oil and whack it in the oven.
Go watch an episode of Netflix (or, you know, wrangle kids or do a Luvmyhike workout) while you wait for the cauli to cook. After about 20 mins, pull it out of the oven and toss it around a bit to make sure it’s cooking evenly and has enough oil. If it looks dry, add a bit more. Put it back in the oven for 20 – 40 minutes (depends on the oven, I keep checking it) until it’s crispy and caramelised. The trick is to not take it out too soon… you want the cauli to sweeten.
While that’s getting nice and crispy, start prepping the salad. Chop the cucumber and the onion up into small-ish bits – whatever size you enjoy them. Add them to a salad bowl with the spinach and the cooked grain and mix it all around.
When the cauliflower is done, let it cool a little bit before adding it to the bowl. Add half the pomegranate and mix in. Sprinkle the remaining pomegranate and pistachios on top, add a big dollop of labne and chopped mint. Drizzle with caramelised balsamic vinegar.
Viola! You can serve this as a main or a side – for meat lovers I lamb is a great combo for this one.