Main Meals

Cauliflower mac and cheese

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4 to 6
Easy
10 minutes
45 minutes

What's the best way to serve veggies to your veg-hating family? Hide it in the sauce. This mac and cheese is loaded with cauliflower, conveniently hidden in the sauce!

Wine/Spirit Pairing
Woolworths Thelema Cool Climate Chardonnay

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Ingredients

Method
    For the sauce:

  • 2 T butter
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 1 x 700 g packet Woolworths cauliflower florets
  • 1 cup cream
  • 1 cup chicken or vegetable stock or water
  • 60 g Woolworths grated hard cheese
  • a squeeze lemon juice
  • For the pasta:

  • 2 T olive oil
  • 1 onion, roughly sliced
  • 3 T Woolworths za’atar blend
  • 500 g rigatoni, cooked al dente
  • Parmesan, grated, for serving (optional)

1. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan with a lid. Add the salt and pepper, then add the cauliflower florets, cover and cook for 15 minutes.

2. Once the cauliflower is tender, add the cream and stock, then bring to the boil. Remove from the heat.

3. Blend the sauce until smooth using a stick blender. Stir in the cheese and lemon juice, check the seasoning and add more salt if necessary.

4. Fry the onion in the olive oil until tender, then add half the za’atar and cook for 2 minutes. Toss the sauce through the pasta, top with the za’atar and onions and more Parmesan. Serve hot.

Cook's note: If you have any leftover sauce, pour it over crispy chicken, use it as a replacement for carbonara sauce, or as a luxurious addition to a veggie burger. Replace the rigatoni with macaroni for a more cost-effective option.

Find more pasta recipes here.

Photographs: Jan Ras
Production: Bianca Strydom
Food assistant: Nadia Meyer

Bianca Strydom

Recipe by: Bianca Strydom

Prue Leith-trained chef Bianca Strydom cut her teeth working in some of the country's top fine dining restaurants – including former Eat Out number one restaurants The Restaurant at Waterkloof and La Colombe – before joining TASTE in 2018. Her favourite recipes to develop? Boujee breakfast recipes. Follow her on Instagram @biancast__.

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