Crispy Breaded Cauliflower Wings

I made this tonight and it was outstanding! We served it in tacos with black beans and all the fixings. So, so good. I can’t wait to make it again. I did add a tablespoon of butter to the sauce because, butter. Thank you for a recipe I will definitely make a zillion times!

I would recommend sprinkling the coating over the egg-dipped cauliflower, rather than drenching the cauliflower into the coating. Halfway through, the coating got too wet and clumpy to stick to the cauliflower. But the first half worked out great!

This was awful! It tasted like cashew peanut butter cauliflower. I couldn’t eat it. Who wants nutty flavored cauliflower? Yuck

This continues to be a go-to in our house. So easy. Have been doing the firm tofu cubed version in the air fryer and they are delish. Buffalo tofu tots.

This recipe was so delicious!! I’ve made it twice now and could have easily eaten the whole batch in one go! I’m a vegetarian, but even my meat eating husband and children loved this one as a side instead of meat! My husband likened it to crispy chicken drumsticks 😊 the second time I made it I didn’t do the glaze, but made a miso tahini dressing as a dip, was just as yum 😊 Thank you for this awesome recipe 😋

Absolutely delicious! My kids requested this almost daily this past week. I didn’t have enough almond flour the second time and subbed1/2 cup of GF flour and I used almond milk instead of the egg and it turned out great.
Thank you for your wonderful and easy recipe. Will be making it over and over again i’m sure.

I made these vegan style and kicked it up a notch. Instead of egg I used oat milk and instead of honey I used maple syrup.
I used siete habanero hot sauce and garnished with mint, dill, harissa, and dates. I’m seriously addicted to these. So good!

Long time fan, first time commenter. I combined some instructions from this recipe and the Spicy Korean-Style Cauliflower Wings recipe (https://minimalistbaker.com/spicy-korean-style-cauliflower-wings/) — because I don’t have an air fryer and really wanted to up the crispy-ness! Started by baking the cauliflower at 450 for 10 min, then did the coating, and put ’em back in at ~20 min at 500. They came out perfectly golden and the coating had a great crunch to it.

I subbed almond flour for the cashews and they turned out great, no mixer/food processor required. :) The coating process took longer than I expected, but I think I had a big cauliflower.

This glaze was so yummy! Almost opted for regular buffalo sauce, but it takes like 2 min, so don’t skip!!

I think they taste better the next day (kinda like chili or veggie soup) also w blue cheese dressing (my hot sauce was extra hot)

I hate cauliflower and I liked this recipe. I used the egg wash directions. I made some in the oven and some in the airfryer. My boyfriend and I agreed hands down the air fryer was better. I ended up putting the baked ones in the airfryer for a few minutes. Baked also worked, if you want it crispy go for airfryer. . Thank you for a great recipe! it’s a bit messy but delicious.

I have made this twice. There is some heat if you follow this to a tee. Pretty yummy! They reheat the next day, easily in a sauté pan with a lid, low heat; they’re almost better too! Unfortunately, I screwed up the second time I made them by washing the cauliflower first. The egg wash became watery and the nut coating would not stick. Lesson learned.

This was really good. I think the only change that I would make is to pre-cook the cauliflower. The coating wasn’t crispy, per se, but it was firm. I think it’s because of the amount of steam collected in the oven from the cauliflower. I did spray with avocado oil and I’m convinced it firmed up the crust.

Didn’t have a hot sauce, but did make a glaze with Sweet Baby Ray’s, honey, and sriracha. We’re meat eaters and we loved it.

Deeeeeeelish!! Used brown rice flour in place of the arrowroot powder, and didn’t have smoked paprika, so used the unsmoked. Still super yummy. Popped the leftovers (there were some!) in the air fryer to heat up the next day. Still super good. Mine weren’t terribly crispy, but I didn’t care (Maybe I needed to cook them longer?). This is a really good recipe. Yum!!

