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Baked Cauliflower Veggie Balls in spiced tomato onion sauce. Cauliflower Kofta Curry. Vegan Indian Recipe. Soy-free, easily made gluten-free. Free of dairy, egg, corn, soy.
There are several types of Kofta curries. Koftas are balls of meat or veggies or cheese. The richer variety usually has paneer cheese or meat in the balls and cream based curries. The everyday kofta curry versions are vegetable based and can have veggies like cabbage, carrots, potatoes, green beans, cauliflower etc. They can be fried and added to a simple tomato onion sauce or just tomato sauce. This version uses Cauliflower. The koftas and the sauce can be made ahead and refrigerated, then warmed up to serve.
It seems like a veggie ball kind of season. Add shredded potato or jackfruit or vegan cheese shreds to the veggie balls for variation. Use almond or sunflower seeds in the balls instead of cashews. You can also made the koftas with shredded cabbage.
I had one too many kofta recipes (malai kofta, lasooni veggie kofta, cabbage veggie kofta and this cauliflower kofta) to choose from for the cookbook. It quite difficult to narrow down from 175 down to 150 🙂
More fun recipes from the blog!
Spicy Garlic Dal
Chickpea Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Smoky Tomato Sauce
Jackfruit “meatballs”
Mango Curry Tofu
Curried Chickpea Rice One Pot Pilaf
I have been using feedly more and more lately to keep track of all the blogs I want to keep track of. Everything in one place. You can find my feed on feedly here.
Steps:
I used my mini food processor and added everything to it and done within 2 minutes.
Meanwhile, the blended sauce is cooking down.
Still cooking and has some more minutes to go.
Add non dairy milk, Taste and adjust salt and spice. Serve over baked or pan fried koftas.
Cauliflower Kofta Curry. Baked Cauliflower Veggie Balls in Spiced Tomato Onion Sauce. Vegan Recipe
Ingredients
Kofta/balls:
- 1/2 tsp toasted cumin seeds
- 1/4 cup cashews, or use almond slivers or sunflower seeds
- 3 cups cauliflower florets
- 1 hot green chili
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- 1/2 inch knob of ginger, chopped
- 1/2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- 1/4 cup chickpea flour
- 1/4 cup breadcrumbs, or coarsely ground oat flour
- 1/4 cup mashed potatoes , or shredded potato
- 1 tsp organic canola or saffllower oil, optional
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced or 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
Sauce
- 1 cup chopped red onion
- 2 cups chopped tomato, 2 medium
- 1/2 inch knob of ginger
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 tsp organic canola , or safflower oil
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 cloves
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp or more garam masala
- 1 tsp sriracha , or other hot sauce
- 1/2 to 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup almond milk , or coconut milk
- 1/2 cup water
- cilantro and cashew cream for garnish
Instructions
- Kofta/balls:
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F / 220ºc. Toast the cumin seeds in a skillet over medium heat until fragrant (2 to 3 minutes),
- Process the cumin seeds and cashews in a food processor or blender to make a coarse mixture. Add all ingredients from cauliflower through garam masala and process. Or you can hand grate the cauliflower and mix in the spices.
- Transfer cauliflower mixture to a bowl. Add chickpea flour, 1/4 cup breadcrumbs, potato, oil, garlic, salt and mix well. Do not let the mixture sit at this point as the cauliflower will start to leak moisture. Add more breadcrumbs if needed. (If the mixture is too dry, let it sit for a few minutes and then shape into balls, If it stays too dry, add 1 flax egg to help bind).
- Shape into an inch size balls or flat discs. Place on parchment lined sheet. Spray or brush oil on the balls. Bake 22-25 minutes or until golden. You can also pan fry the discs, 3 to 5 minutes each side until golden. (you might need more flour or breadcrumbs to make sturdy discs to pan fry. These koftas do better when baked)
- Sauce:
- In a blender, add onion, tomato, garlic, ginger and blend to a puree. Use a few Tbsps of water if needed.
