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Cauliflower fried rice is a tasty vegetarian and gluten-free main dish. Cauliflower rice is grain-free, making it one of our best loved paleo recipes (sans edamame)!
At the turn of each year, without fail come January 1 suddenly everyone is talking about healthy eating. It’s like a switch is flipped and everyone is ogling over bowls of vegetables instead of towers of cookies.
Of course Alex and I love it, since this website is devoted to eating more vegetables. However, we know the interest in veggies is fleeting. By the time February rolls around, we all settle back in to our old “normal”. Here’s more about a new normal, and this cauliflower fried rice recipe.
Love fried rice? Also try our Fried Rice (Takeout Style!) and Shrimp Fried Rice.
How to make cauliflower fried rice
And now for the recipe, cauliflower fried rice. Or really, cauliflower rice, made to taste like fried rice. What’s cauliflower rice? Some friends of ours recommended trying out cauliflower rice: chopping cauliflower into small bits that mimic grains of rice. For their recipe, they fried it in coconut oil, creating a Chinese-style cauliflower fried rice. Cauliflower rice is intended for grain-free and paleo diets, but we were more interested in it for the novelty of it all. (See the note on paleo recipes below.)
The verdict? The version we created of cauliflower fried rice turned out to be a fabulous taste treat. The cauliflower soaks up the aromatic ginger and garlic even more than rice would, and the bowl of piping hot vegetables was comfort food at its finest. To bring additional protein to the dish, we filled it with egg, edamame, and cashews. It was filling enough for a main dish dinner for the two of us. However, you may want to double the recipe if you have seriously hungry eaters. Enjoy, and cheers to a new year!
Grain-free and paleo recipes
We follow a 90% vegetarian diet, full of legumes and whole grains, so this website does not contain many paleo recipes. However, this cauliflower fried rice recipe is one of the handful of paleo recipes you’ll find here!
A few other paleo recipes we’d recommend: Creamy Vegan Tomato Soup (without star toasts), Grilled Shrimp and Vegetable Skewers, and Raw Falafel Buddha Bowls (omit the maple syrup in the dressing).
Dietary notes
This cauliflower fried rice recipe is vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, and paleo (using coconut aminos and without the edamame).
**For vegan cauliflower fried rice, you could try without the egg. However, we found it to be a nice binder and have not tested this version. Let us know in the comments below whether you try it without egg.
Cauliflower Fried Rice
Cauliflower fried rice is a tasty vegetarian and gluten-free main dish. Cauliflower rice is grain-free, making it one of our best loved paleo recipes (sans edamame)!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 3 to 4 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 medium head cauliflower (6 to 7 cups florets)
- 3 carrots
- 2 medium garlic cloves
- 1 nub ginger (1 tablespoon minced)
- 2 green onions
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil, divided
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups frozen shelled edamame (omit for paleo or keto)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce or coconut aminos
- ¼ cup cashews, for garnish
Instructions
- Chop the cauliflower into large florets. Place half of the florets into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until fully chopped and the cauliflower resembles grains of rice. Remove the “rice” to a bowl and process the remainder of the cauliflower.
- Peel the carrots, then chop them into small cubes. Peel and mince the garlic. Peel and mince the ginger. Thinly slice the green onions.
- Melt 1 tablespoon coconut oil in a large frying pan, then add the eggs and scramble them, breaking them into small pieces. Remove the eggs from the pan.
- Heat 1 tablespoon coconut oil; add the garlic and ginger and saute, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add carrots and saute for 2 minutes. Add cauliflower rice and shelled edamame and cook, stirring, for 5 to 8 minutes. Season with the kosher salt.
- Add the soy sauce and the cooked egg and stir until fully combined. Remove from heat and stir in the green onions. Serve topped with cashews.
This looks AWESOME and we cannot wait to try this out in the IndyChef kitchen. Such a great fall recipe, we are glad we found it!
Any chance you have the nutrition information for this meal?
I get a vegetables box delivered weekly at home and cauliflower is a usual traveler in there. This is a vegetable I mostly have in soups or as a side dish (simply cooked), however, when I’ve found this recipe, it opened a whole new world to me :)
I’ve replaced the edamame by peas and cashew by peanuts cause it’s what I had in my pantry and was delicious all the same :)