How To Make Cauliflower Rice

I once had someone tell me cauliflower was their favorite vegetable and I really didn’t understand why. I’m a pretty big vegetable guy and could think of countless options that would be better than bland, flavorless cauliflower. Anyway, it wasn’t until recently I realized just how versatile cauliflower can be – it can make pizza crusts, tater tots, and even rice. If you are looking for the latter, you came to the right place, this article is all about learning how to make cauliflower rice.

I was on the fence about cauliflower rice for awhile, but there are a couple clear benefits:

• You get the vitamins and nutrition from a vegetable (more nutrition info below)
• It makes for a lighter dish (good for summer time, I suppose)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not avoiding brown rice or other grains, just trying something new. I have heard a lot about cauliflower rice the past couple years, and it was surprisingly good when I made it myself.

Learning How to Make Cauliflower Rice is easy too. It takes about 20 minutes to make and has 4 easy steps:

1. Prep the cauliflower

The first step to making cauliflower rice is to wash and dry your head of cauliflower. Then remove the green part and stems and cut the cauliflower into rough chunks (you’ll be blending it all anyway so no need to be perfect).

2. Blend! (or grate)

Add your cauliflower to a food processor and pulse to ground the cauliflower into a rice-like texture. It takes just seconds of blending to get here, and I recommend doing this in as many as 3 or 4 batches to ensure your cauliflower all blends evenly. Transfer your cauliflower to a bowl lined with paper towels (or an absorbent kitchen towel).

If you do not have a food processor to blend your cauliflower in, you could either purchase the one above or grate the cauliflower by hand with a cheese grater. If you don’t have either, looks like you’re having plain old cauliflower for dinner tonight.

3. Strain the rice

Strain your cauliflower using paper towels (or a kitchen towel) to get rid of any excess moisture and water. This will help prevent the rice from getting a mushy consistency.

4. Cook the rice

Heat a pan or skillet with olive oil over medium-low heat. Add your strained cauliflower rice and cook for about 5 minutes while covered. Salt and pepper to taste here as well.

You could serve the rice raw, but I much prefer it cooked, personally. The Le Creuset (as seen below) is a great tool to help cook your rice.

And that’s it.

Once cooked, you can eat the cauliflower rice as is or add it to other dishes like stir fries. I like it with this Spicy Soy Sauce Basil Chicken and Healthy Buffalo Chicken Bites.

The nutrition on this rice is pretty straightforward, besides the cauliflower itself the only other ingredient you need to use is olive oil. Below is the nutrition for 1/4 of the rice:

• Calories: 45.9
• Total Fat: 1.1 g
• Total Carbs: 7.5 g
• Protein: 2.8 g
• Total Sugar: 3.5 g

The calories and carbohydrates are low compared to brown rice or other grains. Not that one is better than the other, the cauliflower rice will just be lighter in nature. Head here if you are looking for more info on cauliflower nutrition.

Let’s get economical with this cauliflower rice:

• 1 head of cauliflower – $3.99
• 1 tbsp olive oil – $0.23
• Salt and pepper

The grand total is $4.22 for about 4 servings of cauliflower rice. This breaks down to about $1.06 per serving for this healthy side dish.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and learn how to make cauliflower rice at home!