Do you believe this insanely delicious cheese sauce is all made from a vegetable! Cauliflower! Cauliflower cheese sauce is light, creamy, and cheesy, this sauce is deliciousness overload!
1cauliflower headbroken into florets (about 5-6 cups of florets)
7clovesof garlicminced
2tablespoonbutterunsalted
4cupsvegetable broth
½cupmilkuse almond milk for vegan version
1teaspoonsalt
1teaspoonpepperfreshly ground pepper
½cupParmesan cheesefreshly grated
2tablespoonolive oiloptional as needed to loosed the sauce
Instructions
Rinse whole cauliflower head under tap water.
Remove the green stem from cauliflower head and break cauliflower into small florets. Keep aside.Note – make sure you have equal sized florets so they cook even.
Melt butter in a pan. Add minced garlic and saute until garlic is fragrant. Do NOT brown garlic. You only want garlic to soften a bit and release it’s oil. Immediately remove pan from heat and set it aside.Note – browned garlic will give bitter taste to the sauce. DO NOT BROWN IT.
In a stock pot or large pot bring vegetable broth to boil.
Add in cauliflower florets. Cook cauliflower in broth on medium heat for about 7 to 8 minutes or until florets are tender.
Once soften cauliflower florets from the stock. Transfer to a blender.
Add rest of the ingredients to the blender – sautéed garlic, salt, freshly ground pepper, milk and few tablespoons of hot broth in which cauliflower was cooked.
Blend until smooth. You can blend the sauce into velvety smooth texture with Vitamix blender!
Add in Parmesan cheese and some olive oil (it adds more flavor to the sauce) and blend again.
Serve over your favorite pasta.Note – cauliflower sauce by itself will have the ‘cauliflowery’ taste. Stirring it with foods like pasta (mac n cheese), pouring over roasted broccoli or vegetables works better. You can even stir it in soups to enhance taste and as thickening agent!
Video
Notes
Make sure all florets of cauliflower are same size. It helps cook evenly.
Do not brown garlic. You want to simply saute garlic in butter until it turns little soft and begin to release it’s oil. Browned garlic will taste bitter.
Cooking cauliflower in vegetable stock enhances the taste of the sauce.
Cheese is optional but highly recommended. It makes the sauce taste so much better and cheesy just like the real stuff. Very little cheese, oh it’s still healthy!
You can totally control the sauce consistency to what you like. If you want velvety smooth creamy texture use a high powered blender like vitamix or blendtec.
To make vegan version of cauliflower Alfredo sauce, replace butter with olive oil to saute garlic, replace milk with vegan friendly milk like almond milk, and ditch Parmesan cheese.
Nutritional Info – Please keep in mind that nutritional information provided is only a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.