This Healthy Chickpea and Cauliflower Casserole Is for Buffalo Sauce-Lovers Only

Buffalo sauce can be a polarizing flavor. The intensity of the spiciness and tanginess is too much for a lot of people, but some of us put it on every salad, sandwich, or chicken wing we can get our hands on. If you like Buffalo sauce, you’re going to love this very easy, very healthful casserole of chickpeas and cauliflower in spicy Buffalo sauce. 

This casserole includes brown rice, which cooks right in the baking dish with the vegetables. To speed things up a bit, the author suggests bringing bringing the vegetable broth to a boil on the stove with bottled Buffalo sauce, a bit of onion powder, and some nutritional yeast. 

While the liquid heats up, arrange rinsed, drained chickpeas over the bottom of your casserole dish in an even layer. Top the chickpeas with cauliflower florets and a bit of diced celery. Spread your uncooked brown rice over the top of the other ingredients, but don’t stir them up. 

When the stock and hot sauce come to a boil, add some minced fresh garlic, then pour the liquid over the casserole dish. Don’t stir it now either. Cover the dish and bake it for about an hour. When you take it out, the cauliflower and rice should be tender and ready to eat. It should also have soaked up all that Buffalo hot sauce. Drizzle it with a plant-based ranch dressing to keep the recipe vegan, or you can use your favorite ranch or blue cheese dressing if you don’t mind the dairy. 

The author says you can add up to a cup of other vegetables if you like, and that broccoli and kale would be particularly good. You can also swap the chickpeas for another kind of bean, depending on what you like or what you happen to have in your pantry. The author does not recommend substituting some other rice for the brown rice in the recipe, though. A different variety would require a different amount of liquid and a different cooking time, so you can’t just swap white rice for brown in this recipe and expect it to turn out the same. 

Get the recipe: Buffalo Cauliflower Chickpea Casserole from From My Bowl

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