Salads aren’t just for the warm weather months, but when I get my vegetable cravings in the winter I change up my salads with heartier vegetables and ingredients that have warm, smoky flavors, like roasted vegetables and smoked paprika. This Roasted Cauliflower Salad is actually a play on one of my other favorite salads, Mediterranean Farro Salad. I used the same Lemon Tahini Dressing (because it’s so good that I want to pour it on everything) and spiced chickpeas because I thought they would provide just the right punch to complement the mellow roasted cauliflower. The combination of roasted cauliflower, sweet red onions, spiced chickpeas, and tangy lemon tahini dressing might be my favorite yet!
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Other Salad Greens Options:
Parsley is a great green to use for salads because it’s cheap and the presence is subtle enough to not over power the cauliflower and chickpeas. Baby spinach would also work, as would finely chopped kale, but both will likely be a bit more expensive.
What is Tahini?
Tahini is the star ingredient for the delicious lemon tahini dressing for this salad. If you’ve never heard of tahini, it’s just like peanut butter, but made with sesame seeds instead of peanuts. It has a creamy yet slightly sharp flavor that is totally unique. It’s usually about twice the price of peanut butter, but it’s a valuable ingredient and stays good in the fridge for just about forever (just like peanut butter). You can use it to make gobs of delicious homemade hummus, as well as this amazing lemon tahini dressing. I promise you’ll want more of this dressing.
What to Serve with Roasted Cauliflower Salad
This Roasted Cauliflower Salad is really filling, so it can definitely stand on its own as a vegetarian main dish, but if you want to make something to go on the side, it also goes great with Focaccia Rolls, Herb Roasted Chicken Breast, Homemade Naan, Greek Turkey Burgers, or Creamy Mushroom Soup.
Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing
Servings 4Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower ($2.99)
- 1/2 red onion ($0.55)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.32)
- Salt and Pepper to taste ($0.05)
- 1/2 bunch parsley ($0.45)
LEMON TAHINI DRESSING
- 1/3 cup tahini ($1.13)
- 1/3 cup water ($0.00)
- 1/4 cup lemon juice ($0.18)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 1/2 tsp cumin ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp cayenne ($0.03)
- 1/4 tsp salt ($0.02)
SPICED CHICKPEAS
- 1 15oz. can chickpeas ($0.79)
- 1 Tbsp olive oil ($0.16)
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder ($0.03)
- 1/8 tsp cayenne ($0.02)
- Salt and Pepper to taste ($0.05)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Chop the cauliflower into small florets and place them on a large baking sheet. Slice the red onion into 1/4-inch strips and place them on the baking sheet. Drizzle the cauliflower and onions with olive oil and season with a pinch or two of salt and pepper. Toss the cauliflower and onions until coated in oil, salt, and pepper.
- Roast the cauliflower and onions in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, then stir, return them to the oven, and roast for an additional 10-15 minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender and browned on the edges. Let the cauliflower cool slightly.
- While the cauliflower and onions are roasting, make the lemon tahini dressing. Add the tahini, water, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, cayenne, and salt to a blender. Blend until smooth, then refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Drain and rinse the can of chickpeas. Add them to a skillet along with the olive oil, smoked paprika, cayenne, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir and cook the chickpeas over medium heat for about five minutes, or until they sizzle and become slightly crispy. Remove the chickpeas from the heat.
- Pull the parsley leaves from their stems and roughly chop the leaves into small pieces (about 1.5 cups loosely packed, once chopped).
- To build the salad, combine the roasted cauliflower and onions in a bowl with the spiced chickpeas and chopped parsley. Drizzle the lemon tahini dressing over top, and toss to combine. Serve warm or cold.
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Nutrition
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Try this lemon tahini dressing drizzled over all your favorite roasted vegetables!
How to Make Roasted Cauliflower Salad – Step by Step Photos
Begin by preheating the oven to 400ºF. Chop one head of cauliflower into florets. Slice 1/2 of a red onion into 1/4-inch strips. Place the cauliflower and onions on a large baking sheet. Drizzle the vegetables with 2 Tbsp olive oil and a couple pinches of salt and pepper. Toss the vegetables until they are well coated in oil, salt, and pepper.
Roast the cauliflower and onion for 20 minutes, stir, then return them to the oven and roast for another 10-15 minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender and the edges browned. (the sides touching the baking sheet brown fastest, so you’ll see more browning once you give it a final stir).
While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the lemon tahini dressing. Place 1/3 cup tahini, 1/3 cup water, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp cayenne, and 1/4 tsp salt in a blender. Blend until the dressing is smooth. Refrigerate the dressing until you’re ready to serve the salad.
