Cooking with Cauliflower: Easy Recipes

Having a selection of healthy vegetable recipes is important if you want to maintain a nutritional diet. Rather than always being side dishes, vegetables can comprise the main ingredient of many simple meals, and cauliflower is high on the list of possibilities. Healthy cauliflower recipes need not involve complicated directions or exotic ingredients. Knowing how to incorporate cauliflower and other vegetables into curries, casseroles or stir fry only will improve your cooking repertoire. However, there are a few basic dishes that feature cauliflower that only take minutes to make, are extremely healthy and flavorful too.

Raw Cauliflower

The best way to benefit from all of the many nutrients that cauliflower and other vegetables have is to consume them raw. Fresh, uncooked cauliflower as a part of a daily salad will give your body vitamin C and folate. Folate has been shown to help prevent anemia and helps the blood system. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that keeps your immune system strong. Cauliflower also has two ingredients, indole-3-carbinol and sulforaphane, both of which help to prevent different types of cancer. Lightly steamed cauliflower will maintain the nutritional benefits, but eating it raw is the best.

Steamed Cauliflower

A way to keep the health benefits while softening it up is to lightly steam cauliflower. Cauliflower, along with all vegetables, should not be steamed until they are mushy. Five minutes at most will make them softer while keeping them highly nutritional. Try steaming cauliflower along with an assortment of vegetables and adding it to a batch of quinoa. Quinoa is a whole grain that is also very good for your body. Cook it with 2 cups of water to every cup of quinoa, bringing it to a boil then letting it simmer until done. Top lightly with olive oil and herbs or spices of your choice for a filling, healthy meal.

You can also steam the entire head of a cauliflower by putting it into a pot intact. Once lightly steamed, serve it with butter or olive oil, salt and pepper as either a side dish or healthy appetizer.

Sautéed Cauliflower

Heat up 1 or 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a pan, add a selection of herbs and spices then add a diced onion. When the onion begins to soften, add cut up fresh cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus and carrots along with whatever else your tastes desire. After the mixture has sautéed and gained its maximum flavor, pull from the heat and serve over a bed of brown rice or buckwheat noodles. For a little extra protein consider adding white beans or fresh milk mozzarella balls to the recipe.

There are many other possibilities for cauliflower. Three of the easiest ways to serve it, though, are raw in salads, steamed or sautéed. For the best nutrition, fresh and lightly steamed or sautéed vegetables should be a regular part of your diet. Not only are they extremely good for you, they are quite tasty as well. Have several recipes like this at the ready for those evenings when you can’t quite decide what to make, but when you know you want to eat healthily.