Spicy Cauliflower Rice (Recipe)

Cauliflower rice has been everywhere lately, making its way around the food blogging circuit and all over my instagram feed. And what’s not to like? It’s low-carb, low-calorie, paleo-friendly, primal-friendly and full of antioxidants and vitamins! Cauliflower is also one of my favourite veggies, but I feel like I say that about all of them.

Anyway, being Filipino, white rice is a staple in our cuisine. It is literally a part of every single meal! And it was really hard for me to give up eating it 3-4x a day 3 years ago when I started my fitness journey. I still eat it, but in moderation – I “save” my white rice days for when I get to eat my Mom’s cooking (you know, with sinigang, kare-kare or tuyo… that’s MY SHIT man!)

My substitutes for white rice has been sweet potatoes, brown rice, couscous or quinoa and now that I’ve tried cauliflower rice, it’s definitely one of my new fave side dishes for low-carb days – and so easy to make! Did I mention low-calorie, low-carb, paleo-friendly and all that jazz?

You’ll need:

one head of cauliflower
coconut oil (paleo-friendly), or olive oil
1/2 an onion *
4 garlic cloves*
chilli flakes (depends on your spice preference) *
black pepper to taste

*the last 3 are optional, because “plain” cauli-rice will work just fine. I usually eat it with a piece of fish (salmon or tilapia) or grilled chicken and I feel like I need that extra kick of flavour. You can honestly add whatever you want – bacon, mushrooms, herbs like parsley or cilantro, peppers, etc. The sky is the limit here!

Cut off the greens and the core of the cauliflower and you’ll be left with just the “flowers”. Make sure to cut away any brown spots.

Now you have to make it look like “rice”. You can grate it with your grater (biggest holes), or put it in the food processor. But because I have a weird fascination with cutting vegetables (I don’t know why, but it’s like a form of therapy for me), you can hand chop it like I did. Mine is a bit bigger than the regular “rice”, but I like it this way. Also, chopping it yourself is really messy! Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

However you do it, you want your end product to look like this (above left). Cut up your garlic and onions and have them ready.

In a saucepan, heat up your choice of oil on medium heat (I used olive oil, but coconut oil would be delicious, too). Then in 2 minute intervals, add (in order): garlic, pepper flakes, onions. At this point, your kitchen will smell like my version of heaven. If you are doing plain CauliRice, you can just skip to the next step.

Wait until the onions are translucent and then add your cauliflower and any other seasonings you want (I added black pepper here.) Then just wait for the cauliflower to cook – I cover it and stir every 3-4 minutes. It may look dry at first, but the cauliflower will “sweat” so don’t worry about it. Mine took about 7-8 minutes to cook to my preferred tenderness.

TA-DA! There’s your spicy caulirice 🙂

Bonus: I cooked this for my meal prep, so here’s what I had for dinner. Caulirice + grilled salmon. Simple, low-carb meal 🙂 And how’d it taste? AMAZING. For more healthy meal ideas, you can follow me on Instagram – I post some of my meals there.

Hope this meal and new side dish inspires you! This was my first time making it, so I am excited to experiment with whatever else I can put in it – do you have a wicked recipe you want to share? Or if you have any questions, just comment below 🙂