Finally, a crispy buffalo cauliflower recipe that actually works! This is SO GOOD, spicy but sweet with a great texture. Like others, I also accidentally made my coating into partial cashew butter so I stirred it all up in a bowl with egg-coated cauliflower before baking rather than coat individual pieces, and refrigerated for an hour. Turned out amazing.

Absolutely love this recipe and use it as a tape and alternate the type of hot sauce it’s tossed in – my fave so far is Korean gochujang sauce. Such a quick recipe that wows everyone!

tried and true, still making these on regular rotation!

Now we’re making a double batch of coating and putting 1/2 in the fridge for the next round of wings a few days later. Seemed to stick better after the coating spent some time in the fridge too…

Another great recipe but a little bit of a Pinterest FAIL for me! I don’t read too good and didn’t realize I was supposed to add the starch (I used cornstarch because) until after I had already processed the cashews. Also, I don’t have a “real” food processor either, and I was trying to get them to grind finer in my Cuisinart minichopper. So I kept pressing the “grind” button…… Short story long, I nearly ended up with cashew butter. OOPSY! I was determined to make it work so I forged ahead, pressing a thick glob of paste-like coating onto each floret. Messy work, and it didn’t coat the whole piece at all. But the taste and texture of the finished result was fantastic and the whole family loved these!

This was so good! I used coconut sriracha (sweet and spicy) as my hot sauce and it was perfect. I used two bowls as well for the coating and worked out really well.

These definitely score high on flavor. The glaze is what really makes them wing-like, and I like that you can use your own favorite hot sauce (I used a friend’s homemade habanero). The texture is just okay…I wished they were a little crunchier Maybe I needed to cook them longer? Perhaps the cauliflower just gives off too much juice when cooking. I can see how having an oil spritzer might have helped…I do not have one so I drizzled on a scant amount of olive oil but this lead to uneven browning. I flipped them about half way through the cook. **I would highly recommend splitting the dry crumb mixture in half.** When you get low, switch to other half of the fresh dry coating. My crumbs got so eggy and wet that my last handful of florets wound up naked because the egg-logged crumbs wouldn’t stick. I’m not sure I’d make these again…maybe? Good flavor; okay texture; nice and healthy!

I subbed regular flour and they turned out really good. Make sure if you use regular flour to put enough spray oil on – if not it stays a powdery flour.

This recipe is GREAT as written.

For whatever silly reason, I underestimated how spicy the recipe would be so I here I was – adding extra hot sauce (Yellow Bird Hab, as suggested) and WOW was I in for a surprise. It was still amazing, just on the border of “Oh my, can I handle another bite” as I repeatedly shoved them in my mouth while my eyes watered. So glad I used the suggested hot sauce. It has natural ingredients and is amazing. Recipe is great as is – don’t know why I tried to alter it. Next time I will just let perfection be perfection.

I could imagine those who struggle with this recipe may be trying to add more cornstarch/seasoning to ensure crispiness/flavor. Your flavor predominantly comes from the sauce added at the end and the cornstarch allocation is enough so stick to the proportions listed in the recipe and you’ll nail it.

Made it vegan and they were fabulous!

Soooo disappointed in these. I used eggs and followed the recipe to a T but baked them extra long and it was impossible to get them crispy as advertised. They absolutely need to be fried. I could feel/taste cornstarch between my teeth.

This is really good! Wings without the grease and guilt. I highly recommend Daiya Blue “Cheese” Dressing FTW. I used oat milk, cornstarch, and smoked salt. I also forgot to put lemon juice in the oat milk but I don’t think it needed it. I came upon a discovery due to my carelessness. I either had too large of a cauliflower or I failed to shake enough milk off my cauliflower. The last few pieces were not well coated because I had too much liquid in the breading. So as not to waste, I tasted the breading mixture that was pretty dough-like and decided to pat it out like crust on my baking sheet. It was delicious! Reminds me of cheese straws. I think I’ll make this again and add some nutritional yeast to the excess breading and have “cheese” straws. Thank you for all your amazing recipes! Thanks to you I’m truly enjoying a mostly plant-based diet!

