This curried cauliflower grilled cheese might be the ultimate hangover recipe. Spicy, tangy, soft cauliflower on crusty toasted bread. Molten soft cheese in every bite. This could just be my favorite “veggied up” recipe so far. I may be late to the whole cauliflower craze with it replacing everything in any recipe, but cauliflower itself is worthy to take its place on your plate.

If you sometimes find yourself making a loaf of bread only to realize that you can’t seem to finish it all until it goes stale, fear no more. You can easily freeze individual slices of fresh bread and it will thaw in minutes and will be ready to use. For times just like this. Try my easy no knead artisan bread for the ultimate cast iron grilled cheese.

While cauliflower is the main star in this recipe, all the other ingredients are equally as important for this cauliflower cheese grill toast recipe.

Ingredients

In order to make this curried cauliflower grilled cheese, you will need only a handful of ingredients. But the sum of the ingredients is the most important part of this.

Cauliflower, a small head or 1/2 of a larger one will work perfectly
Red curry paste will give this dish the taste that makes it what it is
Greek yogurt, will work as a bonding agent between the cauliflower and the spice blend and soften it as well
Grated garlic and ginger, will give some extra kick and spice level
Crusty sourdough or artisan bread to hold the wonderful filling inside
Fresh mozzarella, here in most stores you get a fresh one, one that is in a bag or box of whey. But regular kind would also work
Salt and pepper, because no dish works without it
Butter for smearing the bread and toasting

To fully understand the amounts and significance of the ingredients, view the recipe card and get to cooking!

Instructions

There are several steps that go into making this curried cauliflower grilled cheese. It all starts with marinating and oven-roasting the cauliflower.

After you have made the marinade and drenched your cauliflower in it, ideally you should let it marinate for at least 30 minutes. Preferably for more. But nothing bad will happen if you just toss it all together and go straight for the oven. This cauliflower grilled cheese sandwich won’t be worse if you skip the step. But we all know that sometimes the best flavors develop over time.

After the cauliflower has done baking in the oven and gotten soft and golden brown at the same time, it is time to make it into a spreadable mash. I stopped at medium to small-sized chunks. But you can just go ahead and keep on blitzing it together even more. I wanted it to have some bite to it so it doesn’t spill out the bread while baking too much. This is also the point where you should go ahead and get your bread ready. Feel free to use any kind you want. I used some simple no-knead artisan bread for this recipe, you can go ahead and use sourdough.

The next step is to arrange the whole thing. When I say that you should butter your bread from all sides, please start with the inside of the sandwich first. Or you will butter it from all sides and the butter will stick to your cutting board and you will get to wondering why this seems flawed. It is. After this, all that is left is the grilling part. Or is it. Toasted cheese vs grilled cheese is a real question to ask. And to be honest, while we may think that it is not the same, it really is. One could refer to toasting as using a toastie maker or a toaster oven, but even those two are vastly different because one is a contact grill while the other uses hot air. So this bread will be baked on a pan for those extra crispy bits.

Variations

Meat – add some shredded chicken into the cauliflower mix, slices of ham, or bacon bits.

Spicy – add as much red curry paste as you wish and feel free to add some cayenne pepper too.

Lighter – try swapping mozzarella for some low-fat cheese.

Different base – try making a broccoli grilled cheese but keep an eye on the baking time, since they may vary for broccoli is less starchy

There is one main goal when making a grilled cheese sandwich or a toastie and it is the cheese pulling moment. Let’s just appreciate this imperfect and slightly crooked cauliflower grilled cheese tower. Which looks more like the leaning tower of Piza. But it doesn’t make it any less delicious.

Curried cauliflower grilled cheese

chiliandtonic

This curried cauliflower grilled cheese sandwich is easy to make and packs a lot of veggies for a very satisfying meal.

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 10

Course after work, Appetizer, bread, Breakfast, brunch, lunch, Snack

Cuisine comfort food

Servings 2 people

Equipment

Food processor or a blender

Ingredients

½ head of cauliflower
1 tbsp red curry paste
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
150 g greek yogurt
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp grated ginger
4 slices of sourdough or artisan bread
200 g fresh mozzarella
Butter for smearing

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 200C
In a bowl mix the curry paste, salt, pepper, greek yogurt, grated garlic and ginger
Add in the cauliflower, cut into florets, and mix
Ideally, let marinate for at least 30 minutes in the fridge
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, flip, bake for 10 more
Let slightly cool and add to a food processor and blitz together until desired consistency
Butter both sides of the bread and smear one with aprox 4 tablespoons of the curried cauliflower
Top with slices of mozzarella and another bread slice
Bake on a cast iron pan or any other pan of your choice until golden brown from both sides and the cheese has gotten melty
On medium heat this could take anywhere from 3-5 minutes per side
Save any leftover curried cauliflower mash in the fridge for several days