Crispy Kung Pao Cauliflower. Cauliflower battered and baked and tossed in spicy kung pao sauce. Super hot Appetizer for gameday. Vegan Recipe. Can be gluten-free with gluten-free breadcrumbs. Double the kung pao sauce for larger cauliflower or to serve over rice.
Sundays are shaping up for only one thing these days, Gameday! And all that excitement and 4 hours of tv calls for delicious finger food.
These crispy kung pao cauliflower bites are just that, crispy, spicy, juicy, hot, and super fun. Bake the cauliflower, make the kung pao sauce. Arrange the cauliflower in one layer in a serving plate/bowl. Drizzle the sauce just before serving.
The dish can also be served with rice or other cooked grains. The recipe is for snack kung pao cauliflower bites. Double the sauce to serve over rice, or if you have a good large cauliflower head. The sauce can get hot depending on the chilies you use. Taste before drizzling over the cauliflower. If too hot, make another batch of the sauce without the chilies and mix. For a quick recipe, toss cauliflower in salt, cayenne and oil and bake until done, or cook in a pan with a splash of water until tender, then toss in the sauce. Serve with a jar of cold water. 🙂
Whats your favorite spicy gameday food?
More Asian recipes from the blog
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- Sweet and Sour chickpeas, broccoli and peppers. GF
- Celery Black Pepper tofu GF
- Kung Pao Lentils GF
- Lentils & Veggies in Thai Peanut Sauce GF
- Chickpeas in Firecracker sauce with crunchy salad. GF
- Crispy Orange Cauliflower. GF
- 5 tbsp corn starch or other starch
- 6 tbsp bread crumbs use gluten-free crumbs to make gf
- 5 tbsp or more water
- 1/2 tsp cayenne use a 1/3 tsp for less heat
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp roasted sesame oil
- 1 tsp oil
- 1 medium head of cauliflower chopped into florets
- 1 tsp oil
- 8 to 10 dried red chilies chinese red chilies, or arbol or cayenne, or use california red for less heat
- 1/2 tsp coarsely crushed sichuan peppercorns or use a mix of coarsely crushed black pepper and red pepper flakes
- 2 to 3 tbsp chopped cashews or peanuts
- 4 to 5 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 inch ginger minced
- 2 tbsp scallions chopped
- 2.5 tbsp low sodium soy sauce/tamari use certified gluten-free sauce to make gf
- 1.5 to 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tsp chinese rice wine optional
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp water use 1/2 cup for more sauce
- 1 tsp cornstarch
Chop up the cauliflower and keep aside. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F / 220ºc. Mix the cornstarch breadcrumbs, and the rest of the ingredients to make a batter. Let the batter sit for 10 seconds to thicken if it isn't thick. The cornstarch continues to thicken the batter, so as soon as it is a good not too watery consistency, start dipping the cauliflower in the batter, tap to drop excess and place on parchment lined baking sheet. If the batter thickens too much while working, add a tsp or more water and mix in and continue.
- Bake for 30 minutes or longer until the florets are cooked through. Check with a toothpick/knife
- Meanwhile make the sauce. Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the red chilies and peppercorns and cook until the red chilies are fragrant, but not overly brown, or someone starts sneezing. (For more heat, break some of the chilies into half and add to the skillet.)
- Add the nuts and mix for a few seconds. Add the ginger, garlic, reduce heat to medium low and continue to cook until the garlic is golden. 4 to 5 minutes. Stir occasionally.
- Add in the scallions, and 2 to 3 tbsp finely chopped green peppers or other veggies if using and mix in. Increase heat to medium. Cook for a minute.
- Mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl and add to the skillet. Continue to cook until the sauce comes to a boil and thickens slightly. 2 mins. Carefully taste and adjust salt, sweet and spice. If the sauce is not hot enough, break a few of the chilies open or add in red pepper flakes to taste and mix in.
- Arrange the baked cauliflower in a shallow bowl in one layer. When ready to serve, Drizzle the sauce over each floret. Serve.
- To store, store the baked cauliflower and sauce separately. Heat the sauce, pour over the florets. To serve with rice/cooked grains, double the sauce mix and bring to a boil to thicken, toss in the cauliflower and serve immediately over rice.
Recipe Video
Its easy for the sauce to go from mild to super hot with the broken chilies. Whole chilies add a smoked mild heat flavor and you can adjust the heat using pepper flakes later. I usually break half the chilies and use hot cayenne or thai and the sauce easily gets to 5 star heat. 🙂
Nutritional values based on one serving
This looks fantastic! Can I use panko breadcrumbs instead of regular bread crumbs?
yes!
Wow, this sounds so delicious! I would eat it as a meal with some sauteed veggies and rice. 😀
I used to eat meat. I used to eat sea creatures. Sushi used to be my favorite “food.” Been vegan for 4 years now and THIS is one of my FAVORITE recipes…definitely the best Kung Pao anything I’ve ever had. I’ve shared it with friends who eat meat and they agree! Share this recipe and bookmark it!
We had this for dinner, it was so good! Swap this for tofu and some stir fried veggies over rice, heaven. Thanks for all your recipes. Love love them!
Awesome!
This is one of my favourite vegan dishes I have ever made!!!!!! Thanks 🙂
Can I make a quicker version of the KP sauce using sriracha and omitting the chili peppers and scallions? Also, I have seen some recipes for this sauce using sesame oil (a taste I like)? Would this work?
You can adjust it with any flavor you like. It will taste fine since most of those flavors go well together, but will not be like this Kung pao sauce flavor profile.
