Recipe: Buffalo Cauliflower Lettuce Wraps

Christine Gallary
Christine GallarySenior Recipe Editor at The Kitchn
I grew up in a Chinese food-loving family, eating my first restaurant meals in Oakland's vibrant Chinatown. My love of food but lack of cooking experience led to me Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where I graduated with a Diplôme de Cuisine in French cooking. After culinary school, I learned how to test and edit recipes in test kitchens at Cook's Illustrated and CHOW, falling in love with the process of rigorously testing recipes to make sure they were foolproof for the home cook. I've worked with thousands of recipes over the past 15 years, including developing recipes for the James Beard-award winning Mister Jiu's in Chinatown cookbook. Living in the delicious diversity of San Francisco, I never get tired of finding new ingredients or cuisines to try. My favorite type is Cantonese home cooking — I'm on a quest to recreate the dishes my grandmother used to make. All the food I test at home is eagerly tasted and enjoyed by my husband, Hayden, and daughter, Sophie, while our little dog, Mochi, looks wistfully on.
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updated Jan 29, 2020
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Credit: Maria Siriano

Serves4

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(Image credit: Maria Siriano)

You’ve probably heard of cauliflower as a stand-in for steak or rice by now, but what about chicken? In this recipe, roasted cauliflower florets are doused in buffalo wing sauce and wrapped up in crunchy lettuce leaves for a vegetarian take on buffalo wings.

(Image credit: Maria Siriano)

After small cauliflower florets are roasted in a hot oven until crisp, they’re tossed with the traditional hot sauce-butter mixture. Fill lettuce cups with the sauced cauliflower, top with creamy blue cheese crumbles and thinly sliced celery, and now you’ve got a fun appetizer or game-day snack that hits all the right notes of crunchy, spicy, salty, sour, and creamy.

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Buffalo Cauliflower Lettuce Wraps

Serves 4

Nutritional Info

Ingredients

For the cauliflower:

  • 1

    small head cauliflower (about 2 pounds)

  • 2 tablespoons

    olive oil

  • 1/4 teaspoon

    fine salt

  • 1/3 cup

    Frank's RedHot sauce

  • 2 tablespoons

    unsalted butter

For the wraps:

  • 8

    small iceberg lettuce leaves (about 3 to 4 inches in diameter)

  • 1 stalk

    celery, very thinly sliced crosswise

  • 1/2 cup

    crumbled blue cheese

Instructions

  1. For the cauliflower: Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 450°F. Place a rimmed baking sheet in the oven while it is heating.

  2. Core the cauliflower and cut it into very small 1-inch florets that don't have any stem attached. Place the cauliflower in a medium bowl, drizzle with the oil, season with the salt, and toss to combine.

  3. Remove the hot baking sheet from the oven, transfer the cauliflower onto the sheet, and spread into an even layer. Roast until browned in spots but still crisp-tender, stirring halfway through, about 12 minutes total. Meanwhile, whisk the hot sauce and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until warmed through (alternatively, heat it in the microwave). Remove the pan from the heat.

  4. When the cauliflower is ready, transfer it to the saucepan and stir to coat in the sauce. Divide the cauliflower mixture over the lettuce leaves, top with the celery and blue cheese, and serve.

Filed in:
Cheese
easy
Gluten-Free
greens
Lunch
Main Dish