- In a pan, add oil and heat over medium heat. One hot, add the bay leaf and cloves and cook for a few seconds. Add turmeric, garam masala, sriracha and a Tbsp of water. Cook for a minute.
- Add the blended puree and salt mix well. Cook uncovered until the mixture reduces to a thick wet paste, smells roasted and some oil can be seen on the edges. 20 to 25 minutes. Stir occasionally.
- Add almond milk and water, mix and bring to a boil. about 5 minutes. Cook longer if needed for desired sauce consistency. Taste and adjust salt and spice. Add cayenne if needed. Serve warm koftas, drizzled with enough sauce. Garnish with cilantro or cashew cream. Serve with flatbread or rice.
Notes
Use 1/2 tsp coriander seeds instead of cumin seeds in the kofta balls.
Add 1/2 cup shredded potato, zucchini or vegan cheese to the kofta balls.
Add 1/2 cup of cooked beans like white beans or cooked split peas to the kofta balls. Omit the cashews. Nutritional values based on one serving
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I’d like to make the koftas ahead of time and mix up the gravy as needed. Should I bake and freeze, or freeze after forming the balls and bake when I need it?
shape and freeze, then bake as double baking will dry them out.
Bought your cookbook over the weekend and made cabbage kofta as our first recipe. Threw it on some rice. Wow! We spent the whole meal being thankful we bought your book. And THEN we found out you had a website! YES! My husband loves califlower, so this will be our next kofta attempt.
Awesome!!!
I made this and it all worked pretty well together, but to me it, was not a superb recipe unfortunately. The cauliflower balls were pretty nice and the sauce was pretty nice and it was all together pretty good. I think the sauce would need more of a rounded flavor of spices and it would need more different flavors. I think now it was a bit bland and a bit flat. The cauliflower balls were nice, the batter was good and they were easy to make and I was a bit worried cause the “dough” was very mild tasting, but after they came out of the oven, I kind of liked them more. But I think the sauce needs something more in the spice mix. 🙂
Hi Tiina,
Thanks for your feedback. You can add more spices to the sauce when you taste. The flavor depends on many things. How fresh and flavorful the spices and spice blends (garam masala) are. My homemade garam masala has a very strong flavor so sometimes I add less than what the recipe calls for. It can also be the salt as the right amount of salt helps the flavor and spices bloom. You can add more garam masala or add more ground cumin and coriander.
What a great idea! 🙂 I love cauliflower! Yummy!
me too!!
Hi,
Will you share the recipie for the cashew cream? Thank you!
its just soaked cashews blended with a little water. Soak a a half cup or more cashews overnight, blend with a tbsp or more water until it is thick and creamy. Add a pinch of salt and a pinch of sugar.
Made the koftas and even my fussy teens ate them up
These are phenomenal! I loved the kofta by themselves so much!! And with the sauce they were also excellent. Tonight I hope to make Naan to go with the rest. Thank you for sharing your creativity and amazing recipes.
Awesome!!!
Weltklasse!!!!!!! 🙂 thank you for this recipe – I’m either in love or addicted or both 😉
Kind regards,
Almut
I love cauliflower in all its guises and this sounds great – but I have to miss out on the chilli nowadays! I’m sure they’ll still taste good:)
Dear Richa,
I made this tonight, amazing!! Those flavors… you are so talented. I just saw in a post that the potato is supposed to be raw – I used a cooked on, and it worked too.
Thank you!!
Awesome!! the mashed potatoes are cooked, but you can also use shredded raw potatoes!
I love them!
Just made this yummy kofta with hubby for mother’s day and wedding anniversary dinner, incredible taste! We did use sunflowerseed, normal full cream milk (as we are not vegan) and had added 1 tsp of brown sugar to the sauce to add a hint of sweetness to the sauce. We also added a bit of raisin in the sauce. It’s better than the malai kofta we usually get from restaurant. Thank you for sharing the recipe and will definitely try other recipes too.
Awesome