Nacho Baked Cauliflower Burgers (Two Versions)

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for the love on my Italian recipes. I really have been enjoyed showing my home cooking tips and ways of making conventional food vegan. This week, I really wanted to do some comfort food and for me, that's always been Latin food. It is such a wide spectrum of cultures and dishes and even interpretations. 

I wanted to start off this new mini-series with something that wasn't a full prepped meal, it was just a fast, easy sandwich or burger that you could make if you wanted something naughty for lunch. It takes inspiration from my favourite food bloggers Hot for Food, check them out if you're vegan as they're pretty phenomenal. I didn't wanna ever do a blog on food and start it as something that was coming from a professional point of view or that strict on my tastes, I'm very relaxed with food and I think it's meant to be a joy. I have designed them with myself in mind, but they are there to adapt so I hope you take tips and tricks and make your own combinations!

Ingredients 

• Cauliflower

• Rocket

• Red Onion

• Coconut Cream Cheese

• Tomato Puree

• Apple Cider Vinegar

• Chilli sauce of your choice

• Whole Meal Buns

• Soy Milk

• Soy Cream

• Adobo Sauce

• Fries

• Tortilla Chips

• Unrolled Oats

• Paprika

• Garlic Salt

• Onion Salt

• Cumin

• White flour

• Baking Soda

So this is really just a way of making a vegan burger that's not the gross bean burgers that seem to be everyone's go-to if you're vegan. It's a sticky, spicy, delicious and healthier option. I wanted to change up the traditional flour batter that is commonplace and just lead into my Latin series by using broken tortillas chips as the crisp. You wanna start by slicing up a medium sized cauliflower. If you wanted to make separate bites that work like chicken bites, you can cut the florets into smaller chunks and to show that I've popped some offcuts onto a second baking tray, I wanted two burgers out of this so as long as I had two whole pieces then whatever is left over is extra. Pop it in the oven for ten minutes.

So blend up your tortilla chips or smash them up with a weapon of your choice. I also added a handful of untreated oats because you can make a lot of 'kfc' style batters with oats that cut down a lot of the calories. I then blended them together to make a crisp and added salt, garlic powder and onion salt, paprika and you're free to go wild here. 

In another dish, I added Soy milk, Soy cream and baking soda and whisked that up. I'd say you need enough liquid to submerge the pieces of cauliflower as there are lots of holes you wanna be coated. If you wanted this to be more of a KFC effect, you can mix in some linseeds and water into the liquid which works like a vegan binder. If you are more so anti-dairy than vegan, use an egg! You let the cauliflower cool enough to touch, dip in one, then to the blended crisp mixture and place on a greased pan to go back into the oven for another 20 minutes.

I grabbed some low-fat chunky chips, threw on some of the same spices as above and popped them in the oven for half an hour. Then I toasted some wholemeal buns under the grill, diced some rocket and some red onion and prepared the coating of the hot sauce. You can use any mixture I was gonna do avocado or red cabbage or salsa. You can really turn this into so many things because the cauliflower is like an empty flavour. I then mixed some apple cider vinegar, chilli, tomato puree and some honey and set aside in a mug to coat.

Once the cauliflower has come out and you start to see the batter crisp on the pan, it's a good idea to actually use baking paper to stop this sticking but I had run out hahaha. You then coat the 'burgers' with the sauce you've just made and put back into the oven for another ten minutes. So in total, this takes about 40 minutes to cook if you were gonna do them plain, or with salt and vinegar, whatever. You may want them to be super crisp on the outside by cooking them for a further 10 as this really softens the inside of the caulifower but makes the outside crackle as you bite into it.  

So here we are! I assembled some coconut cream cheese, then one of the fully cooked and coated florets, added some rocket, some red onion and served it in the bun with a giant cocktail stick to hold it together. A super easy and tasty sandwich that is a spin on a classic, has some latin inspired details and is soooooo goooood!!!! Healthy, crunchy, spicy and easy peeeeazy.

Ignoring my bizarrely large hand, here is the final burger. I added some Adobo sauce to the fries, took half an hour off for my lunch and it was delish!

I am so excited for the meal ideas I have coming this week, I wanted to change it up as I've been doing a proper full course each time I've uploaded so let's start this new chapter with a fast food option and we can get to Latin divaness for my BIRTHDAY! Which is on the 3rd of May.

Let me know if you try any of these recipes out at home and give me the feedback! I'd love to learn with you all.

Hey guys!

I've popped up this second variation of the recipe because I was thinking about like whether I wanted these to be more healthy or tasty and I thought ya know what? Let's go out with both options. The fries I used + the bread was more to the wholemeal side, I didn't make big portions and I skipped on the avocado for the fat content but this range I've decided is gonna be called Bunny Food! And later on we can do some diet versions with an expert that I can call Bird Food! So here's another version today.

The steps are all the same just this time I only used the tortilla chips + full soya cream. No oats, no skimping on the portions and I grabbed some conventional fries. We also grabbed a ripe avocado which is delish. 

I cooked them in the same way but this time used a relish with the chilli sauce as the marinade, I also used some BBQ marinade I grabbed in the local supermarket to give more of a sweeter taste. They are too yummy not to have a full portion so go with the flow!

Whilst arranging the burgers, I grabbed these brioche buns which are super yummy. They were lightly toasted and I put in some vegan feta, I got this from Sainsburys. I then used tomato salsa as the base, rocket, red onion as before and you can add some cream cheese if you want. I thought the feta did the job so I left it. The fries I served again with adobo sauce and chilli flakes!

So here we go! Let me know what you think and we can make this project become something awesome! I'm always happy to hear your feedback so can't wait to hear more!