Loaded Cauliflower Tots. I repeat: LOADED CAULIFLOWER TOTS! These babies taste just like a baked potato, all wrapped up in a delicious and savory cauliflower tot!
Friends, the time has come for you to go make yourselves these LOADED Cauliflower Tots.
They’re simply delicious and will blow your mind with the texture, flavor, and — yet — healthiness, all in tater tot form. Amazing!
This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.
These tasty tots are loaded with all the deliciousness of a baked potato, yet are low in carbs (just 1.5 carbs)! From one tater tot lover to the next, these are next level tots. Plus, you only need 8 ingredients to make them right now!
Make sure to dip your cauliflower tots in THIS greek yogurt ranch dip to be in healthy tater tot heaven.
When I made broccoli tots for the first time, my mind was totally blown at how easy it could be to turn something that’s super not good for you into something that’s actually healthy. My kids still ask me to make them broccoli tots ALL the time. Broccoli tots! Super cool. BTW if you want my broccoli tots recipe, you can click here.
Then, I made crispy sweet potato tots because YES and we all need sweet potato tots in our lives. These were a big hit, too.
Recently, I have started to realize all the possibilities of turning lower carb, higher nutrients veggies into tots. A great veggie to turn into a tot is cauliflower. I figured I would try out cauliflower tots since cauliflower looks so similar to potatoes and can mimic them in so many ways (see my cauliflower mashed potatoes and cauliflower gratin posts for more on that).
To add more flavor and texture into the cauliflower tots, we made them loaded with all the yummy and savory flavors of a baked potato, like crispy bacon, sliced green onion, and cheddar cheese. OMG these are my new fave. While I love the broccoli tots and sweet potato tots we’ve made, too, there’s just something about the cauliflower — maybe it’s the color or the fact that it’s loaded with all sorts of goodness, they’re probably my fave.
Making cauliflower tots paleo is actually pretty easy. Since we’re already avoiding breadcrumbs and lots of oils and processed foods, we’re on the right track for paleo cauliflower tots. Depending on your paleo beliefs, you may or may not choose to eat dairy. Since dairy is the only thing in this recipe that isn’t 100% paleo, you can remove the shredded cheddar cheese and greek yogurt to make it paleo.
You could use a paleo cheese substitute, but it’s not necessary. Those ingredients are added especially to make these loaded cauliflower tots taste, well, loaded. They’re not essential for the tots to hold together when baked. This is also how you would make these cauliflower tots non-dairy, too.
This is the beautiful thing about using cauliflower instead of potato to make your homemade tots recipe — you’re already reducing the carbs a significant amount. Plus, when baked, we don’t have to worry about any uneccesary oils to fry them in. Consider this: 1 cup of cooked potato is 26 carbs. Compare that to 1 cup of cooked cauliflower, which is just 5 carbs. Pretty drastic, right?
In one serving of these tots, which I’d say is about 6, you just have 1.5 carbs. That’s it! Crazy, right? All the stuff we add to make it loaded are also low carb, namely the dairy and bacon, which are both higher in protein and fat to make the tots filling. It’s a beautiful thing!
Since I mostly follow a clean eating lifestyle, I don’t use breadcrumbs in my recipes. Instead, I love to replace them with almond meal. Adding almond meal not only helps to make this recipe gluten-free, clean, and paleo, it also adds in additional nutrients and protein, without any of the empty carbs that you would get from breadcrumbs.
In order to make cauliflower tots with almond flour, just replace 1:1 the amount of breadcrumbs you would normally use. The almond flour (or almond meal) will work perfectly and you’ll never even notice the difference with the taste!
This cauliflower tots recipe uses one egg to help hold it all together, but it’s easy to replace the egg if you’d like to make these tots without eggs. You can just try to form them together without an egg, which will be more difficult, but not impossible, or you can make a flax egg substitute. Flax “eggs” are a great alternative for those who have allergies to eggs. To do so, you’ll need to make one flax egg, which is made by combining flaxseed meal and water.
TO MAKE 1 FLAX EGG, COMBINE: 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed 3 tablespoons of waterStir well, and then allow the mixture to set for about 5-10 minutes. Then, use as you would a regular egg. This can also be done using ground chia seeds.
Loaded Cauliflower Tots. I repeat: LOADED CAULIFLOWER TOTS! These babies taste just like a baked potato, all wrapped up in a delicious and savory cauliflower tot!
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
Break the cauliflower into florets.
Place the cauliflower florets into a steamer basket and cook, over high heat, until tender. Once they’re cooked, set them aside to cool.
Cook nitrate-free bacon in a skillet over medium-high heat until it’s crispy, then chop it into small pieces. Set this aside.
Mash the cooked cauliflower in a mixing bowl until it’s evenly mashed. You can use either a potato masher or a food processor.
Take 3 cups of the mashed cauliflower and add it to a large mixing bowl, and then add an egg, the chopped bacon, almond meal, shredded cheddar cheese, plain greek yogurt, sliced green onions, sea salt, garlic powder, and pepper. Stir this together until completely mixed. Scoop approximately 1 heaping tablespoon of this mixture using your hands and gently press between your fingers to form a ball, then shape into a tater-tot shape. Place the tot on the prepared baking sheet, and then repeat with the remaining mixture.Place in the oven and bake until golden brown and crispy, about 25-30 minutes, turning after 20 minutes, once the bottom side is golden brown. (Be careful when you flip them, as they can stick to the parchment paper.)
This post contains affiliate links for products I use regularly and highly recommend.
The post Loaded Cauliflower Tots appeared first on A Sweet Pea Chef.
Happy Sunday loves. I’m about to start Day 1 of my honeymoon adventure in Australia, BUT before that I’ve got a Round Up Sunday for you that I just had to share. I think we’ve covered our bases for cookies to bake this holiday season (if you missed them, check out all 41 here). Apparently you [...]
The post 33 Brownie & Bar Recipes You’re Going to Love appeared first on Ambitious Kitchen.
