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The Best Healthy and Crispy Cauliflower Tacos with Spicy Mango Salsa

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Tacos. One of the best foods ever invented. Even if most Tacos, especially the ones in Europe are everything else than traditional, they still are incredibly delicious. And what I love most about them is that they are so versatile!! You can have them with meat, fish, tofu, mushrooms, lentils, chicken or with cauliflower. Just a huge disclaimer: this cauliflower is NOT BORING. Everything else than boring!

What is special about this dish?

The filling of the Taco. My Mexican friends explained me that in Mexico, the real, authentic, filling is prepared greatly different than in most other parts of the world. There, you have a huge stick with lots of meat on it, that is turning over heat. When it is cooked, you slice down the meat and add it into the tortillas. A bit similar to Kebap I believe.

So yes, this would be the traditional. But if you look at that picture, you c an see that this cauliflower obviously has not been sliced down from a stick. No, not at all. This cauliflower is tossed in a super delicious, very non traditional marinade made out of Ajvar, samba olek, olive oil, maple, tomato paste, garlic cloves and sesame oil, then tossed in breadcrumbs and baked until crispy. This adds SO much flavour to the cauliflower and will make it taste amazing! This recipe will really convince all meat eaters and non-cauliflower fans of this vegan version of tacos.

Besides the star of the show we also have a creamy avocado-yoghurt sauce on top and some spicy mango salsa. More flavour, more color, more explosion in your mouth. The combination of all of these work in perfect harmony and make the ideal taco party.

Are these healthy?

Yep! Contrary to the meat in traditional tacos, cauliflower is low in calories, high in nutrients and low in fat. The marinade is also pretty healthy since it mainly consists of roasted red peppers. To make the cauliflower crispy, we are also not frying it but baking it in the oven, which is a game changer in terms of nutrients.

Other than the cauliflower we have an avocado yoghurt dip, which gives us the healthy fats we need (and the avocado that we need in tacos). The mango salsa, is another vitamin bomb and the child in there, helps to keep your immune system fit. Important for the cold season that’s about to come up!

How to make them:

This actually is super simple. You need to blend the ingredients for the marinade up and break up the cauliflower into small rosettes. Then you let it marinate in the sauce for at least one hour to really absorb as much flavour as possible. Before baking we need to toss them in breadcrumbs and lay them on a baking tray. Drizzle them with oil, and really make sure that there is some oil on every cauliflower bite. Now, it just needs to go into the oven!

In the meantime we are just smashing the avocado and mixing it with the yoghurt. Also, we chop up the mango along with some chilis, spring onions, cilantros and mix it with the juice of a lime, some soy sauce and sweetener. Serve it all up with some Cole slaw if wanted (for this you could mix some shredded cabbage with vinegar, carrot and a little of the avocado sauce) and let the taco party begin!

A meal the whole family LOVES

You really will not have a hard time to convince meat eaters of this dish. Doesn’t taste healthy, does not taste boring, easy to make and heavenly when served in a warm taco shell!

I really hope and I am pretty sure that you will love this recipe at least as much as my family and I do! I promise you, it will taste pretty amazing!

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The Best Healthy & Crispy Cauliflower Tacos with Spicy Mango Salsa

They are not even in the slightest bit boring. An explosion of falvor in your mouth from a cirps on the outside and soft on the inside baked cauliflower along with a creamy avocado sauce and a spicy mango salsa. Taco dreams coming true.

Course Appetizer, dinner, Main Course
Cuisine Mexican, texmex
Prep Time 30 Minuten
Cook Time 30 Minuten
Marinating 1 Stunde
Total Time 2 Stunden
Servings 4 servings
Calories 456 kcal

What you will need

For the cauliflower:

  • 1 head cauliflower
  • 6 tbsp ajvar
  • 2 tsp sambal olek
  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • salt & pepper
  • 50 g breadcrumbs
  • oil

The rest:

  • 1 avocado
  • 200 g (plant based) yoghurt
  • 1 mango
  • 2 chilis deseeded
  • 4 spring onions
  • 1 lime
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp maple syrup
  • 12 taco shells

Optional:

  • shredded red cabbage
  • shredded carrot
  • a splash vinegar

How to

  1. Break or cut the cauliflower into small florets. Blend all the ingredients except the cauliflower, breadcrumbs and the normal oil in a blender. Add the cauliflower to a large bowl and toss in the marinade. Let sit for at least 1 hour. The longer the better.

  2. Heat up the oven to 180°C. Take the cauliflower out of the marinade and toss them in the breadcrumbs. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and add the cauliflower on top. Drizzle with oil and make sure that every piece has some oil on it. Bake for 15-20 minutes, then turn up to 200°C and bake for 5 minutes until crispy and golden brown.

