This recipe for buffalo cauliflower bites is crispy cauliflower florets baked to perfection and coated in spicy buffalo sauce. Serve these cauliflower buffalo wings with ranch dip for the ultimate party snack!
I love anything smothered in buffalo sauce, whether it’s buffalo chicken nuggets, crispy buffalo shrimp, or this delectable buffalo cauliflower. It’s a unique and unexpected appetizer that’s baked instead of fried, yet still packed with plenty of flavor.
These buffalo cauliflower bites are hands down, the best way to enjoy cauliflower. They’re soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, and coated in a spicy 3 ingredient sauce. Add some celery sticks or carrot sticks and a traditional dip like ranch, and you’ve got a snack that’s sure to get rave reviews!
Table of Contents
Buffalo Cauliflower Ingredients
To make this recipe, you will need cauliflower, flour, salt, black pepper, buffalo wing sauce, honey and butter.
How Do You Make Buffalo Cauliflower?
This recipe starts with cauliflower florets, which you will toss in a batter made of flour, water, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl. Place the cauliflower into the oven to bake until crisp. While the cauliflower is in the oven, make the spicy sauce with a blend of buffalo wing sauce, butter and honey. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower, toss to coat, then bake the cauliflower one more time. Serve immediately and enjoy!
Tips For The Perfect Cauliflower
- You can add extra spices to the batter such as garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika or even chili powder.
- I prefer Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce, but other varieties of hot sauce will also work.
- These buffalo cauliflower wings are best when you serve them right out of the oven. The coating will soften as the cauliflower sits. If you have leftovers, refrigerate them in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Reheat leftovers in the oven until crispy.
- In my opinion, a spicy snack needs a cool dip to keep the heat level to a reasonable level. While I often serve my buffalo cauliflower with ranch dip, blue cheese dressing or buttermilk dips are also great choices. You can make your own homemade ranch dip, or try a homemade ranch dressing instead.
Quick Tip
Be sure to cut your cauliflower into similar sized pieces so that it’ll cook at the same rate.
Recipe FAQs
This dish is a lightly battered roasted cauliflower that is tossed in a mixture of buffalo wing sauce, honey and butter.
You can serve your buffalo cauliflower as an appetizer alongside other snack options such as artichoke dip, pizza muffins or crab stuffed mushrooms. These wings are also great as a side dish for grilled chicken, fish or pork.
Cauliflower is a mild flavored vegetable, which means it does well with stronger, savory flavors. It is great in Asian style recipes such as stir fries, and works as a side dish with seasonings such as garlic, herbs and parmesan cheese. I also love to pair this veggie with bacon, cheddar cheese and chives for flavors reminiscent of a baked potato.
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Flavor Variations
While this dish is great as-is, you can alter the ingredients to customize the flavors to your tastes.
- Sauce: Instead of buffalo sauce, try coating your battered cooked cauliflower in BBQ sauce, or make an Asian style sauce such as the one in this Korean fried chicken recipe.
- Coating: For an even crunchier exterior, you can roll your cauliflower florets in panko bread crumbs after you coat them in the flour and water batter.
What I love most about this recipe is that it’s unique yet familiar – it’s a welcome surprise to see cauliflower get the buffalo treatment. This is a great way to do something a little different than the traditional vegetable plate for your next gathering. Every time I make these buffalo cauliflower bites, they disappear immediately! If you’re having a big crowd over, you can easily double the recipe. Simply double the ingredients, split the cauliflower between two sheet pans and you’ve got a veggie snack to feed the masses!
More Game Day Snacks
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Buffalo Cauliflower Video
Love This Recipe?
Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments section further down the page.
Buffalo Cauliflower Bites
Ingredients
- 1 large head of cauliflower, stem and core removed and broken into florets
- 1/2 cup flour
- salt and pepper to taste
- cooking spray
- 2/3 cup buffalo wing sauce or more to taste
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon honey
- celery sticks and ranch dip for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with foil and coat with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour with 1/2 cup water and salt and pepper to taste. Add the cauliflower florets to the flour mixture and toss to coat.
- Place the cauliflower florets in a single layer on the baking sheet; season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Bake for 20 minutes. While the cauliflower is baking, whisk together the buffalo wing sauce, melted butter and honey until smooth.
- Pour the buffalo sauce mixture over the cauliflower and toss to coat. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until crispy and just starting to brown.
- Serve immediately, with celery sticks and ranch dip if desired.
Notes
- Be sure to cut your cauliflower into similar sized pieces so that they’ll cook at the same rate.
- I prefer Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce, but other varieties of hot sauce will also work.
- This cauliflower is best when you serve it right out of the oven, as the coating will soften as the cauliflower sits.
Can I use frozen cauliflower? Maybe just leave it to thaw first?
You’d want to thaw and pat dry to remove excess water so the crust will get crispy!
Looks amazing and, probably very delicious as well. I want to make these cauliflower bites but want to know which sauce i can substitute for the Buffalo sauce. Which substitute sauce will have these cauliflower bites taste as AWeSoMe as Buffalo without the added hot spicy? ThanX for the added input.😀
Perfect! Love this idea for cauliflower!
We made these for the family and they LOVED them! So delicious!
Such an awesome snack! Cauliflower always needs a little extra flavor and this is perfect!
My husband really loved it!! It was delicious!
Oh wow, these sound SO good! Seriously can’t think of a better way to enjoy cauliflower! 🙂
This buffalo cauliflower needs to happen at my house very soon!!
These cauliflower bites are such a great idea to eat veggies!
Great recipe! I’ve tried it twice and both times it turned out delicious
This was turning out great until I added the sauce in the second baking step, and then it got mushy and overcooked. I think next time I am going to sub the wing/honey/butter sauce for the water in the flour mixture and see if tossing it in that paste makes a difference and allows me to cook it for less time and still get it crispy. I like my veggies crisp-hot, not soft. Still, worth trying again!
Oh my gosh! These look so good I am trying them tonight in lieu of my original plans!! Thanks for the recipe
This looks delicious!! I can’t wait to try it. I’m always trying to think of delicious tasting and different ways to have veggies. This definitely fits the bill. Thank you. I’m pinning this.
I was nervous about this recipe, when I started putting floury paste all over raw cauliflower. But it turned out AMAZING. Thank you so much for this recipe. Cauliflower is so good for you, but it’s the only vegetable I have a hard time getting my husband to eat. He loved these, so did I, so did the kids. Don’t wait for game day to make this.
Totally have to try this one. It looks mouth-watering
The recipe states a simple batter. But instructions say ” mix flour with 1\2 cup flour. Is flour mixed with water?
You are exactly right, it’s 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water. Thanks for catching that, updating now!
These look so amazing! Beautiful!
Who doesn’t love ranch dip! This is a healthier classic which I think will be a crowd pleaser for the Super Bowl group I hang with!
My friends will eat anything with this yummy ranch dip.
This will be going on my super bowl table!