These were so easy to make and delicious! I used almonds instead of cashews and it worked just fine, although you can taste a hint of almond, which is fine by me!

I honestly LOVE all of your recipes! Thanks so much for sharing these. I never have any alterations.

This was delicious!! First time making cauliflower wings and this is now my go-to recipe. Thank you so much for sharing!!

this has been out of our rotation for a bit, but we brought them back tonight and they are still amazing! In the past I’ve had trouble getting the breading to stick and was thinking it must be the vegan substitution for egg, but then I stumbled upon this nugget in the directions:

*you want it pretty fine so it coats the cauliflower*

So I cuisinarted the heck out of the coating to a much finer meal and…voila! coated perfectly. Thanks again for this recipe!

Brought them to bbq with my neighbors and they were gone in 5 min. Everyone asked for recipe! Also appreciate how simple they are to make.

I’m usually not a fan of wings, but my boyfriend is. I made these for him, but they were so tasty, I probably ended up eating most of them. LOVE this recipe.

These tasted delicious! Mine turned out less like wings though, and more like “chicken” nuggets. I used almond flour instead of cashews as others had suggested, and I dredged the cauliflower in equal parts cornstarch and almond milk. It turned out great! We tried half with a bbq glaze and actually preferred the flavor of the non-glazed (again, very reminiscent of chicken nuggets). Even though it wasn’t as crispy as I had envisioned, this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Sooooo good! Tried it with egg, and replaced arrowroot starch with equal amount panko crumbs (all we had). Also added tumeric and nutritional yeast to the spices. Yum!

I had a lot of batter/egg leftover, so I also breaded broccoli and extra firm tofu. SO GOOD. Would highlyyyyy recommend the extra firm tofu, cut into little rectangles!

I also had success with separating the dry coating into 2 bowls to help decrease clumping. Had no issues 😊

This tasted so great! The flavor and spice filled my mouth. Texture was unique and satisfying.
I did run into difficulty however as I was dredging. After about half the cauliflower, the coating became too moist and it no longer coated at all.
All in all, I would absolutely make this again and just adjust the dredging process in some way.

I made these today, and OMG they are amazing. These are seriously my new favorite food. The whole recipe was very easy to make, especially the delicious sauce. I ended up making a double batch of the sauce to put on top because it tasted so good! (I used Franks for the hot/buffalo sauce part since that’s what I had on hand)

AMAZING! I’ve made these multiple times but have always used ground almonds instead of cashews (to avoid getting out the food processor) and they are just perfect. I’ve also tried this using courgettes when I didn’t have cauliflower and it turned out great too!

AH-Mazing!! I used AlmondFlour instead of cashews everytime I’ve made this and it turns out fantastic. Even my husband who hates cauliflower couldn’t stop eating them. They’re a weekly regular recipe in this house now.

This recipe was amazing. It was my first time trying a cashew crust instead of bread crumbs and now I am hooked! Tossed mine in some store-bought buffalo sauce for simplicity and my husband and I ate the whole head of cauliflower in one sitting!

Note- I don’t know if it is because I dredged mine too much but I cooked mine 30 minutes to get crispy.

This worked really well for me! I didn’t use avocado oil and I didn’t add salt To the coating since I was using salted roasted cashews.

One tip: if you have a bread silpat (the kind that has holes in it) use that on top of the cooling rack (or I bet it’d get crispier even sitting on the baking sheet itself).

I used another recipe for gobi manchurian sauce. I’d love a MB recreation of that too. Thanks for a yummy recipe Dana!

Here’s the bread silpat.

Great recipe!

I modified it by replacing cashews with ground almonds (1 cup) and the remaining half a cup with a mixture of hemp seeds and nutritional yeast. Also replaced cayenne with cumin. I would next time use less salt (about half a teaspoon).

Overall would definitely make again!

Yum! This recipe turned out so so well :)

I forgot to spray the bites with oil before baking, but they still turned out. I think they would be a bit crunchier with a bit of oil, so I will try not to skip that step next time.

