If you have cauliflower cheese as a main meal .....?

ciderwithrosie_2

Wow, I never realised other people had all this extra stuff with cauli cheese, we only ever eat it with bacon and fried cherry tomatoes, plenty filling and tasty enough.

bestpud

We mostly have it with a roast meal, but if not, we'd have bacon, fish fingers or a baked potato.

As an aside, leeks in cheese sauce are is nice too.

HannahIOW

The family I used to live with always had it as a main, with whole hard boiled eggs also baked into it. I found the combination a bit odd.

For us these days it's an accompaniment to a roast dinner, but having read this thread I fancy making a cauliflower cheese pasta bake

Chaos_Monkey

Many thanks to the OP for starting this thread - I've got some much needed meal planning inspiration from all the replies! DH had been asking for cauliflower, but I didn't really know what to do with it, orther than boiling it (tried making cauli mash last week, but it wasn't a success). I think I'll be going with the 'shedloads of cauli and mixed veg in a cheesy bake' theme....

SandC

I only ever encountered this as an 'accompaniment' when I've gone out for Sunday lunch. I have it as a main, sometimes on its own but sometimes with some green beans or peas/sweetcorn.

My version is not too rich. I use a mature cheese so need less of it, english mustard powder to enrich the sauce and I use milk not cream and olive oil instead of butter for my roux.

I couldn't justify making cheese sauce just to have a small portion of cauliflower cheese on the side of a meal, I'd stick to just the cauli in that case, but I am cooking for one.

newcook

anyone else now got a craving for cauli-cheese or is it just me?!?!!!!

easy

Thanks everyone for your ideas, I'm keeping this thread so we can use the ideas every now and then, adding variations on cauliflower cheese into our list of regular dishes - which seemed to have got a bit stagnent recently.

k9387 wrote: »

I would be confused if somebody served this, it isn't really a meal unless it has meat in it somewhere (vegetables optional)...

Yes, I'm afraid I always used to think like this too, but we do struggle a bit to get to our 5-a-day (arbitrary figure that it is), and I need to reduce our spending on food quite significantly, we're paying school fees now :eek:

TBH I'd rather have good quality meat 2 or 3 times a week, than manky cheap sausages & stuff every day.

LEJC

I add some broccoli and leeks to the cauli...to make it more of a veg cheese bake and sometimes if wee feel that we are missing the meat grill a couple of slices of bacon to go with it.

lottiedottie

Leeks lightly cooked then wrapped in ham in bottom of dish, add cooked cauli and broccoli cover in cheese sauce with a teaspoon of mustard mixed in.

Add a few cherry toms then sprinkle on grated cheese and chilli flakes and bake.

Frugalista

I steam the cauliflower - broken into florets - and sometimes leeks too. Place in an oven proof dish.

Add 1-1½ hardboiled eggs per person (just cut in half and placed cut side down) and a can of drained butterbeans.

Cover in cheese sauce and add topping (breadcrumbs with or without grated cheese; crushed tortillas or crisps; etc) and bake in oven for ½ hour or so.

Serve with crusty bread .

This is amazingly filling and satisfying.