Crispy Roasted Cauliflower (Easy Buffalo-Style Side Dish!)
Cauliflower is perfectly fine steamed. It’s also perfectly fine wearing khakis and going to a quarterly budget meeting. But roast the hell out of it until the edges are dark and crispy, then give us ranch and hot sauce for dipping? Now we’re interested. 😉
This Crispy Roasted Cauliflower is ridiculously easy: olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and a hot oven. Eat it straight off the pan, dunk it in cool ranch, dip it in hot sauce Buffalo-style, or alternate between the two until an alarming percentage of a cauliflower has disappeared.
Ingredients
- 1 large head cauliflower, cut into bite-size florets
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Ranch dressing, for dipping
- Buffalo-style hot sauce, for dipping
- Freshly ground sea salt, for finishing
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or foil.
- Wash the cauliflower and get it really dry. Any water hiding in those florets will create steam, and steam is how we end up with sad floppy cauliflower instead of fabulous crispy cauliflower.
- Cut the cauliflower into roughly bite-size florets and add them to the baking sheet.
- Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic powder, onion powder, kosher salt, black pepper and smoked paprika.
- Toss everything together until the cauliflower is thoroughly coated, then spread it into a single layer with plenty of room between the pieces.
- Roast for 20–25 minutes, flipping once about halfway through, until the cauliflower is tender inside with deeply browned, crispy edges.
- Give it a few extra minutes if necessary. Dark brown edges are not a cooking emergency. They’re the whole damn point.
- Finish with a few cracks of freshly ground sea salt.
- Serve hot with ranch and Buffalo-style hot sauce alongside for dipping.
Variations
- Dry the cauliflower. We’re mentioning it twice because it matters that much. Wet cauliflower steams. Dry cauliflower roasts.
- Don’t crowd the pan. Give those florets some breathing room so the hot air can actually get around them. Use two pans if necessary, despite our general philosophical objection to creating additional dishes.
- Cut similar-size pieces. They don’t need to pass a cauliflower geometry inspection, but keeping them roughly similar means they’ll finish roasting at the same time.
- Get them brown. Pale cauliflower is cooked cauliflower. Deeply golden cauliflower with crispy dark edges is roasted cauliflower. There is a difference and it is delicious.
- Ranch + hot sauce is our favorite situation. Keep them separate and dip into whichever one sounds good with each bite, or combine them for an instant creamy Buffalo ranch.
- Go full Buffalo. Toss the hot roasted cauliflower with Buffalo sauce, then put it back in the oven for another 3–5 minutes. Serve with ranch or blue cheese dressing.
- Add Parmesan. Toss 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan onto the cauliflower during the last 5 minutes of roasting.
- Make it hotter. Add cayenne or extra smoked paprika before roasting, then proceed directly to the ranch.
- Add lemon. A squeeze of fresh lemon over plain roasted cauliflower is ridiculously good when we’re not in a Buffalo mood.
These are fabulous next to our Honey Garlic Pork Chops, French Onion Chicken, our juicy Garlic Butter Chicken or Hot Honey Salmon when you want something considerably more exciting than another sensible vegetable..;)
And if you’re building out the whole dinner situation, our Brown Butter Parmesan Mashed Potatoes and Garlic Parmesan Roasted Green Beans can handle the rest of the plate.