Definitely a keeper

5 out of 5 stars! This was so easy to modify. I had only a handful of cashews so I substituted bread crumbs, almond meal, and walnuts. I use maple syrup for the glaze. I ate the whole head of cauliflower myself.
The only suggestion I have is to bake them at a slightly higher heat and flip them over during baking so they crisp up. Yum!

I’ve made this recipe with the milk/lemon substitute. Another time I made it with with plain cashew yogurt+some water. Both turned out great.

If your oven has a convection setting, I suggest using it for the last few minutes of cooking to really get things golden and crusty.

Delicious success!

Excellent! I modified the recipe with what I had on hand: in place of paprika and sea salt, I instead used just a smoked sea salt in the breading, for flour I used one tablespoon of tapioca starch. I added a lot of red pepper flakes. I also tried it with broccoli florets and that was just as amazing as the cauliflower! They really don’t hold up after they cool down though, I definitely recommend enjoying them immediately.

Third time making this and it did not disappoint!

Tried the vegan milk/lemon this time – worked better than flax egg, not as good as real egg, but good enough to satisfy the vegan and non vegan in the house!

Sprayed the cooling rack with olive oil before putting the cauli on this time and it was super helpful in keeping the breading from sticking! Also sprayed with olive oil on the cauli “wings” before cooking and that seemed to help w/ crispiness.

I did not reserve the breading during the coating process this time, and that was a mistake, it does get clumpy and makes it hard for the last of the cauliflowers to get breaded. Next time I’ll go back to using it in phases.

Used a 2:1 mix of cashew to almonds for the breading and it was great, will do that again.

Thanks!

I made these using Just eggs and the breading stuck very well! It got clumpy with the last few but honestly even those turned out well. I’ve had cauliflower wings before that I’ve really enjoyed but these just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t use avocado oil, not sure it would make a huge difference, but they looked amazing. I made half with the hot sauce per the recipe and the other half with a spicy bbq sauce sub. Both sauces tasted pretty good. I appreciate the breading made from cashews, it’s a interesting idea! but I think a gluten free flour breading would be my preferred.

I had tried a restaurant’s cauliflower buffalo wings dish once before and thought I’d be ruined on it forever (it was NOT good!). But this recipe is perfection!! We were surprised how much we enjoyed it and with minimal frying or unhealthy ingredients. DELICIOUS!

I got to watch my kids (2 out of 3 anyhow) snarf down cauliflower!!!!! These were fun for the kids to make (my kids are older – middle school and HS aged, but they hate to cook usually) and really easy.

My subs because of what we have on hand:

-Flax milk for the egg.
-GF Panko and garlic salt. I had to Cuisinart the breading because the Panko was too large, but it worked beautifully.

Our sauce ended up super spicy, so some of us opted for a ranch/sauce mix and it was delectable!

Have made these twice now with small variations for a vegetarian vs. vegan. Both were delicious!

– Noticed that the egg dip version worked better than using a flax egg dip to get the crust to adhere to the cauliflower. with the flax egg I had to keep watering it down. Haven’t tried the milk/lemon yet.
– the drizzle makes a positive difference in crispiness of the finished “wings” – the egg may have something to do with that too.
– while I’m not a big sauce person (usually sauce on the side) tossing or drizzling at the end both worked well and were tasty. love the honey/buffalo combo!
-both times the cauliflower stuck to the cooling rack, which made some of the coating peel away. boo!
Next time I will give the cooling rack a little spray or brush of oil to see if that helps. Because there will most definitely be a next time for these. I also may try a sub for the cashews cause they are so darned expen$ive!

Fairly easy recipe to throw together. And for those non-cauliflower believers, prepare to become converted! Delish!!

Pretty disappointed with this recipe. I made the vegan version, and I don’t think this recipe works well with the vegan substitutions suggested above. The breading adhered well to the first 10 or so florets, and then it started to get clumpy and wouldn’t stay on. I tried adding some panko and more starch to the dry mixture, and some flax to the wet mixture, and it helped some, but not a lot. Then when the florets came out of the oven, they were browning but not crispy. When I tossed them in the sauce, all the coating came off the florets. I wish I had read the reviews before making this— I see that others who tried the vegan version also dealt with the same issues. If you’re vegan, try another recipe!

