This spicy roasted cauliflower salad has become one of my new favorite cozy dinner bowls. This salad is the hotter version of my Moroccan quinoa salad – which tastes fab, but this version is a little more complex as it borrows flavors and ideas from both Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine.
The base of this salad is charred cauliflower and red onions, paired with crispy chickpeas, quinoa, and fresh herbs like cilantro and mint. Instead of going with a traditional lemon vinaigrette, I made a tadka mixture with honey and lemon (more on tadka below) to pour over the bowl for added flavor and spice.
This roasted cauliflower salad with chickpeas and herbs really is the perfect cozy dinner!
What is Tadka?
Tadka is not an actual dish or recipe but rather a method of blooming spices in oil or ghee to create an aromatic flavor-packed sauce. It’s usually poured over dal to add richness and complexity! And depending on the types of spices, herbs, and fat used, the tadka can differ in flavor, texture, and color.
One good way to think of tadka is as a layer of flavor. Just like many soup recipes, stocks, etc. start with browning veggies to build more flavor. Tadka does the same but on a much more intense level!!
Ingredients For This Roasted Cauliflower Salad
Consider this your grocery list for this roasted cauliflower salad.
- Cauliflower
- Chickpeas
- Red onion
- Quinoa: If you’re not a big fan of quinoa, white rice also tastes amazing as well. You can use the same quinoa method I outlined below to get super fluffy rice. But just make sure to rinse your rice thoroughly prior to cooking it!!
- Cilantro
- Fresh mint
- Olive oil
- Lemon juice
- Honey or maple syrup: The honey tapers the intensity of the spices and adds more balance to the tadka.
- Spices: Including cumin seeds, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, turmeric, and black pepper. Feel free to sub the garlic powder for 1 clove of fresh garlic if you prefer – I just get lazy and don’t want to mince garlic.
- Kosher salt
Method Behind This Salad
This salad has an almost identical method to my roasted red pepper salad. And it’s cooked in a way to save you time so you can prepare the ingredients in parallel and spend less time in the kitchen.
I like to start by cooking the quinoa, and then roast the cauliflower, chickpeas, and onions. While those components cook, you can move on to prepping the fresh ingredients like the cilantro and mint. Once the quinoa is done cooking, I like to use the same pot to make the tadka to minimize dishes and save time on cleanup.
All in all, this salad takes under an hour from start to finish, and most of that time is hands-off cooking time spent on the stove/oven. So you can utilize the free time and curl up with a book or get a head start on cleanup!
Quinoa 101
My method for fluffy, perfectly cooked quinoa is a 1:2 ratio of dry quinoa to water. So for 3/4 cup of quinoa, use 1 1/2 cups of water, along with a large pinch of salt.
Now, I’m sure you’ve heard that you HAVE to rinse quinoa otherwise it’ll be bitter. The reason is that rinsing the quinoa helps remove quinoa’s natural coating (saponin), which can make it taste bitter. However, most quinoa you buy at the store is already pre-rinsed before its packaged, but you can rinse your quinoa just to be sure. I feel like it’s unnecessary, but you do you!
Ok, but back to my quinoa method.
Add the quinoa, water, and salt into a large pot. Place the pot on the stove, bring it to a boil on high heat, then reduce the heat to low, and partially cover the pot. Let the quinoa cook undisturbed for 10-12 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. This next step is key; turn the heat off, fully cover the pot with the lid, and let the quinoa sit for 10 minutes. The “sitting” helps the quinoa steam and cook off any excess water. Then just fluff the quinoa with a fork not a spoon (a spoon would mush the quinoa grains) and voila, perfect, fluffy quinoa!!
A Few Notes
- When cutting the cauliflower into florets, I like to take most of the stem part off. The stem part of the cauliflower tends to be pretty woody, so I like to remove as much of it as possible.
- Make sure to thoroughly rinse your chickpeas. The water that the canned chickpeas sit in is where all the gas compounds are that make you uncomfortable after eating beans. So please thoroughly wash the chickpeas in cold water.
- It’s super important to heat the oil and spice mixture. Heating the spices in the olive oil helps bloom them and enhance their flavor. Additionally, I wouldn’t recommend heating the honey and lemon with the olive oil as it’ll splutter which is dangerous, and heat tends to decrease the zesty flavor of lemon and temper honey’s sweetness. So just mix the lemon and honey into the tadka after it’s cooled for a minute or two.
- Store any leftovers in a glass tupperware in the fridge for up to 4 days. Just reheat it at 325°F on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 10 minutes. Feel free to add an extra squeeze of lemon and olive oil to help revive the flavor!
If you have any questions about this recipe, feel free to leave a comment below or DM me on Instagram.
I can’t wait for you to make this salad! As always, love it when you rate and review the recipe, your feedback is always appreciated!
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Spicy Roasted Cauliflower Salad
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 2–3 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Middle Eastern, Indian, American
Description
The base of this salad is charred cauliflower and red onions, paired with crispy chickpeas, quinoa, and fresh herbs like cilantro and mint. Plus, instead of using a vinaigrette dressing, I opted to make a spicy tadka with lemon and honey that makes this bowl so flavorful and fun!!
