Gluten Free Crispy Cauliflower – Totally Vegan
It’s time to get your game on and batter up, literally! Any time is game time, and anyone participating needs sustenance. Drop in a platter of gluten free Crispy Cauliflower and your team will love you for it. Does your crowd prefer hot buffalo or sweet sauce? This totally vegan recipe includes both. SCORE!
Crispy Cauliflower Tips
We discovered a few tricks to create the crispiest cauliflower. First of all, a special thanks must be sent out to Kenji Lopez-Alt (Serious Eats, The Food Lab, NYT Cooking,) whose dedication to both pleasing his wife and fans like us made this recipe a success. Kenji mixes vodka in with his batter to create the ultimate in crispy cauliflower. (We bow to this man!) He also recommends cutting the cauliflower into small, bite sized pieces. Flour Farm tip: fry in coconut oil, which leaves the cauliflower feeling dry and crispy instead of oily and soggy. Coconut oil is easy to reuse, so you do not have to waste oil (bonus!) Also, lay paper towels over a cooling rack and drain fried cauliflower on towels for a few minutes before transferring to a warm pan in the oven. Space fried pieces away from each other. When serving, use a platter instead of a bowl to prevent the heat from steaming the crispy bits and making them soggy.
Hot Buffalo Sauce or Sweet Asian Sauce?
In our family, the adults like the hot buffalo sauce and the kids like the sweet Asian sauce. Luckily for us, Kenji has a recipe for both. We adapted his recipes to be gluten free and make all the members of our family happy. If you have a favorite sauce – please write to us and share! We are always looking for ways to expand the good eats for our game play-dates.
Share
Please let us know how your vegan Gluten Free Crispy Cauliflower turned out! We love to receive feedback. Please rate this recipe and leave a comment in the section provided below. Thank you.
An important note: this recipe successfully uses Flour Farm Organic Gluten Free Flour Blend. If you choose to make this with another flour blend, please note that your results may differ.
Peace & LOVE – Teri
Photos by DuPree Productions
Flour Farm Making Gluten Free Crispy Cauliflower
Gluten Free Crispy Cauliflower
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 10 servings 1x
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
Game time or anytime your team has a crispy craving, whip up a batch of our vegan, gluten free Crispy Cauliflower. Choose your sauce – hot buffalo or sweet Asian? Better yet, make them both!
Ingredients
Choose Gluten Free, Non-GMO & Organic Ingredients.
Substitutions: Do you need to swap out an ingredient? Click here for suggestions.
Note: If clicking the 2X or 3X scale boxes to the right, please know that weights listed in parentheses below may or may not change. Please take care to check amounts if increasing the recipe.
Oil
- At least 2 L (2 Qt) of Oil for Frying (ex: coconut, peanut, sunflower, avocado, sesame)
Cauliflower Batter
Dry
- 108g (3.8 oz) Flour Farm Organic Gluten Free Flour Blend (1 C spoon & level)
- 90g (3.2 oz) Corn Starch (3/4 C spoon & level)
- 3/4 tsp Aluminum Free, Double Acting Baking Powder (3g)
- 1 tsp Extra Fine Pink Himalayan Salt (6g)
- Note: If making crispy cauliflower with the Asian sauce, add 28g (1 oz or 1/3 C) unsweetened Coconut and 43g (1.5 oz or 1/3 C) of toasted Sesame Seeds to the dry blend.
Wet
- 118 ml (4 fl oz) Cold Water (1/2 C)
- 118 ml (4 fl oz) Vodka (1/2 C)
- 1 M/L head of Cauliflower, remove leaves, core and cut into 1 inch florets (you should have about 1.5 lbs or 680g after trimming and cutting)
Hot Buffalo Sauce (see Notes below)
- 89 ml (3 fl oz) Franks Hot Sauce, or your favorite! (about 1/3 C)
- 2 T Vegan Butter, melted and cooled (28g) – you may omit and use 3 T oil from the fryer instead
- 1/2 tsp Dried, Minced Garlic or 1 Fresh Clove Garlic, minced (1 tsp)
- 1 T Hot Oil from Fryer (15 ml)
- Garnish: Celery sticks & leaves
Sweet Asian Sauce (see Notes below)
- 118 ml (4 fl oz) Tamari – Gluten Free Soy Sauce (1/2 C)
- 2 T Rice Wine Vinegar (30 ml)
- 60 ml (2 fl oz) Mirin or other Sweet Rice Cooking Wine (1/4 C)
- 100g (3.5 oz) Brown Cane Sugar (1/2 C packed)
- 2 Cloves Garlic, minced (about 2 tsp)
- 1 tsp Fresh Ginger, grated or finely chopped (2g)
- 1/2 tsp Crushed, Dried Red Pepper Flakes
- 2 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil (10 ml)
- 1 T Filtered Water (15 ml)
- 1 T Cornstarch (7.5g)
- Garnish: Scallions, finely sliced or chopped and/or Toasted Sesame Seeds
Instructions
Equipment: Digital kitchen scale (preferred,) Heavy bottom sauce pan or Wok or Dutch oven, Slotted spatula or spider ladle, Cooling rack, Mixing bowls, Measuring cups & spoons, Paper towels, Baking sheet, Unbleached parchment, Whisk, Thermometer (preferred)
Before You Dive In – Prep: please read!