  3. IN the meantime mash the avocado and mix with the (plant based) yoghurt! Peel the mango and chop in small cubes. Add to a bowl along with the deseeded and finely sliced chili, the spring onions and the cilantro. Combine soy sauce, lime jice and maple and mix it with the rest.

  4. Optional: Toss the cabbage and carrots with a splash of vinegar and about 2-3tbsp of the avocado cream.

  5. Heat up the taco shells.

  6. Fill each taco shell with some cabbage (if making some), a few cauliflower florets, the salsa and avocado cream! Serve and enjoy!

Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

The Ultimate Creamy Vegan Green Risotto with Caramelised Onions

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Risotto but vegan? Yes!! A creamy, healthy and vegan deliciousness? Hell yes!! Pure comfort food but nutritious and fairly easy to make! Sounds too good? Try it out! You won’t be disappointed!

I know that risotto usually is not vegan. But that does not mean that you cannot make it vegan!! Actually opposite, why not challenge ourselves to create a vegan risotto instead? That’s what I thought! And this is why you now have got this (super delicious) recipe! 

What is special about this dish? 

Kind of pretty much everything. Risotto usually contains parmesan cheese and butter. And is not green. Well, of course you can make it green because you can basically add anything into risotto, from prawns to wild garlic, porcini mushrooms and beetroot. But I have to say, I have never seen a green risotto before! 

How to make vegan risotto 

The rise base is the same as for regular risotto. So (vegetable) broth, onions, olive oil and arborio rice, also known as risotto rice. Instead of the cheese and butter to create the creamy texture we are using soaked cashews for the texture, nutritional yeast for the cheesy flavor (also known as Hefeflocken in German, you can find that at most organic stores), cornstarch to bind, plant based milk, and mustard. Not to forget about the greens. I prefer a mixture of steamed spinach and kale and basil. The first two add a bunch of nutrients and the basil adds a lot of flavor. The combination is a dream. And also, to not make the risotto be boring we add some extra caramelized onions. 

Is it healthy? 

Yes! It actually is. While regular risotto is not very healthy (but very delicious), this one actually is healthy too! Why? The greens add a lot of vitamins and fibre. But the aspect that really changes it is the substitution of the cheese and butter with the creamy sauce. The cashews add some protein and unsaturated fats, which are better for us than unsaturated ones. Also the nutritional yeast adds a lot of nutrients! So yes, it is healthy! And a comfort food at the same time!! 

Meal prep and family friendly

A tick for both of them! It is very meal prep friendly because it still tastes at least as good when reheated! It will be creamy again and very good! What I also love is that it is very family friendly! If someone really cannot go without meat or seafood, it still is possible to add some form of meat of fish! And for those who just want some plant-based deliciousness it is perfect as is!

I really am in love with this recipe on colder days especially now in fall or in winter! It is super comforting while still being super nutritious and delicious! Plus, it is not very hard to make while it sounds, looks and tastes pretty fancy in my opinion! 

I hope that you will enjoy this recipe as much as I do and that it will upgrade your cozy season a lot! 

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The Ultimate Creamy Vegan Green Risotto with Caramelised Onions

A healthy creamy deliciousness. At least as good as regular risotto just healthy and vegan.

Course dinner, lunch, Main Course
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 20 Minuten
Servings 4 servings
Calories 525 kcal

What you will need

  • 280 g risotto rice
  • 2 l vegetable broth
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 white onion

For the creamy sauce

  • 50 g cashew nuts (soaked for 4 hours if your blender is not high speed)
  • 160 ml plant based milk
  • 2 tsp mustard
  • 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 2 handful spinach
  • 2 handful kale
  • 1 handful basil

For the rest:

  • 2 small red onions
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp honey

How to

  1. Heat up the vegetable broth. In a large pot heat up the olive oil. Finely dice the onion and add to the oil once hot. Sautée for about 1 minute until shiny. Add the rice and cook for another minute. Turn the heat down to medium and add a cup of the vegetable broth. Let the rice soak up all of the vegetable broth added while stiring continuesly. When it has cooked away, repeat the process for about 12 minutes.

  2. In the meantime steam or cook the spinach and kale for 4 minutes. Add them to a blender along with the cashews. plant milk, nutritional yeast, mustard, basil and cornstarch. Blend until creamy.

  3. In a pan heat up the remaining oil. Slice the red onions into thin slices. Add them to the oil with the honey. Let them cook down on medium high heat until they have shrunken down and gotten caramelized.

  4. After about 12 minutes of the rice cooking add the green sauce and the onions. Mix through very well and cook for another 3-4 minutes until the rice is cooked through.

