This chipotle chili and garlic cauliflower fried rice is loaded with flavor, light, and so fresh. It’s sprinkled with chipotle chili powder for an extra kick while retaining the comfort food quality of fried rice, and serving up a hearty helping of nutrients.
Chipotle Chili and Garlic Cauliflower Fried Rice:
Besides being delicious, cauliflower has a crazy low calorie and carbohydrate content and huge fiber, vitamin/mineral content, so it once again swayed me to put together this new recipe using riced cauliflower in place of rice. I love the idea of sneaking in vegetables packed with fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins/minerals over eating much emptier calories, and having a healthy alternative is always a good thing. Rice is a great option for body builders and athletes for its glycemic content, but I don’t think my beginner yoga necessarily burns it the same way. Considering riced cauliflower carries 10% of the calories rice does, I feel like everyone should test this one out and I can almost guarantee you’ll be shocked by how much you DON’T miss actual rice.
Fried rice is the perfect place to start with swapping out starches like rice with cauliflower because you can pick the veggies that go into it, it’s seasoned the same way as regular fried rice, and I’m just a big fan of fried rice in general.
For this recipe you can use frozen or fresh carrots, peas, and corn, but do yourself a favor and rice your own cauliflower. It sounds daunting, but it’s so much easier than you would think and gives this recipe a freshness quality that you just won’t get from frozen cauliflower. I won’t judge you if you use frozen, but someday, definitely try it with fresh cauliflower and see the difference for yourself.
How to Make Cauliflower Rice:
For those of you ready to go all in with fresh cauliflower, you’ll need either a handheld grater or a grater attachment for your food processor. I highly recommend getting a food processor, it makes life so much easier when you want to use fresh ingredients.
Clean your fresh head of cauliflower and simply grate it into a bowl and set it aside (you now have cauliflower "rice" that's ready to cook!).
I’m a big believer in prepping my ingredients first. Prep is usually the longest part of a recipe so it floors me when I see a recipe with 10 different types of ingredients that are chopped/diced/sliced/etc and a prep time of 5 min. If you’re using frozen veggies for this one, your prep time is obviously lower, but using using fresh really won’t add THAT much time. Just prep them first and have them ready to go, and keep your cauliflower in a separate bowl from the other ingredients (it gets added in after they’ve cooked and softened). I used frozen peas but fresh cauliflower, corn, carrots, shallots, and garlic and my overall prep time was about 15 minutes, bringing my overall prep AND cook time to a little over half an hour!
Shop My Favorite Kitchen Essentials for this Recipe!
click photos for links!
Looking for some other delicious recipes? Check these out!
click photos to link to recipe!
TAG @BINGEWORTHYBITES ON INSTAGRAM AND HASHTAG IT! #BINGEWORTHYBITES
Looking for MORE recipes? Don’t worry, I gotchu. Try sesame soy roasted edamame, sea salt caramel apple [oatmeal] cookies, perfect Fall pumpkin muffins,or my favorite pumpkin roll delight!
*This post may include affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Chipotle Chili and Garlic Cauliflower Fried Rice
Ingredients
- 2 lbs cauliflower grated (about 2 heads of cauliflower)
- 1 large carrots
- 1 large shallot finely diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- ½ cup corn (fresh or frozen)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoon sesame seed oil
- 1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)
- ⅓ cup low sodium soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger double this measurement if you're using fresh ginger*
- ½ teaspoon ground chipotle chili
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 4 eggs scrambled
- sea salt flakes to taste*
Instructions
- Prep Cauliflower: you’ll need either a handheld grater or a grater attachment for your food processor. I highly recommend getting a food processor, it makes life so much easier when you want to use fresh ingredients. Clean your fresh head of cauliflower and simply grate it into a bowl and set it aside (you now have cauliflower "rice" that's ready to cook!).
- Prep the rest of the ingredients: dice your carrots and shallots, slice your corn off the cob, and mince your garlic and set aside.
- Drizzle sesame seed oil over the stir frying vegetables and let them cook about 10-15 minutes (or until carrots have softened).
- Stir in grated cauliflower gradually adding soy sauce as you mix and combine well with other vegetables.
- Next, stir in peas (I try to do those last so they don’t get mushy or break part from stirring).
- In a separate pan (or the same pan if you have room), melt butter and scramble your eggs. Once cooked, add them to your stir fry and gently (watch your peas) fold them in.
- Season the whole mixture with chipotle chili powder, ginger, and a pinch of salt.
- Serve hot and enjoy!
Leave a Reply