buffalo cauliflower wings (vegan, gluten free, dairy free)
I cannot tell you how excited I am by how these buffalo cauliflower wings turned out! I’ve made them before, but experimented with a slightly different technique and voila! Beautiful plant-based buffalo wings just in time for the “Big Game” coming up in a couple of weeks.
While I’m not exactly a football fan, I do excited for the Super Bowl because it’s an excuse to make fun party foods to snack on. Kind of like how people look forward to Cinco de Mayo even though they aren’t Mexican. LOL
Anyway…these wings and the sauce are incredibly easy to make and are kept low in fat and gluten free by baking instead of frying and using rice flour over wheat. The inspiration came from the Lean Clean Eating Machine. I’ll even make these occasionally as my “main” dish with sides of veggies. Interestingly, my daughter, who typically loathes cauliflower, will actually eat these because of the spice, but my husband and sons won’t because of it. Go figure, right?!
You may be tempted to skip making the sauce and buying it instead but don’t!! It’s extremely easy to make and spares the icky preservatives and strange ingredients typically found in most hot wing sauces.
I prefer to pull the cauliflower florets apart to form the “wings” in roughly bite-sized bites and then chop up any stalk that’s left over.
To help your buffalo cauliflower wings crisp up faster, you’ll want to move them around on the parchment paper each time you go to turn them…that way they don’t stay in the same soggy spot. While I like them best fresh, they hold up quite well overnight so you can make them ahead of time…just crisp them up in a 350 F oven for about 10 minutes before eating.
Easy to make, these buffalo cauliflower wings are low in fat and gluten free since they are baked, not fried and use rice flour instead of wheat.
- 1 cup red pepper sauce
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 T vegan butter
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp tapicoa starch or 1/4 tsp xantham gum
- 1 head medium cauliflower
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 1 cup water
- 1 tspsalt garlic powder
Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and whisk constantly over high heat until it thickens up. Turn off heat. Extra can be frozen.
Preheat oven to 450 F. Rinse the cauliflower and then pull of the florets in bite-sized pieces. Chop up the stalk into bite-sized pieces.
In a medium bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients for the coating until thoroughly combined. Add the cauliflower florets and mix by hand until the cauliflower is coated with the brown rice mixture.
Place cauliflower on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle any remaining rice mixture over the larger cauli pieces. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven and rotate the florets, then return for another 10 minutes or until the coating on the wings is dried and crispy. It's best to slightly shift the wings on the parchment to a drier spot to help with the crisping.
Pour some wing sauce in a clean bowl and begin dipping the baked cauliflower florets in it one by one, coating thoroughly and returning the coated cauli wings to the baking sheet. Repeat with all the cauli wings added more sauce as needed. Reserve any spare sauce for extra spicy dipping.
When all the wings are coated in the sauce, return the baking sheet to the oven and cook 10 minutes. Remove from oven, turn the wings as before and bake another 10 minutes or until the wings start to crisp up.
Serve immediately or let cool on the baking sheet before storing in the fridge so they don't sog up. Extra sauce can be frozen.
