Description

These healthy, oil free Baked Buffalo Cauliflower Wings served with Vegan Ranch or Vegan Blue “Cheese” Dressing is like a flavor explosion in your mouth. Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

Ingredients

Scale

Batter Ingredients:

1/3 cup + 1 Tablespoon brown rice flour (or flour of choice)
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 Tablespoon almond butter, softened *
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
¾ teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
pinch black pepper
½ cup + 1 Tablespoon unsweetened plain plant milk

Crumb Coating Ingredients:

¾ cup panko crumbs *
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
¼ teaspoon sea salt *
Pinch cayenne pepper

Other Ingredients:

1 lb. cauliflower florets, trimmed *
1 recipe of Vegan Buffalo Sauce

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Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450 F.Place the oven rack in the center, avoiding the lower oven rack placement. If using two racks, keep them toward the center and upper position.
Line a large 14 x 20 baking sheet(s) with 2 sheets parchment paper, set aside.
Trim all the cauliflower into medium-sized florets. Total weight is 1 lb. after trimming the cauliflower florets to size. Set aside.
Make the Buffalo Sauce, set aside.
Place the Crumb Mixture Ingredients into a small bowl, stir to combine, set aside.
Make the Batter by placing all the Batter Ingredients into a medium-sized bowl, mix well set aside. The mixture should be like a thin-set pancake batter, set aside.
Place the trimmed cauliflower florets into a large bowl, then pour the Batter onto the cauliflower florets and mix to ensure the batter completely coats the all cauliflower florets evenly. Use your hands to ensure each floret is thoroughly coated. When all are nicely coated, move the coated cauliflower to a new clean large bowl. (see notes)
Then start sprinkling the Crumb Coating all over the batter-coated florets. Keep turning them in the bowl (and gently flipping with a large spoon) as you continue sprinkling them with the crumb coating mixture. Make sure all the cauliflower florets are thoroughly coated. Use clean hands to gently mix the florets around the bowl to get them coated well. Then place them individually onto the parchment lined baking sheet(s), allowing space. Giving them space will ensure that they will bake up crispy. If they are too close together, they will not get crispy as they will steam rather than crisp up in the oven.
Bake in a 450 F oven for 15 minutes. If using two baking sheets, rotate them at the half-way mark.
After 15 minutes, remove the baking sheet from the oven and gently slide them into a large clean bowl. Add an extra Tablespoon of water into the Buffalo Sauce, whisk well to loosen it up. Sometimes as the Buffalo Sauce sits, it tends to thicken up. The Tablespoon of water helps keep it loose. Drizzle the Buffalo Sauce all over the baked/breaded cauliflower florets. Gently turning with a large spoon to ensure all the florets are evenly coated with the Buffalo Sauce. Place a new piece of parchment paper on the baking dish; toss the 1^st piece of parchment paper. Then carefully slide them back onto a large parchment paper baking sheet and bake in a 450 F oven for 10 more minutes.
Serve immediately with Vegan Ranch Dressing or Vegan Blue Cheese Dressing.

Notes

*Tips for Success:

You will need 2 large bowls: After you have put the cauliflower florets into a large bowl and coated them with the batter mixture, you will then remove them from that bowl and add them to a clean, large bowl. This helps when you are sprinkling the crumb mixture over the cauliflower, so the crumb mixture sticks to the cauliflower and not the inside of the bowl (if you only used one bowl). When adding the Buffalo Sauce, you will also need a clean bowl. We just washed one of the bowls while the cauliflower florets were baking in the oven.
Trimming the Cauliflower Florets: We like to buy fresh cauliflower florets in a 2 lb. bag at our local grocery store. We then trim off any hard parts as they tend to take longer to bake. We typically end up with about 8 to 9 cups of trimmed, uniform cauliflower florets. For this recipe, you will use about 7 cups of trimmed, uniform cauliflower florets or approx. 1 lb. trimmed.
Placing on Parchment Paper: While it is very tempting to just dump the coated cauliflower florets onto the parchment paper covered baking sheet, take the time to place them individually and place them on the parchment paper. This prevents a bunch of loose crumbs from falling onto the parchment paper and burning in the oven. Place the largest pieces on the outer edges and the smaller ones in the center. The edges tend to get more heat than the center. Additionally, when the cauliflower comes out of the oven for the Buffalo Sauce coating, we strongly advise replacing the parchment paper on the large baking sheet or use another large baking sheet covered with parchment paper. This ensures that the tiny bits of crumb coating that fell onto the baking sheet (and darkened) from the first baking do not burn and stick to the Buffalo Sauce coated cauliflower florets during the 2^nd

Notes Continued

*Panko Crumbs: We used Ian’s Gluten Free Panko crumbs for this recipe. If you do not need to be gluten free, feel free to use any panko bread crumbs of your choosing. Ian’s is generally accepted by the WFPB community.

*Softened Almond Butter: If you are opening a new jar of almond butter, then room temperature almond butter works perfectly. If you are using almond butter that has been refrigerated, then remove the recipe amount and set aside to reach room temperature. Or place in the microwave for a few seconds just to remove the coldness and allow almond butter to flow freely, runny, but not melted.

*Oven Baking Time: Cauliflower retains a lot of moisture. If you like your cauliflower more tender, bake them for 11 to 14 minutes or longer (for the 2^nd baking) and if you like them el dente, then bake them shorter. We found 10 minutes was the perfect baking time during the 2^nd round of baking (with Buffalo sauce). These buffalo “wings” will not be as crispy as if they were battered and deep fried but will be breaded and taste just as awesome!

*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

*Serving: 3 to 4

*Storage: Refrigerate and use within 5 days.