  5. Seperate onto plates and serve with some extra nutritional yeast! Enjoy!

Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière 

Saucy Green Curry Noodles with Oven-Baked Crispy Sesame Tofu

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Is it traditional? Definitely no! Is it delicious! Holy, yes! Soft Rice Noodles in a spicy and addicting green curry sauce with all the veggies. As if that wasn’t good enough already, we have some crispy sesame tofu to top everything off. This combination is pretty amazing!

What is special about this dish?

Everything. usually curry is not served with Noodles and it is served with more sauce. Here we do not have that much sauce because we want it to be closer to a str fry kind of dish than to a soup. Also crispy sesame tofu? Never had this at a Thai restaurant before (although I wish I had). So the combination of those two makes this dish really unique, plus we are only using green veggies, which means vitamins pure. Super good.

Actually I do not know exactly how I came up with this dish. I think it is because I am obsessed with curry, but also really love some stir fried noodles. So I probably though that the combination must be heaven. And it definitely turned out to be. If you have been following me round for a while you would know that this „simple“ combo was to simple for me. So I knew I had to add something to make it fancy (that is still easy to make of course)!

How to make crispy healthy tofu

Making crispy tofu is nt hard. But making it healthy is. Why? To make crispy Tofu you could just deep fry it and then you have it! But deep frying always comes with a lot of oil and therefore fats! Is there a way to make healthy crispy tofu? Yes there is! In the oven. Usually I am not a big fan of making crispy things in the oven to be honest. They often just turn out lame and without any taste. But not this tofu.

To add some flavour at first, we are marinating it in some soy sauce. This really gives it so much flavour. Then, we need to coat it. It is important to use breadcrumbs here as they will make it the crispiest. And since we want a little asian touch, we add some sesame seeds. So in the end we have a mixture of sesame seeds and breadcrumbs. Make sure to coat the tofu well on each side.

Now we need to bake them. At very high heat! This is an important step. Before baking tough, we need to drizzle some oil. And yes this is essential. baked good just won’t turn out crispy without oil. And they won’t taste as good either! So we drizzle it with oil, so every tofu piece has some oil. And we also make sure they have space between them on the baking sheet. This is important because when the baking sheet is overcrowded, the tofu will rather steam than bake. After baking, we take it out and let it cool a little bit. Just a little bit will allow it to add the final crisp. And then you have it; addictively good healthy baked tofu.

Is this dish healthy?

Yes! I mean, look at the crazy amount of veggies we have in here. All the green veggies add a whole bunch of vitamins and fibre to the dish. The curry paste adds some good spice, the tofu the protein (and it is not deep fried, which means it is way healthier) and the glass noodles our much beloved carbs. A very balanced, delicious and healthy dish!

Substitutes:

Rice Noodles – Soba Noodles, Ramen, Udon
Brussel Sprouts, Broccoli, Edamamde, .. – truly any veggie you have in your fridge
Green curry paste – any curry paste
Sesame seeds – love them out and use breadcrumbs only

I really really love this dish as a nice and quick dinner or lunch and it also works very well for meal prep! It is full of nutrients, incredibly delicious (and when I say incredible, I mean INCREDIBLE) and super easy to make!

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I do and will also make it on a regular basis. perfectly comforting for the upcoming colder season too!

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Green Curry Noodles with Crispy Tofu

An incredibly delicious and easy dinner or lunch! Spicy Noodles in a delicious, addictive green curry sauce topped off with some seriously good crispy tofu

Course bowl, dinner, Main Course
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 20 Minuten
Total Time 30 Minuten
Servings 4 servings
Calories 610 kcal

What you will need

Crispy Tofu

  • 400 g tofu
  • 6 tbsp breadcrumbs
  • 3 tbsp sesame seeds
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce

Green Noodles

  • 250 g rice noodles
  • 50 g green curry paste
  • 100 ml coconut milk
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 100 g broccoli*
  • 100 g edamame*
  • 2 pak choi*
  • 100 g brussel sprouts*
  • 100 g spinach*

How to

  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C. Cut the Tofu into 1cm sized chunks. Toss them in the soy sauce. In a seperate bowl combine sesame seeds and bread crumbs. Toss the tofu in the mixture and spread them out on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Make sure there is space inbetween the chunks. Drizzle the oil and bake for 17-20 minutes. Then take out and let cool a little bit.

  2. In the meantime chop all of the veggies into bite sized chunks. Heat up the oil in a nonstick pan. Once hot fry the veggies for 3-4 minutes. Turn down the heat to medium-low. In a bowl combine the coconut milk with the curry paste until smooth.