This was really delicious. I had a large cauliflower and tripled the recipe. It was perfect! Everyone loved it. Will make this again for sure. This was our main dish that I served with rice and steamed broccoli. Looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow!
This was very yummy! Light but rich with flavours will be making this again soon!
My husband and I made this last night and it was delicious! We did cut open several of the peppers (and even ate a few) so it was rather spicy, but oh so good! Thank you so much for the recipe, we will be making it again!
Awesome! yes once you break the chiles, it can get hot quickly
Great dish! I used Panko instead of plain bread crumbs- I doubled the batter ingredients and quadrupled the amount of water.
How would you recommend substituting tofu for the cauliflower in this recipe?
Yes, Press the tofu, cube then toss in the batter and bake. Dress with the sauce and serve.
I’ll try that sometime soon, but I LOVE the cauliflower! Nice to know about using tofu, too.
Been vegetarian for over 10 years now, and this is without a doubt the best Kung Pao that I’ve had.
Thanks!!
This was amazing!!!!!! My sauce didn’t go very far, but it was so easy I just whipped up another batch.
Hello
Like 2 other people in here I could not understand the recipe
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp corn starch?
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp bread crumbs?
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp water?
What does it mean?
I saw your answers but left me just as clueless
Can you be more specific or if possible just put the total amount of the ingredients without the + and adding more
Example
1/4 cup of corn starch
1/4 cup of bread crumbs
1/4 cup of water
Or is it
1 tbsp corn starch
2 tbsp bread crumbs
1 tbsp water
Thank You in advanced !!
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp corn starch = 5 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp bread crumbs = 6 tbsp breadccrumbs
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp water = 5 tbsp water.
i’ll update it in tbsp
Perfect I understand it now , Im not a chef so i did not know 1 cup equal 4 table spoons
It is much clearer
I appreciate the help
Thanks!!
Actually 1/4 cup (60 cc) equals four tablespoons.
Just tried this for dinner as my husband looks for crunchy stuff when we eat out. I subbed flour for the breadcrumbs and needed a little extra water. Delicious. Probably loses crunch when stored, but he seems to be downing the extra cauliflower as he does dishes. I’ve asked for everyday vegan for my birthday, but am recommending it on blogs even before I get it. Is this recipe in the book?
Yes this recipe is in the book. Its modified a bit for super runhy cauliflower bites that you can toss with various sauces like kung pao, orange, sweet and sour, firecracker and more. 🙂
I had saved this recipe some time ago and finally pulled it out and made it for supper. It is very tasty and I really enjoyed it immensely! The crunch and spice were great with that nice umami taste! I doubled the sauce since I served it with rice, but not much was to be had. However, it was more than enough to coat the cauliflower and if there were more sauce it would be too overpowering. It was a hit with my two grandsons, as well. They are not big on vegetables and trying yet another new dish was off-putting for them, but they did agree they liked it! 😉 Another recipe I will put on my “tried and true” list to make again!
This was amazeballs! Thanks for the recipe!!! =)
yay!
I have your book and want to try cauliflower. Is there another sauce I could use on the crunchy baked cauliflower?
yes you can use the sweet and sour sauce and orange sauce(for less heat), firecracker or buffalo sauces, manchurian sauce (so good), and even peanut sauce. lots of options inthe book
This might be my husband’s favorite recipe. Dipping the florets was a pain, though. Instead, I make the batter in a large bowl and just dump the raw cauliflower in it and stir it until each piece is coated. Works great and is so much faster and easier!
Awesome!
I made this using chunky peanut butter in the place of the peanuts. Sooo delicious!
Hi!
This recipe is absolutely delicious!
I made it with arrowroot starch instead of corn. I did add a 1/2 cup of water and reduced the amount of starch to get the same consistency as in the video.
Such a clever recipe to batter the cauliflower. After baking it, it comes out perfectly! My husband and mother love this recipe!!
This cauliflower recipe is AMAZING!!!! Sooooo delish! So many yummy flavors…I’ll be making this again and again!
I made this tonight and it was so good! I love the sauce. (Because I can’t handle very much heat, I skipped the chilies altogether and halved the chili flakes). I think I would probably halve the cayenne in the batter next time too. But I’m pretty wimpy. 🙂
I had similar issue with the batter as some commentors above- it didn’t seem very thick but it didn’t really stick to the cauliflower and i ended up having to make a second batch. I was thinking next time I’ll try doing the dry bowl and wet bowl to make it more like a nugget coating and coat dry, wet and back to dry again. I’m thinking I might need to double the batter.
The sauce was delish- I definitely want to to double that next time so I can really drizzle it on.
This was so good. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. (I love that it was baked cauliflower too),
What a tasty recipe! I’m not usually a cauliflower person, but this is phenomenal! I made double batter and sauce, thinned the batter a tiny bit, and only dipped the floret heads in the batter. I had the perfect amount of batter for this method. This recipe is going in my regular cycle for sure. Thanks!
I have a peanut and tree nut allergy. Will the recipe be just as good without the nuts? Will any seed substitutions work?
yes, try some sunflower seeds for the nutty flavor
Fabulous recipe!! The sauce was perfect and same for the crispiness and flavors of cauliflower where I had batter. I had trouble making the breading adhere to the cauliflower uniformly. I used whole wheat Panko and I added extra water but it wasn’t runny. Any suggestions? I’d definitely prepare again but I’d like more uniform breading on the cauliflower. Thanks for all of your fabulous recipes. I have your cookbooks and I refer to those frequently!
SO DANG TASTY!! This was seriously amazing!
awesome!