Grilled Cauliflower Steaks Adventure

I know, I know. You might be wondering, “Where’s the adventure in cauliflower?” Indeed, pulling the giant white vegetable hunk out of a grocery bag made my heart sink slightly.

For weeks up until that moment, we’d been trying to make do with bags of frozen cauliflower. Those epithet-laden meals prompted Guillaume to grab the first fresh one he could lay his hands on at the store.

Anything I did to it would automatically be better than microwaving the frozen cauliflower.

Much like tofu and crêpes, cauliflower can be a great flavor delivery system. One of our favorite local trivia spots makes such amazing cauliflower “wings” that we’ve never even tried the chicken. Thankfully Sheila and her crew are still cranking them out for pickup and delivery despite the pandemic. We’ve also had luck making cauliflower quesadillas.

Generic frozen cauliflower straight out of the microwave, however, is like drinking a glass of lukewarm water. I patted the sad veggies dry with a paper towel, browned them in a pan, and tried to jazz them up with salt, freshly ground pepper, sautéed minced jalapeños, and lime juice. Okay at best.

With an unexpected fresh cauliflower in hand, I had to get creative. We didn’t have tortillas. Our oven was still broken. We lacked the hot sauce for vegetarian wings. Plus, I wasn’t interested in deep frying. Best to avoid the burn risk. That left the grill.

Recipes for grilled cauliflower “steaks” abound online. We’d recently made Deb’s street cart chicken from “Smitten Kitchen Every Day” with my family’s recipe for rice pilaf, adding dollops of harissa and a sauce made from Greek 2% yogurt, a little bit of mayonnaise, white vinegar, salt, and sugar. I decided to look for a simple lemony cauliflower steak recipe and modify it to work with the leftover condiments.

After jotting down some notes from this Well Plated version, I improvised. Having made the steaks twice now, I can report that they really want to stick to the grill. Still tasty, but perhaps brushing them in olive oil mixed with lemon zest for grilling, and then dousing them in the lemon juice right before serving might be a better method.

I didn’t hold back on the salt, which helped. We enjoyed the steaks both times with a sprinkle of dried sumac, some minced Italian parsley, the hot harissa, the yogurt sauce, and a side Mediterranean salad with Kalamata olives, feta cheese, tomatoes, and cucumbers in an oregano-seasoned dressing.

The steaks themselves are vegan without the yogurt sauce. They’re also flexible. Put whatever seasonings and condiments on top that you’d like. Time to make the best of what we’ve got.

Lemony Grilled Cauliflower Steaks

Makes enough to serve 2 generously

1 head of fresh cauliflower, around 1.8 pounds
Zest from most of 1 small lemon
3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Garlic powder
Salt
1 Tbsp. fresh Italian parsley
Dried sumac (optional)
Hot harissa (optional)
Yogurt sauce (optional)

Preheat the grill to medium heat.

Using a microplane or fine grater, zest most of the lemon into a small mixing bowl. Add the olive oil (see my note above about the cauliflower sticking and feel free to take a different approach). Add the lemon juice, a sprinkle of salt, a little bit of garlic powder, and whisk briefly with a fork to combine. Finely chop the fresh parsley and set it aside.

Place a piece of aluminum foil on top of a baking sheet. Rinse the cauliflower to remove any dirt. Pat it dry.

Using a sharp kitchen knife, carefully trim the green parts off the cauliflower. Cut the stem so that the head sits flat on a cutting board. You need to retain some of the stem to help keep the steaks from falling apart...even though they’ll probably still crumble a bit.

With the cauliflower positioned so the stem side is against the cutting board, slice the head into generous 1-inch-thick “steaks.” If your grill has sections without grates, you still grill the smaller end pieces and any steaks that break apart.

Place the steaks on the foil-covered baking sheet. Sprinkle salt over both sides of each steak. Brush the lemony-oil over both sides of the cauliflower as well.

Use tongs to position the cauliflower on the preheated grill. Set a timer for 5 minutes, giving them another minute if they don’t have dark brown marks yet. Flip them over using a metal spatula if they stick. Grill for another 5 to 6 minutes. Wipe the baking sheet clean if there are a bunch of raw cauliflower pieces left on it.

Place the grilled steaks back on the baking sheet. To serve, sprinkle the tops with parsley and a little dried sumac. Dollop with hot harissa and yogurt sauce to taste.