Anyone who has looked at any of our recipes, especially in the last few months, have been seeing a lot of riced cauliflower. I found myself, in our semi-paleo, mostly gluten-free cooking lives missing a couple of things that were staples only a few short years ago. To put it mildly, there are some things that quinoa cannot replace (and for me that list is long). We wanted to find something that could go with cheese, be under chili, be used in asian food, be used as a main dish if it required it…all of the things that I missed about rice. I am not saying that you should not eat rice, except white rice, don’t eat that, but whole brown rice is fine. So here is how it happened:
One night, we were cooking in our tiny kitchen and were trying to figure out what to put with some salmon that had a soy sauce and maple flavored glaze on it (trust me it’s awesome, I will post that the next time we make it). We wanted rice, but we were trying to be good, and quinoa was a bad choice here because of awfulness.
“What about using the cauliflower from the cauliflower crust pizza?”, his beautiful wife asked?
“You mean, like rice or something?”, replied the spectacular bald (by choice) man.
“Sure”, she said sweetly, with musicality not usually found in a voice.
“I don’t know, that’s kind of weird”, said the dashing handsome fellow.
Or something like that.
At any rate, we thought we had come up with something. We were wrong, and very late to the party. But, I know that we are not the only ones, simply based on the emails I have gotten about this. So here is some info.
1 cup of cauliflower rice contains: 0.6g fat (0%), 45mg sodium (1.5%), 459mg Potassium (12%), 3g Dietary Fiber (8%, again we use higher fiber standards here at THU), 3.8g protein (6% – please see my post about trace protein in vegetables), and approximately 3% of daily calcium, 100% daily Vitamin C, 6% daily Iron, 18% daily Vitamin B-6, 6% daily Magnesium, 20% daily Vitamin K, 6% daily Phosphorous, 12% daily Manganese and a Glycemic Load of 2 (a typical daily target is 100). These are all based on a traditional 2000 calorie diet, we typically use higher nutritional standards here, but this is for the normal people out there. It also helps to cut down cytokine production and reduces inflammation because of the high amount of antioxidants (Vitamin C, beta-cryptoxanthin, cinnamic acid, ferulic acid, kaempferol) and is known to be a great source of hard to pronounce phytochemicals that can provide health benefits for people who suffer from Crohn’s Disease, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, Rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and inflammatory bowel disease.
White rice does not do any of that.
The other awesome part of cauliflower rice is that it is very friendly texture wise based on what you want. I typically do not even cook it but put it on the bottom of anything that is sauce-rich, because the heat from the sauce with warm and soften it without destroying all the benefits. If mush is your preference, then you can microwave it easily. It stir-fries nicely and in about the same amount of time that regular cooked rice does. It packs such a nutritional wallop that I feel like anything I add it to becomes healthier, which it does. Plus, you are adding a cup of nutrient rich vegetables and removing a cup of nutrient poor random carbs. It only makes sense.
Here is how I make it. Take notes, because this is complex as all get out.
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower
Recipe
- Remove the big stemmy part and all of the green leaves.
- Break into small enough parts to fit into a food processor.
- Turn food processor on and run until there are no pieces larger than a pencil eraser.
- Put into a bowl and use however
A normal head of cauliflower should make 3-4 cups of “rice”. Quick note: Cauliflower will typically keep 2-3 weeks in the not destroyed form. But it will only keep for 3-4 days once you rice it, so keep that it in mind.
Enjoy. If you have any awesome ideas that you are using it for, let me know. Also let me know what you think of this article in the comments below or on Facebook.
The Healthy Us 