Cauliflower, 1 lemon, 2 slices of bread, pasta and a handful of pantry essentials. It really is amazing how a few simple ingredients can be transformed into some SO GOOD. The crowning glory of this Cauliflower Pasta is the pangrattato (aka Magic Toasted Breadcrumbs).
I never understood Meatless Monday. If you do grocery shopping on the weekend, doesn’t it make sense to cook with fresh meat early in the week (i.e. MONDAY)?
I guess normal people go Meatless on Monday to try to kick off the week on a healthy note. Not me. I’m usually the reverse. Fresh protein for the first half of the week, then vegetarian / pantry meals for the second half of the week!
So I’m not sharing this on a Monday to jump in on Meatless Monday. I’m sharing this because I’m one of those people who just can’t resist a bargain, and when giant, beautiful heads of cauliflower were on sale for $1.49, I bought 3 of them. THREE.
Yup, that’s the way I operate. Did you think that I planned out the recipes I post with military precision? I’m sorry to burst that bubble! Despite my best attempts, I can’t stick to a recipe posting schedule. I go to the shops with a shopping list designed around things I plan to make, but I always get side tracked by whatever fresh produce is on special! Like lamb shanks. 🙂 That’s why I shared my Lamb Shanks recipe – they were 30% off!
I don’t think people ordinarily associate cauliflower with pasta, but can I tell you – it goes SO WELL! When cauliflower is roasted or browned in a skillet, it gets a slightly nutty flavour. About as different as you can get to bland, boiled cauliflower!
But the crowning glory of this pasta has to be the pangrattato. “Pangrattato” is known as the “poor man’s parmesan” in Italy and was invented as an economical substitute for parmesan. It’s just small chunky bits of bread, either toasted of pan fried with olive oil and seasoned with salt.
Anything you sprinkle it on – WOW! Salty bursts of crunchy, golden bread, it really can elevate the most ordinary of things into something seriously delicious! I sprinkle it on pasta, gratins and bakes, roasted vegetables (try this Roasted Broccoli with Pangrattato!) and it’s fantastic sprinkled on salads too!
Cauliflower pan fried until golden in garlicky butter tossed through pasta with lemon and chili, topped with crunchy salty pangrattato. THIS is Meat Free for Carnivores!
– Nagi x
And more GREAT meat-free pastas!
- One Pot Vegetable Pasta
- Pesto Pasta – with plenty of pesto sauce!
- Creamy Tomato Pasta
- Fettuccine Alfredo
- Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni
- Vegetarian Lasagna
More cauliflower recipes
- Roasted Parmesan Crusted Cauliflower
- Roasted Cauliflower with Almond Sauce (Ester Restaurant)
- Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Crunchy Bread Chunks
- Creamy, Dreamy Cauliflower Soup
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Garlic Butter Cauliflower Pasta with Pangritata
Ingredients
- 1 to 2 slices bread , crusts removed, preferably stale (enough to make 1/2 cup)
- Oil spray (preferably olive oil)
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves , smashed (Note 1)
- 1/2 large head of cauliflower , broken/cut into florets about 2"/5cm long (about 4 to 5 cups) (Note 2)
- 8 oz / 250 g fettuccine (or pasta of choice)
- 1/2 red onion , thinly sliced
- 1/2 to 1 tsp red chili flakes
- 1 lemon : 2 tbsp lemon juice + zest of 1/2 the lemon
- Salt & pepper
To serve
- Parmesan cheese , freshly grated
- Fresh parsley , finely chopped (optional)
Instructions
Pangrattato
- Dice the bread into small pieces - you want (at least!) 1/2 cup. Spray generously with oil.
- Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the bread crumbs and saute for about 2 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the skillet into a bowl and sprinkle with salt.
Cauliflower Pasta
- Return the skillet to the stove. Melt the butter then add the oil. When hot, add the smashed garlic cloves and cook for 1 minute until fragrant.
- Add the cauliflower. Cook, stirring occasionally, for around 3 minutes, then add the red onion and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes, until the cauliflower is beautiful golden brown but still a bit firm.
