This Buffalo Cauliflower Steak recipe offers a lighter, plant-based alternative to classic Buffalo wings, delivering all the bold, spicy, and fiery flavor you love. It's a hearty and satisfying main course, featuring cauliflower that is tender on the inside with a perfectly roasted exterior.
Tom the Chef Founder
Let’s talk about important parts of the recipe before you start…
The first and most critical step in making a successful Buffalo Cauliflower Steak is the preparation of the cauliflower itself. To create sturdy steaks that hold together during cooking, begin by rinsing the cauliflower and removing the side leaves and any protruding stem. The recipe instructs to trim the left and right sides of the cauliflower head first. Then, carefully cut the remaining center portion into four evenly thick steaks, ensuring each is at least 1 inch thick. This thickness is essential for the structural integrity of the cauliflower steaks, preventing them from falling apart whether you decide to oven roast or grill them. Maintaining this thickness ensures you get a hearty, substantial main course, not a pile of florets.
Cutting the cauliflower into four evenly thick steaks is a crucial detail in this healthy recipe. Uniform thickness ensures that all the Buffalo Cauliflower Steak pieces cook at the same rate. If some steaks are thicker than others, you risk having some that are perfectly tender while others are either undercooked and hard or overcooked and mushy. Consistent thickness, specified as at least 1 inch, allows for predictable cooking times, whether you are using the oven roast method for about 20 minutes or grilling for 5-10 minutes per side. This attention to detail guarantees a perfectly cooked, tender interior for every single steak.
A practical tip included in the Buffalo Cauliflower Steak recipe addresses the inevitable leftover pieces after cutting your main steaks. The recipe suggests that the end pieces and any florets that fall apart do not need to go to waste. These smaller bits can be threaded onto skewers for easier handling and prepared alongside the main cauliflower steaks. Alternatively, they can be placed directly on the baking sheet or grill to be cooked as bite-sized portions. This is an excellent way to ensure you use the entire vegetable, making this plant-based dish both delicious and economical. These smaller pieces will cook faster, so keep an eye on them as they roast or grill.
The fiery flavor of this Buffalo Cauliflower Steak comes from the simple but powerful brushing mixture. It combines Buffalo sauce, melted butter, salt, and pepper. The recipe offers a choice between using melted butter or extra virgin olive oil. Melted butter will add a rich, creamy flavor that is classic in traditional Buffalo wing preparations, complementing the heat of the Buffalo sauce. For a different profile, or for a fully plant-based option, extra virgin olive oil can be used. The oil will provide a slightly different, fruitier flavor and will also help the cauliflower steaks to roast or grill beautifully. This choice allows you to customize the vegetarian dish to your dietary preferences without sacrificing flavor.
This Buffalo Cauliflower Steak recipe provides two distinct cooking methods: oven roasting and grilling. For the oven roast method, the steaks are placed on a parchment-lined baking sheet, optionally topped with blue cheese, and roasted at 400°F until tender, which typically takes about 20 minutes. The grilling method offers a smokier, charred flavor, perfect for a game-day meal. When grilling, it is crucial to use indirect heat to prevent the exterior and the Buffalo sauce from burning before the inside becomes tender. Grilling takes about 5-10 minutes per side, and you can add blue cheese after the first flip. Both methods yield a delicious, tender Buffalo Cauliflower Steak; the choice depends on your preference for roasted or smoky flavor.
For those who choose the grilling option for their Buffalo Cauliflower Steak, the recipe specifically highlights the importance of using indirect heat. Because the cauliflower steaks are thick, they require time to cook through and become tender. Placing them directly over a high flame would cause the outside to burn and the Buffalo sauce to scorch long before the inside is cooked. Indirect heat provides a more gentle, even cooking environment, similar to an oven, which prevents burning and allows the steak to cook perfectly. The recipe notes that if you desire more char, you can move the tender steaks to direct high heat for the final couple of minutes of cooking.
A classic pairing with any Buffalo-flavored dish is blue cheese, and this Buffalo Cauliflower Steak recipe includes it as an optional ingredient. You can sprinkle crumbled blue cheese over the cauliflower steaks before they go into the oven or after flipping them on the grill. The tangy, sharp, and creamy flavor of the blue cheese provides a cooling contrast to the spicy kick of the Buffalo sauce, creating a balanced and complex flavor profile. While the recipe is delicious without it, adding blue cheese elevates this vegetarian dish into a truly classic game-day experience. The amount can be adjusted from ½ to 1 cup, depending on how much you love its distinctive taste.
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