Instead of just plant milk with lemon I used two flax eggs, the breading stuck extremely well. First cauliflower wings that ever worked for me x

Made this yesterday, and WOW. LOVED IT. Thank you so much for the recipe!!

So, so good. Like another reader, I made with almond flour to skip the food processing step and it worked perfectly. We ate ours with aioli for dipping after drizzling with the honey sauce rather than tossing to keep things a little crispier. Will definitely make again!

I love these. I’ve made them a few times and this last time I ran out of cashews so I had to substitute with some GF breadcrumbs to make up the amount but it worked out.

We had these over leftover waffles from this weekend, with a drizzle of maple syrup (kind of like chicken and waffle), and a green salad on the side. It was soooooooo good!

Once Again,
A true WINNER!!! SO GOOD!!! You are a Wizardess!!! True magic here! These are better than any wings I’ve ever had in the past. Just remember…the hotter the hot sauce…the hotter the “wings”. I made them less hot for my 91 year old father by adding extra honey to the glaze.
Thank you again for adding zest , pleasure, color and conversation to our meals over the past 20 years!
xo

Wow, wow, wow. Never chicken wings again. My “meaty” husband love it. Thanks!

First of all this is absolutely delicious and too easy to NOT make.

Ok so I tried making this the vegan way, with oat milk and lemon juice as my starter. Unfortunately the cashew mixture didn’t really stick to it, and after baking and gently mixing with the sauce, the last of the coating came off. :( So as an experiment, the next time I make it, I’m going to dip the cauliflower into the sauce, then into the cashews. I’m hoping the slight stickiness from the maple syrup will help the cashews adhere better, and then I don’t have to mix a darn thing when they’re done baking. And even if it doesn’t work, I will continue to make this and just scrape up those yummy crunchy bits with a fork at the end. :) Love this, Dana!!

Fantastic really tasty the kids loved it as a after school snack

:)

Brilliant idea to use cashews in the coating for crunch. And, they make it a heartier recipe overall. First time I made it I didn’t dry the cauliflower enough and left the coating a bit chunky, so I lost quite a bit in the pan. Still delicious though! Remedied the second time by making it a bit finer. This recipe is a keeper!

Made this, tasted amazing! It’s a bit of work to coat the califlower one piece at the time, but definetely worth it! Thank you for the great recipe!

This was absolutely, finger-licking delicious! I find raw cashews to be very expensive, so I used almond flour and they were still amazing. A bonus when using almond flour is that you can skip the food processing step. I’d give this more than 5 stars if I could!

Great recipe! I subbed ground roasted sesame seeds for cashews and brown rice flour for arrowroot out of convenience, and the result was great! I baked most of it as directed, and pan fried the remainder that wouldn’t fit on the pan with some firm tofu.
I used the glaze on the pan fried version, and had a hemp ranch dip for the oven baked cauli. I would definitely make this again, and will try it with other veggies too.

I made these last night, and they were delicious. My kids loved them, and they aren’t huge cauliflower fans. I used cornstarch instead of the arrowroot, because it’s what I had on hand. I also used salted cashews and added less salt to the coating. Using a cooling rack, really helped the bottom of these crisp up! This recipe will be in heavy rotation at my house.

Great flavors! I made these vegan using dairy milk/lemon as suggested. Tasted great. I found that I had way too much of the cashew mixture (even for a bigger head of cauliflower) and not enough glaze (I made a second batch of glaze). If making again, I would use half the cashews and make twice as much glaze.

Saw these on IG in the morning and went out to buy a head of cauliflower in the afternoon. These are delicious! The hubs and I couldn’t stop eating them so we finished the whole thing and called it dinner. Addictive, delicious, and easy to make!

These are wonderful! Thank you for sharing the recipe. I’m going to try the almond meal idea next time.