To prepare the spiced chickpeas, drain and rinse one 15oz. can of chickpeas. Add the drained chickpeas to a skillet along with 1 Tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 1/8 tsp cayenne, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Stir and cook the chickpeas for about 5 minutes over medium heat or until they begin to sizzle and become slightly crispy on the outside. Remove them from the heat. (I like to do this in a non-stick skillet.)
Pull the leaves from about 1/2 bunch of parsley and chop them into small pieces (about 1.5 cups loosely packed once chopped). To build the salad, combine the roasted cauliflower and onions with the spiced chickpeas and chopped parsley…
Drizzle the lemon tahini dressing over top…
Stir to combine, and enjoy! You can enjoy this Roasted Cauliflower Salad slightly warm from the oven, or chilled after storing in the refrigerator.
Having an over abundance of Cauliflower, I tried this recipe. I didn’t have tahini, so used sun butter. It was AMAZING. So flavorful. I had 3 helpings. Sadly there isn’t much left for lunch tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to make it again soon.
Delicious and healthy!
Great side dish, thank you!
Arab-American here. WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS!!! Wonderful, brilliant frankly! Roasted cauliflower with taratoor (tahini plus lemon plus garlic plus water) is a staple for fish, cauliflower, falafel. Bravo for making this into a salad with the chickpeas.
Delicious! Thank you 🙂
This salad is fantastic! I always avoided parsley, but this time, I enjoyed it and I will make this salad part of my salad routine. I am eating less meat and more salad and this makes it so easy. Thanks so much for this one!!!
This was amazing! I was never a cauliflower fan, but often receive some purple cauliflower in my CSA box, so was looking for a recipe. I did not have tahini, so instead added a splash of sesame oil to the lemon juice & spices (omitting the water), and it was delicious. Will make this again for sure.
Update: I made this again with the tahini, but liked it better with the sesame oil! Still yummy.
Cut back on the garlic, so you can taste the tahini and lemon…. be careful… otherwise delicious
This is my go-to party salad – unexpected, healthy, so yummy, and can be served at room temp. I have a sharable file for the dressing ingredients (with a link to the recipe) because other guests will ask for it. Come prepared!
Great flavors!
I doubled the dressing, doubled the garbanzo bean portion and added pearl couscous to give it a little more substance for a standalone meal. Will definitely be making this again, thank you for another great recipe!
I made this today for the 4th time and it’s delicious! Last time I made it, instead of using home made tahini, I tried Trader Joe’s tahini, and it was terrible! Home made tahini is the key! Thanks again for this delicious recipe!
Hey Marilee, I work for Trader Joe’s and depending on your region, the tahini is just sesame paste, not a sauce or dressing. I am familiar with the the tahini sauce we used to have in southern California and agree that the recipe here is far better!
Everyone loved it. All the components worked so beautifully together, it looks pretty on the plate and it’s easy and affordable to make. The dressing will definitely be made for all sorts of things as well as when I make this again.
Hi, love this recipe greatly and will make it one of our staple meals! We’re calorie counting though. Do you have the list of calories and nutrients i.e how many grams of protein, carbohydrates, fat, saturated fat, milligrams of sodium for each serve. And lastly how many grams is one serve? This is for 4 servings so I guess the full weight divided by 4. Thank you so much for your time. This will just help greatly with counting the Caroline’s and helping us to lose weight and become fitter l!
We only recently brought on a Registered Dietician to our team. She’s working hard behind the scenes to update the entire recipe database, over 1500+ recipes, with nutritional information. She’s working her way from the newest recipes back and it takes some time to update them all. Stay tuned!
I had a great chuckle over the phase, ‘counting the Carolines’. (It made me wonder too if this new dietician will have that name!)
Fabulous, and that dressing is gold. Used about half for the recipe and the other half is being used all week. Drizzled on avocado toast, cucumber/carrot/tomato salad, dipped baby carrots in it, drizzled on sweet potato cakes, and plan on drizzling it over just about everything I can find to eat!
This recipe is INCREDIBLE and easy to make! The dressing tastes like hummus! And with all those flavors mixed together? Just wow. Definitely one of my favorites now.
I made this salad tonight and I have since let all my friends and family know it is one worth trying. I love everything about it. I made two substitutions because that is what I had on hand…yellow onion instead of red onion. Also, I had no parsley and so made it more of a salad with romaine. It is excellent! I am going to take it to work for lunch tomorrow. I’ll add some roasted sweet potatoes and dried cranberries. I can’t wait…