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These Spicy Baked Cauliflower Bites are easy, crusted with breadcrumbs, spicy sauce and addictive. Serve with celery ranch sauce below or other vegan ranch. vegan soy-free.
Baked Cauliflower is always in season. Crusted with just salt and pepper, some spices, or battered and crisped up with breadcrumbs. These super spicy breaded cauliflower bites will be on fire at your superbowl party. literally on fire in your mouth too!
Hot sauce + black pepper + cayenne. All the heat you need! Taste the batter before using. If you don’t need a jug of cold water after tasting, you are good to go. Add more flour + water if too spicy.
Serve with a cooling dip like the celery ranch on this post.
Use gluten-free breadcrumbs or crushed cornflakes for the crunchy coating to make gluten-free.
2 more days to Game day! Go Seahawks!
More super bowl apps from the blog
Sriracha Mango Cauliflower bites, Thai Layered Dip, Buffalo Chickpea Pizza and many more here!.
You can also make Spicy Potato wedges with it. Use sliced russet potatoes instead of cauliflower.
Hot!
Spicy Baked Cauliflower Bites with Celery Ranch
Ingredients
For the batter:
- 2 to 3 Tbsp hot sauce
- 1 Tbsp evoo
- 1/2 to 3/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 to 1 tsp cayenne/ red chili powder
- 1.5 tsp garlic powder
- 1.5 tsp onion powder
- 1.5 to 2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3 Tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot starch
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1/2 cup coconut milk, canned, preferably full fat
- 1/4 cup water
- 3.5 to 4 cups cauliflower florets
Breadcrumb coating:
- 3/4 cup bread crumbs
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/4 tsp salt
Celery Ranch Sauce:
- 1/2 cup ground cashew
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup almond milk
- 2 tbsp flour or 1 Tbsp arrowroot starch
- 2/3 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast, can be omitted
- a very generous dash of black pepper
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder , or 2 roasted garlic cloves
- 1 to 2 tsp ranch seasoning, Or use equal amounts of dried parsley, dill, thyme, garlic powder and onion powder.
- 1 to 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 to 1 tsp celery seeds, (omit to make plain ranch, add some fresh dill for plain ranch)
Instructions
Make the Cauliflower bites:
- In a bowl, mix everything except cauliflower for the batter. if the batter is too thin, add more flour or starch.
- In another shallow bowl, mix everything under breadcrumb coating.
- Dip cauliflower in the batter, then coat in breadcrumbs and place on parchment lined sheet.(use gloves or a fork. the batter is spicy)
- Drizzle any remaining batter on the cauliflower. Spray oil.
- Bake at pre-heated 425 degrees F / 220ºc for 25 minutes or until a toothpick goes through the cauliflower easily. Serve warm with dip.
Make the Celery Ranch dip:
- Blend everything except celery seeds. Taste and adjust salt and flavor. Add celery seeds and blend for a few seconds. Chill and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
We had these tonight for dinner, and everyone thought they were amazing! My younger son (who declared beforehand that he didn’t like cauliflower) gave them 5 stars, deciding that he likes cauliflower after all… as long as he gets to eat it prepared like this. My husband called them “something truly special,” thanking me for a great dinner, and my teenage son went back for seconds. We didn’t have coconut milk on hand, so I substituted soy milk, and I used tofu instead of cashews in the ranch. So good! Thanks for another fantastic recipe.
Charity, my niece is alleryto cashew nuts, what kind of tofu did you use to substitute for the cashew nuts? Thanks
All I can say is that we made these last Bites night and they were amazing – the marinade batter was so tasty – we made sure ours was just a little spicy – but overall the flavour combination with the cauliflower is perfect – we poured the extra batter over the cauliflower pieces and it went all crunchy in the oven – like a crisp – and you could taste the coconut milk. The vegan ranch dressing – so good – I live in Croatia where they love to eat that horrible shop bought mayonnaise from a jar – they put it on everything and I cannot eat it – you could use this ranch dressing on your sandwich as a mayonnaise substitute it is that good!! I cant wait to read your new cookbook!!
Looks great, and we loved the mango ones. If you need gluten-free, would you substitute chickpea powder or something like ground almonds? Any advice is appreciated.
chickpea flour + a little starch would work. or rice flour + starch.
What kind of breadcrumbs did you use? Panko? I just want to make sure they come out as crispy as yours look. I’ve tried this a couple times, using other recipes, but they came out soggy. These look great!
These cauliflower bites look amazing Richa! I don’t normally like cauliflower but I imagine them dipped in all of this sauce would be incredible! YUM. The spicy potato wedges look insane too…just beautiful.
These crispy cauliflower bites sound so delicious! I definitely need more tasty vegetable bites with creamy dip in my life. 🙂
you’re right, lady, roasted cauliflower is always in season. this looks freakin amazing.
Richa, you are KILLING me with these. That crust on the cauliflower looks amaaaaazing. This will officially be the second year in a row that I make multiple of your recipes on game day. I might even make 2+ kinds of cauli wings. It’s pretty much a tradition at this point!
when you say coconut milk do you mean the kind in the can, or carton?
canned. full fat is better.
OMG staaaahp now I have to make this too! Now I can’t decide, those spicy mango wings, or the baked ones?? Anyway, these look great 🙂
make them all 😉