Ingredients
Quinoa & Herbs
- 3/4 cup dry quinoa (sub with same amount of white rice)
- 1 handful of mint leaves, finely minced
- 1 handful of cilantro leaves, finely minced
Cauliflower & Chickpeas
- 1/2 head cauliflower, chopped into florets
- 1 can (14 oz) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 medium red onion, cut into thick strips
- Kosher salt
- Olive oil
Tadka/Dressing
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder (sub with 1 finely minced garlic clove)
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more as needed
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp honey or maple syrup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Or line two medium trays with parchment paper.
- Make the quinoa. My method for fluffy, perfectly cooked quinoa is a 1:2 ratio of dry quinoa to water. So for 3/4 cup of quinoa, use 1 1/2 cups of water, along with a large pinch of salt. Place the pot on the stove, bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and partially cover the pot. Let the quinoa cook undisturbed for 10-12 minutes or until all the water is absorbed. This next step is key; turn the heat off, fully cover the pot with the lid, and let the quinoa sit for 10 minutes. The sit-time helps the quinoa steam and cook off any excess water.
- Roast the cauliflower and chickpeas. Dump the chopped cauliflower onto the sheet pan, along with the chickpeas, and red onion. Drizzle generously with olive oil and kosher salt, toss to combine. Make sure everything is thoroughly coated in olive oil and salt, this will help the veggies and chickpeas brown and char nicely. I like to keep the cauliflower and onions separate from the chickpeas on the tray; just in case I need to remove the chickpeas before the cauliflower is done cooking (does that make sense?). Roast the veggies and chickpeas for 25-30 minutes or until the cauliflower and onion are slightly charred, and the chickpeas are golden brown and crispy (they’ll shrink in size as well).
- Prep the herbs while the quinoa and veggies cook.
- Assemble the salad. Once the quinoa and veggies are done, add them to a large serving bowl, along with the minced cilantro and mint.
- Make the tadka/dressing. In the same pot you cooked the quinoa, add in the olive oil and spices. Heat on medium-high heat until the tadka starts to bubble, and smells fragrant, about 1 minute. Swirl the tadka around the pot as it cooks to ensure the spices don’t burn as they bloom. Take off the heat and gently pour in the lemon juice and honey (away from your face just in case the oil splutters) and swirl around to combine.
- Finish the bowl. Pour the tadka/dressing over the bowl, toss to combine, and adjust salt as needed. Serve immediately while the salad is still warm!
This was so good! I make roasted cauli/chickpeas/onions all the time but i think roasting separately and adding spices as tadka later really prevented the spices from burning! I have learned to add the onions halfway in order to prevent them from burning as well. I served with chicken skewers and this was an excellent healthy meal!
OMG SO HAPPY YOU LIKED IT!! Totally agree with the spices thing, it’s so tempting to cook them with the veggies/chickpeas, but they just end up getting burnt and bitter! Thank you so much for leaving such a lovely review Danielle, appreciate it! 🫶
I really enjoyed this! But I think I might be baby for spiciness, what would be a good way to tone it down?
I’d make the tadka as written but leave out the cayenne pepper (it’s just there for heat) so the overall flavor will be the same, but it’ll be a lot milder!! 🫶🏼
I made this for lunch one day working from home. I served it with grilled sourdough bread and sprinkled some golden rasins on top of the dish (I think I had them left over from another recipe of yours). I imagine this would be good with a friend egg or some lamb meatballs too. Yum!
Ooh the golden raisins sound so good with this, so happy you liked it!!
Is this something that can be made in advance? If so, how should it be reheated? Also, I added pomegranate seeds on top and it was great!
Ooh the pomegranate seeds sound so good with this! You can absolutely make this ahead of time – make it as written, but leave out the herbs and tadka. When you are ready to serve, reheat it at 325°F on a parchment-lined baking sheet for about 10 minutes, and then toss in the herbs and tadka.
This was phenomenal! I added some fresh parsley and roasted zucchini. I also added some lemon zest to the tadka.
So happy you liked it, appreciate you leaving a review!! Will have to add lemon zest into the tadka next time I make this, sounds so good!
Really enjoyed this dish. We added chopped apricots and pistacios. Very yummy. I might go heavier on the cauliflower next time. Any more specific measurement for the cilantro and mint?
So happy everyone liked it!! I’d say about 1/2 cup of firmly packed minced cilantro, and 1/4 cup of firmly packed minced mint to be exact – feel free to use as much of both herbs as you like, the more the merrier!!
Absolutely delicious! Did some squash and aubergine in with the cauliflower and onions and didn’t have any honey or maple syrup (ran out -_-) so I left it out. Topped with toasted almonds and I will definitely be making again.
Also turns out I had never cooked quinoa properly, it so evenly cooked this way!
Delicious!! Just the right amount of spice. Will definitely make this one again. 😁