- Heat oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 C); Oil should be about 3 inches deep in the pan; Do not heat to smoking
- Chop cauliflower into 1 inch (2.5 cm) florets, set aside in a large bowl
- Chop garlic or cut celery, if using
- Place folded paper towels over cooling rack and set next to pan with oil
- Set oven temp to Warm, and place a parchment lined baking sheet on the center rack
- Prepare sauce(s) ahead of time
Step 1: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, salt. Whisk in sesame seeds and coconut if using. Set aside.
Step 2: In a liquid measuring cup, add water and vodka. Slowly pour in vodka and water while whisking – you may not need the entire amount. Check after 3/4 of liquid is used. (You will definitely use the entire amount for the seed/coconut mix). Whisk until the batter is thin enough to disappear into the surface of the batter when it drips from the whisk. You do not want a batter either too thick or too thin; however, it’s best to err on the thin side.
Step 3: The prepared cauliflower should be in a large bowl. Pour batter over cauliflower and use a sturdy spoon to mix until all pieces of cauliflower are well coated.
Step 4: The oil should be preheated to a temp of 350 F/177 C. If you do not have a thermometer, flick a small glob of batter into the oil. If is sizzles and starts to turn brown – the oil is ready. Add battered cauliflower to the hot oil – ONE PIECE AT A TIME. Each piece will sink to the bottom of the pan. If you over crowd the cauliflower, pieces will stick together and make a blobby mess. Let pieces fry at the bottom for one minute. Take a slotted spoon and gently nudge each piece, if they do not pop up by themselves after about 15 seconds. They will pop up without sticking to the bottom. If you try to nudge them too early, the batter will stick to the pan and burn.
Step 5: Fry pieces until they appear golden 3-5 minutes depending on the temp of your oil. Remove pieces with a slotted spoon or spider ladle and drain on paper towels placed over a cooling rack. Each piece should not touch another piece to drain properly. Wait a minute for the temperature of the oil to come back up in the pan before starting another round. As the new batch is frying, transfer the previous drained batch to the warmed oven. Arrange in a single layer. Continue frying until all pieces are cooked and in the oven. Alternatively, leave the pieces draining on the paper towel until finished. Remove the paper towel and place the rack full of fried cauliflower on the baking sheet in the oven until you are ready to toss or dip.
Step 6: Transfer crispy pieces of cauliflower to a large bowl and toss with sauce. Pour onto a platter in a single layer to prevent soggy bits and garnish. Serve immediately.
Crispy cauliflower is best eaten the same day or refrigerated and reheated in the oven (300 F/150 C) for about 10-15 minutes the next day.
Enjoy!
Notes
To Make the Hot Buffalo Sauce: In a small bowl, whisk together hot sauce, garlic, melted butter (if using) and oil. Pour over crispy cauliflower, garnish and serve immediately.
To Make the Sweet Asian Sauce: In a small sauce pan over medium heat, whisk together all ingredients except the water and cornstarch. Whisk until the sugar is dissolved. In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch and water. Add to the pan and whisk into the sauce. Increase heat and bring sauce to a boil for about 3 minutes. Sauce will thicken a bit. Remove from heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes before tossing with crispy cauliflower. Transfer cauliflower to a platter, garnish and serve immediately.
The nutrition information provided below is for the battered cauliflower (without seeds and coconut) before frying. The final calorie/fat count will depend on the type of oil and sauce used. Each serving weighs about 85g or 3 oz.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: appetizer
- Method: frying
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 3 oz
- Calories: 100
- Sugar: 2g
- Sodium: 290mg
- Fat: 1g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Unsaturated Fat: 1g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 20g
- Fiber: 2g
- Protein: 2g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
Keywords: gluten free crispy cauliflower
For more delicious gluten free recipes, take a trip over to our Flour Farm recipe page. Click here!
Teri, my daughter made the cauliflower wings tonight. They are delicious! Your recipe is absolutely perfect.
★★★★★
Thank you! T & D
I love fried cauliflower but could never get it to come out as well as my mother can make it! It would often come out soggy, and the cauliflower had to be boiled before breading it. I wanted to make it beautifully crisp, and came across your recipe, and decided to go for it. I just used my Costco GF flour, didn’t weigh anything out. Ground the sesame seeds and coconut in my spice grinder and added it in. Only had CAKE FLAVORED vodka, used 1/4 cup of that and 1/4 cup of whiskey. Only had a quart of canola oil and used it in a cast iron pan. Despite all my imprecise measuring and substitutions, this cauliflower STILL came out absolutely amazing. So light, crisp, and tasty. Luckily you could not taste the cake vodka or whiskey. Maybe the sesame seeds and coconut helped hide the taste, plus I put some Adobo powder in the batter. It made a nice amount too! I’m certainly saving this recipe and am going to try it with mushrooms, zucchini slices, maybe even sweet potato. Thank you so much from our GF family!!!
★★★★★
Thank you! – T & D