Cheesy Baked Cauliflower

By Andy Baraghani

Published Nov. 6, 2024

Cheesy Baked Cauliflower
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
1 hour 10 minutes
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
1 hour
Rating
4(610)
Comments
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A person could, in theory, just pour cream over cauliflower, drape it with cheese, bake it and be happy with the results. But taking just a few minutes to infuse that cream with garlic and rosemary — or other herbs, or citrus peels, or fresh or dried chiles — creates a side dish that might actually overshadow the main. Once your cauliflower is bathed in the scented cream and sprinkled with cheese, make sure your baking dish is tightly covered with foil for the first part of the baking process, so the cauliflower steams and softens. After that, uncover and let the cauliflower continue to bake until the cheese has melted and crisped up. You can swap out the cauliflower for sliced potatoes, fennel or other vegetables, which would be equally impressive.

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Ingredients

Yield:8 servings
  • 4garlic cloves, finely grated
  • 2rosemary sprigs
  • 2cups heavy cream
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 1head cauliflower (about 2½ pounds)
  • 3medium shallots
  • 2cups/6 ounces grated sharp white Cheddar
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)

345 calories; 29 grams fat; 18 grams saturated fat; 1 gram trans fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 14 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 6 grams sugars; 10 grams protein; 578 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Combine garlic, rosemary and cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring and watching carefully to make sure the cream doesn’t boil over, until the rosemary has slightly wilted and lost some of its color, 4 to 6 minutes. Turn off the heat and season with salt and pepper. Pluck out and discard the rosemary sprigs.

  2. Step 2

    Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the cauliflower in half and break apart the florets, separating them from the thick stems; thinly slice the stems. (It’s OK if some of the florets are very small and some are big.) Cut in half any pieces that are larger than 3 inches. Quarter the shallots through their roots and remove their skins.

  3. Step 3

    Arrange the cauliflower and shallots in a 2-quart baking dish. Pour the garlicky cream over top. (Not all of the cauliflower will be buried under the cream, but that’s OK.) Scatter the cheese on top and cover tightly with foil.

  4. Step 4

    Bake until the cauliflower and shallots are tender and the edges are starting to brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Uncover and continue to bake until the top is deep golden brown, another 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool slightly before serving.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
610 user ratings
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Comments

Avani.

Soupy! Reading other comments, I made a thick béchamel with cream and yet. I think cauliflower inherently has just too much water content and all that is released when raw cauliflower is cooked covered in a salted sauce, covered tightly. I’ve made cauliflower gratins with cauliflower that is par cooked before adding to the sauce and uncovered when baking and it does not end up soupy.

Christine the Baker

Silly recipe. There needs to be a roux. There should be a classic, simple bechamel base to which you add cheese. As it is, just pouring heavy cream over, the cream slides and drips right off the veg. These veggies will not absorb liquid, they give liquid off. Even if you baked this long enough for the cream to evaporate to the point it thickened, the amount left over would be so scant the dish would lose any lushness. The point of creamed vegetables is to be luxurious, velvety, rich. Make a roux with 2 T. butter and 2 T. flour. Bob’s your uncle. If you want it to be low carb, melt some cream cheese into the cream to make a thickened sauce. It’s a nice option. Works well.

Penni Orlandini

An update on my previous comment. I flipped each piece of cauliflower over, added a sprinkling of more cheese (sharp cheddar and fontina) and ran under the broiler for about 6-7 minutes! Turned out creamy not soupy

Caren

Delicious, but with an unpleasant curdled texture.

JR

First, shallots, rosemary and garlic are all the wrong flavors for cauliflower. The cream curdled when it baked, making the dish horribly oily. This dish is even worse leftover, and I was stuck with it because he refused to eat it. And I love cauliflower! What happened to the delicious cauliflower and cheese bake I grew up eating? Was it Velveeta in a bechamel? I will never make this recipe again.

Erin.

I reviewed the comments & thought--eh, I'll still give it a shot. I made the recipe as described, but with one change: I doubled the quantity of cheese. Frankly, I almost always double the quantity of cheese in recipes. I like cheese. And I'd say the result had about the exact right amount of moisture for the dish--enough for maybe one spoonful of creamy deliciousness to sit at the bottom of the empty bowl. The garlic and rosemary really came through, too.

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