Years ago I heard about making “rice” out of cauliflower. My first thought was why? Why would I want to make rice out of cauliflower when I could make rice out of rice? I was already making an awesome cauliflower mash that had replaced mashed potatoes, mostly because I didn’t really like potatoes. But I liked rice so there was no motivation to learn this new skill. Even when I went Ketogenic and was not eating carbs, by precooking (converting) the rice I could reduce its carb impact so low that I could still get away with eating some rice and still stay in the ketosis fat burning state.
Paleo eating became a thing, so folks were avoiding grains because it did not fit into their new food religion. This did not phase me much as I am not good at following the rules of a religion. Rules tend to be silly and arbitrary and not really make much sense. None of the modern food we eat could ever be paleo. We have hybridized all our trees, vegetables, and animals into forms that never existed back in paleo times, so no one can truly eat a paleo diet. Most of the vegetables we eat were only introduced to most of the human diet a few hundred years ago when European explorers discovered the new world. Potatoes, tomatoes, squash, and many fruits were all new foods introduced to our species body types in the recent times – not anything at all even vaguely related to paleo diets. Paleo eating has a lot of good health aspects to it, but the rules people have made up about it are silly.
But then we started getting reports that our rice supplies were contaminated with arsenic. Ok, now that is a reason to stop eating rice. I try not to eat poisoned food.
So now I have a good reason to find an alternative rice-like substance. Enter cauliflower rice. I actually found cauliflower rice at the grocery store right next to the regular heads of cauliflower. Small bags of the stuff were pricey, but gave me a way to try out the stuff before committing to learning how to make it on my own. I was surprised; it came out pretty good. It actually tasted like and felt like rice once I added my favorite spices and flavorings to it.
Ok, so now I was motivated to try to make some on my own. I pulled out my ancient food processor with its chopping blade installed and went to work. Well, work is a bit of an overstatement. I pulled off small chunks of cauliflower and tossed them into the food processor until it was about half full. I put the lid on and turned the knob to chop – a few seconds later I had a nice bowl of fresh cauliflower rice. It was really just that easy. I have tried it several times since then and the only hiccup is when I put too many pieces of cauliflower into the processor. When I do it just does not seem to want to chop all the pieces up.
Cooking it is equally easy. I put a little avocado oil in a big fry pan, toss in the cauliflower rice, and let it cook. I like to add some fish sauce, coconut aminos, and black pepper to give it a little flavor. The longer I cook it the more like rice it becomes. I keep stirring it around with the spatula until it looks and smells right. It is great as a side dish with some lovely butter imported from Belgium, or used as a base for some protein or cooked vegetables. You could even add this to a salad if you wanted to.
Lately I have noticed riced broccoli at the store as well as cauliflower rice with other vegetables like onion and carrot added to it. People must be buying it or it would not disappear so rapidly from the store shelves. Cauliflower is one of those nice vegetables that is low in plant lectins, so that is a win on that front.
Bottom line: give cauliflower rice a try. It is good stuff.