- Remove the smashed garlic cloves.
- Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted boiling water - 1 minute less than the recommended cooking time on the packet!
- RESERVE 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water. Then drain the pasta or use tongs to transfer it directly to the skillet.
- Pour the reserved pasta cooking water into the skillet along with the red chili flakes, a good pinch of salt and pepper. Gently toss the pasta for 1 to 2 minutes, until the water evaporates - you will be left with a luscious coating of sauce on each strand of pasta (this is called emulsification) and the cauliflower will finish cooking.
- Remove from the stove. Grate over zest of 1/2 the lemon and drizzle over about 2 tbsp of lemon juice. Toss quickly.
- Serve, sprinkled with Pangrattato with freshly grated parmesan and parsley, if using.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Hi Nagi! I’ve become a big fan of yours already. I’ve tried 4 of your recipes, and all of them were just scrumptious! Thank you! Do you think I can substitute broccoli for cauliflower in this recipe?
YESSSS!!!! N x
Hi Nagi,
I’ve made a few of your recipes and they have all been to die for, but I think I messed this one up somehow. It was very dry, I ended up tossing some chicken broth through it, and that evaporated, so we ended up tossing our meals with some butter so it wasn’t so dry. I was even afraid there was too much pasta (I measured the 8 ounces by weight before cooking – was that right?), so I only used about half of it.
Any thoughts on what happened? I’d love to try it again but hoping to do it so the pasta isn’t so dry.
Hi Michelle, I’m sorry this didn’t work out for you! The key is step 6 – did you add the pasta water? That is what creates the wetness, it is a very classic Italian technique to make simple pastas like this. 🙂
LOVE! Another delicious recipe. My youngest daughter tried it when we served it last night. The eldest snubbed her nose at it. Then at lunch today when we were enjoying the leftovers she finally tried it & was extremely upset with herself for not enjoying it last night! Success!
I adore hearing the little tidbits about your wonderful family Josie!!! Thank you so much for sharing them with me, I sit at my computer smiling like a fool as I respond 🙂 I guess you’ll have to make it again for your eldest daughter, hmm?? 🙂 N x
It’s such pasta weather now! Perfect.
Tell me about it! N x
HOW did I miss this recipe? Meatless Mondays, hmmm…and Fish Fridays, boy we might get healthy 🙂
I will be making because my daughter is ‘NOT INTO MEAT 🙂 ‘ so her and I will LOVE this. and leftovers for lunch!
I was looking through your Italian drop down list for a white sauced lasagna- I just made the white sauce enchilada. I have a recipe for white sauce lasagna but it is RIDICULOUS- it would take three days!! but I KNOW Nagi would make it perfect! A béchamel sauce instead of a red sauce?- my daughter in law does not like any food with red sauce- do I have picky eaters or WHAT! But I would like to make for her- what do you say Nagi? HA! lol
From a windy, stormy, rainy -YAY- Portland, Oregon! Lisa x
My ears just perked up! White Sauce Lasagna? Definitely!! It would have to be with chicken instead of ground beef. Of maybe ground turkey or chicken? Hmm. I feel like the texture might be a bit odd using white sauce with ground meat.
I’m onto it Lisa! If you don’t see it on my blog in the next couple of months, PROD ME!! N x
I would advise for a white wine, white sauce, seafood lasagna. Cheese and seafood is a win, win situation! 😉
WOW!This is brilliant idea and soo flavorful. Loved it again 🙂
So glad you like the look of this! 🙂
Hey Nagi!
I’d love to include your Garlic Butter Cauliflower Pasta in a vegetarian meals roundup that I’m preparing for Parade Magazine (to be published in Sept).
If you’re fine with it, could I use one of your photos with a linkback to your original post (https://www.recipetineats.com/garlic-butter-cauliflower-pasta-with-pangritata/)?
Let me know your thoughts & thanks so much in advance!
Cheers,
Felicia
He Felicia! Of course – thank you, I’m honoured!! 🙂
Hey Nagi!
I wanted to let you know that the vegetarian round up is now up on Parage Magazine (http://communitytable.parade.com/433722/felicialim/12-easy-vegetarian-meals-that-meat-lovers-will-also-enjoy/)
Would love if you could share it with your followers as it’s getting quite a bit of traction!
Thanks so much once again for letting me include your recipe!
Thanks Felicia! So honoured to be included in your round up – going to check it out now! 🙂 And YES of course I will share!!
You’re making me so hungry! I haven’t had pasta in ages and now I have a crazy craving for it. I do have a head of cauliflower in the fridge and a pasta maker that’s been begging to be dusted off for months. I think I know what’s for dinner. 🙂
Thanks Kristen! Hope you do try this! 🙂
Your timing couldn’t have been been more perfect! I had a head of cabbage from my CSA that needed attention and your recipe showed up just in time! I made it tonight Nagi and although it didn’t look quite as gorgeous as yours, it was delicious! Even my picky eater husband loved it! 😀 I added capers for a pop of briny goodness too. The only thing, is I didn’t see is when to add the bread crumbs, so I just sprinkled them over the top at the end. We loved this, Nagi! Thank you for sharing! I’ll be making this again!
I cracked up as I read this, Nagi – I so relate. I try to have an editorial calendar, but invariably get distracted by some dish that I just can’t wait to make. And as the week goes on, I’m much more likely to throw something together from the pantry than make a trip to the store.
I LOVE cauliflower with pasta, it really is a wonderful match. And I love all of the textures and flavors you have going on here. If you’re game, next time throw in a few anchovies to melt in the butter, oil and garlic. Cauliflower + Anchovy = magic.
Have a great weekend!!
One of my readers reminded me that you posted one recently! I keep meaning to go and have a read, I totally forgot! Subconsciously, it’s probably what inspired me to make this! And anchovies? Definitely! I LOVE anchovies melted in things – you’re right, it IS magic! I call it the Italian “fish sauce”!! 🙂
Looks great! Definitely my kind of pasta dish 🙂
Thanks Sabrina! 🙂
I bought a cheap cauliflower the other day too!!!!! Mine wasn’t as cheap as yours but it certainly wasn’t the $5+ that they usually are!!!!
The ingredients of this dish are right up my street, pasta, chilli garlic, red onion…..Yum Yum Yum. But cauliflower?
I cook roasted cauliflower which is the only way I can bring myself to eat it. Memories of being forced to sit and eat cold cauliflower as a child, only cold because I had left it until last hoping to get out of eating the one tiny piece I had been given.
BUT……..
We all know that I am a pasta fiend. I cleared the pantry (tiny cupboard that I call a pantry!!!) out yesterday as I couldn’t find anything in there. Guess what I found???? 13 packets of unopened pasta! Yes I tell no lies. 13!!! And that doesn’t include the spaghetti, linguine and rigatoni packets that are open in my tupperware boxes. I have a problem 😉 although someone mentioned on my twitter post that it isn’t a problem it is just being really well prepared!!! I like that better.
But cooking it in a pan until golden, crispy and with lots of garlic and butter….this sounds like something I should like! So I might head back to the shops and see if I can get another bargain cauli and try this dish. Stew would love you forever as he adores cauliflower and always complains I don’t cook it enough.
Pasta and Cauliflower. It could be a turning point for me!!! Thank you x
OMG, I totally cracked up!!! TOO FUNNY – 13 packets?! Ba ha ha!! You’re worse than ME! (I don’t have a proper pantry, but I have this enormous basket of “stuff” with a hodge podge mix of half used packets of pasta! Oh gee….I hope I don’t have 13 packets in there….I am too scared to look! N x
Know what you mean about meatless Monday – totally agree Nagi.
We have the same mindset? Now….why doesn’t that surprise me? 😉
Nom, nom, nom! I would never have thought of putting cauliflower and pasta together, but I love both! Definitely a recipe to try soon! x
Hope you do Mel!! It really is am amazing flavour combo! 🙂
This pasta looks amazing! That cauliflower looks amazing! Plus the pangritata is an awesome idea!
Thanks Shelby! Pangrittata….SO GOOD! 🙂