Vegan Salt and Pepper Cereal Crusted Cauliflower — really crisp and super flavourful!
I enjoyed this along with some fried basil leaves too for an extra layer of flavour. This recipe was actually inspired by the Singaporean Cereal Prawn dish but of course I used cauliflower for this one. And if it isn’t obvious, I love cooking with cauliflower because of how versatile it is.
I‘d really recommend frying these in oil for a really crisp and golden brown finish. If you‘d like to bake these, I’d recommend spraying or brushing with some oil so that they don’t turn out too dry.
Are you looking for more delicious, vegan recipes? Check out my latest Vegan Kitchen eBook, that has over 95 recipes (and a whole section for Asian recipes!) that are packed with flavour and made with simple and easily accessible ingredients! Also, two trees (instead of 1!) will be planted for every download of my eBook through non-profit organisation One Tree Planted.🌲
If you decide to try out any of my recipes, share them with me on Instagram and use #thefoodietakesflight ✨
Check out the full recipe below!
SALT AND PEPPER CEREAL CRUSTED CAULIFLOWER
Serves 3-4 people
Ingredients 2 heads (650 g total) raw cauliflower, cut into florets 10g fresh sweet or thai basil leaves (around 20 leaves) Canola oil or other neutral oil, for frying Batter 1 flax egg (1 tbsp flaxseed meal + 3 tbsp water) 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour 1 tbsp corn starch 1/4 cup corn meal 1 tsp salt 1 cup room temperature water
Coating 2 cups finely crushed/processed corn flakes 2 cups roughly crushed corn flakes
For pan-frying Zest of 1 lime 1 bird's eye chili 1 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp ground black pepper
STEPS
Mix the flax seed meal and water. Leave for 10-15 minutes until thick. While waiting, add the rest of the batter ingredients in a bowl and mix until smooth. When the flax egg is thick, mix it in the batter as well.
For the coating, process the cornflakes until very fine. For the crushed ones, I simply just used a mortar and pestle. You can refer to the images above for an idea on how fine/crushed the flakes can be.
Coat each floret by first dipping it in the batter then into the finely crushed corn flakes. Then dip it back into the batter before coating it in the roughly crushed corn flakes. Repeat this step for the rest of the florets until everything is coated.
Heat a frying pan with canola oil. Once hot (you can test this by placing some flakes to see if it bubbles), place the florets. You may need to cook them in batches depending on the size of your pan.
Fry the florets for 3-5 minutes, moving them around until evenly golden brown. Remove from the heat and drain any excess oil. Fry the basil leaves until crisp, around 2-3 minutes. Turn off heat.
In a pan (or using the same frying pan), heat 1 tbsp of oil. Add in the lemon zest and chili (if using) then add in the basil and cauliflower. Evenly sprinkle the salt and black pepper then mix well. Turn off heat and enjoy while hot!
Baking option: Heat oven to 350F. On a baking tray lined with parchment paper, place the cauliflower. You can opt to brush them with a little oil. Bake the cauliflower for 35-40 minutes or until crisp. Flip halfway through cooking. I used an oven toaster with temperature settings.