  3. Prepare the rice noodles according to package instructions but undercook them for 2 minutes. When done cooking, drain them and add them to the veggies along with the curry sauce and the spinach. Gently mix through until everything is well combined. Divide onto the bowls and top with the crispy tofu! Enjoy!

Notes

*you can use whichever veggies you like or have at home

Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Super easy roasted sesame miso eggplant with coconut rice

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The soft „meat“ of the eggplant, soaked with flavour of the sesame miso marinade combined with creamy coconut rice and a baby spinach salad. Way easier than it sounds. And so delicious. 30 minutes, full of flavour, healthy and comforting.

I have never been to Japan, unfortunately, but it definitely is one of the top destinations of my travel list. I just really like all of the flavours, spices and fermented goods in their cuisine. Since the current situation makes travelling a bit difficult, it is time for us to bring Japan home! Taking the delicious and decadent flavours and making masterpieces out of them in the kitchen! And also, here is no better way to start into the slightly colder season than with some good comfort food. Heating up the oven and baking and the bubbling food on the stove. A super soft on the inside eggplant and creamy rice is the perfect dish for such occasions.

What is special about this dish?

Kind of everything, to be honest. The eggplant that is prepared and soaked up with the slightly sweet but so delicious asian marinade and baked to perfection and the rice that is not you average side dish rice but made with much more flavour.

What is miso and where can you get it?

Miso is a paste made from fermented soy beans and salt. It originated in Japan and is typically used in Asian, especially Japanese cuisine. Probably it’s most common use is in miso soup, which you can find at most Japanese restaurants. There are several different kinds of miso paste, from black to yellow and sweet so sour. For this recipe, I would recommend using a yellow/ light one without added sugar since we are adding the sweetness ourselves.

You can find Miso paste at pretty much any asian grocery store. It also often can be found at health stores or organic markets because of its high content of probiotics (through fermentation) or speciality stores.

Is this dish healthy?

I would definitely say so! You get great nutrients such as vitamins and fibre form the eggplant and also healthy probiotics from the miso (although there won’t be as much due to heating it up). The rice adds some great carbohydrates and protein and the coconut milk adds a healthy dose of fats. The only thing you should note is that this dish is a bit high in sodium because of its Miso and soy sauce content. If you have issues with sodium or make it sodium reduced, you can long for sodium reduced soy sauce, which you can find at any supermarket!

Meal prep & friendly?!

Yes and yes! You can very well store this in containers and heat it up whenever you want to enjoy it. The flavours will stay and consistency wise the reheating won’t be a problem. It also is pretty family friendly and a great way to sneak some more veggies onto the plates. If in your family, someone cannot go without meat, an easy way to include this is to just add some chicken, prawns or any other meat/ seafood of your preference into the marinade and then just fry it up in a pan while the eggplant is baking!

I hope that you will enjoy this recipe and that it gets you a little bit excited for the colder season ahead of us!

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Super easy roasted sesame miso eggplant with coconut rice

Soft eggplant that is full of flavor and easy to make paired with some dreamy, creamy coconut rice and a fresh salad!

Course dinner, lunch, Main Course
Cuisine asian, Japanese
Prep Time 5 Minuten
Cook Time 35 Minuten
Total Time 40 Minuten
Servings 4 people
Calories 530 kcal

What you will need

For the eggplant:

  • 2 eggplants
  • 1 tbsp Tahini
  • 3 tbsp miso paste
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • a few drops Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tsp hot sauce
  • 6 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup

For the rice:

  • 250 g rice
  • 200 ml coconut milk
  • 300 ml water

For the rest:

  • 4 handful baby spinach
  • 2 scallions (spring onions)
  • 2 tbsp sesame seeds

How to

  1. Cut the eggplants lengthwise. Carefully cut a grid-pattern into each half of the eggplant. This only is supposed to add some depth to the eggplant to soak up the flavor better. Do not cut the eggplant through!

  2. In a bowl/ tupperware combine all of the inrgedients for the sauce. Place the eggplant halfes, pattern side down in the marinade and let marinade for about 2-4 hours if you have got the time (if you do not, continue on from the next step).

  3. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the eggplant halves on a baking tray and brush some of that remaining dressing into the grids. Bake the eggplant for 25-30 minutes. Take them out of the oven, heat it up to 225°C. Brush the eggplants again and bake for another 5 minutes.

  4. In the meantime add the rice along with the coconut milk, some salt and water to a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and let simmer until all liquid is absorbed. Cover and let steam on very low heat for another 3-5 minutes until the rice is soft.

  5. Wash the baby spinach and toss it with some slat, pepper,a nd the remaining eggplant marinade.

  6. Divide the rice and salad onto the plates and add the eggplant on top. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, chopped up scallions and cliantro. Enjoy!

Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière