Easy Vegetarian Dinner Recipe
This is my kind of dream food. For most people, this would be a great side dish, but I can easily make a meal out of it. The cauliflower itself and the red bell peppers are crisp-tender along with crunchy peanuts and a thick kung pao sauce. It’s salty and savory with a touch of sweetness from brown sugar and a hint of acid from rice vinegar. It’s so good I could spoon it over everything. This recipe makes plenty of sauce and the extra sauce is great over rice. The dish is healthy, filling, salty-sweet-tangy-spicy all rolled into one, and I kept going back for bite after bite. Until I pretty much ate the whole thing at once. No shame.
What’s in the Kung Pao Cauliflower?
For the cauliflower and veggies, you’ll need:
Cauliflower Red bell pepper Olive oil Sesame oil Salt and pepper
As for the kung pao sauce, it’s a very simple sauce with just a handful ingredients. All of the ingredients are available at most mainstream grocery stores in the ethnic or Asian section. You’ll need:
Hoisin sauce Soy sauce Brown sugar Rice vinegar (or substitute with another vinegar) Chili garlic sauce Sesame oil Cornstarch
How to Make Kung Pao Cauliflower
While you’re roasting the cauliflower and red peppers, add the kung pao sauce ingredients to a stockpot, whisk together, and allow the mixture to boil and thicken for a couple minutes. Toss the roasted cauliflower and bell peppers with the sauce, top with chopped peanuts, green onions, and get ready to eat the entire bowl. Wish I was kidding. The great thing about this dish is that it’s healthy and naturally vegan and gluten-free. If you are extremely gluten-sensitive or preparing this for people who are, make sure you read the labels and select gluten-free products, notably the hoisin and soy sauces.
Can I Prep This Recipe in Advance?
You can chop up the cauliflower and bell pepper in advance, and you can even whisk together the sauce ahead of time. But once you make the recipe I recommend serving it immediately as leftover cauliflower tends to be mushy.
Tips for Making Homemade Kung Pao Sauce
The great thing about the sauce recipe is that you can customize it to be as mild or spicy as you prefer by altering the amount of chili garlic sauce you use. I used 3 tablespoons and my cauliflower was fairly spicy for me, but I can breathe fire. My cauliflower had some pow but kung pao anything means it has to pack a punch for me. For the average person, I would go with 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce, see how the sauce tastes, and work up from there. As written, the recipe makes a fair amount of sauce and if you don’t like saucy food (for me there is no other way other than to be almost floating in sauce), you may not need to drizzle all of it over your roasted cauliflower and peppers. Add however much you like.
More Easy Asian Dinners:
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