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Original poster

The Cauliflower Cheese Conundrum

390 replies

Speckly · 27/10/2025 22:09

Earlier a friend I was out with asked me what we were having for dinner tonight. When I replied “Cauliflower cheese and crusty bread”, she said “With what?” When I told her that was our dinner she looked horrified and told me cauliflower cheese is a side dish. As kids we often had cauliflower cheese for our dinner (I’m early 50s) but I’m interested to know, is that weird? Husband and I usually have this as a main about once a month (not vegetarian btw). When I asked DH his views on the subject tonight, he said he enjoys it but that his family never really had it when he was young so he couldn’t comment. If it’s relevant at all, we live in Kent. So is it ok to eat cauliflower cheese as a main or should it only ever be served as a side dish?

YABU - Cauliflower cheese is a side dish. You need to jazz it up with some other stuff!

YANBU - Cauliflower cheese is a decent main course - ignore the haters.

OP posts:
RawBloomers · 28/10/2025 00:46

We had it as a main dish (I’m mid 50s). I loved it.

I started seeing it as a side dish in food articles and restaurants in the US in the early 2000s. Initially for festive meals IIRC. Then particularly with steak. Strikes me as a really poor side dish. Way too overpowering.

Mothership4two · 28/10/2025 00:46

I often have it as a main dish (I'm vegetarian) but the carnivores in the family wouldn't be happy with just that. Growing up (I'm in my 50s) we only had it as a side dish with a roast on Sundays.

StayClass · 28/10/2025 00:42

Big portion = main, small portion = side. Never, ever gravy or mushrooms.

AgnesMcDoo · 28/10/2025 00:32

Protein and veg. I’d like something fresh with it too like a salad or green veg.

but it can be a main or a side

WagnersFourthSymphony · 28/10/2025 00:30

I have never encountered it as a side dish, nor do I wish to if gravy is involved.

Don't get me wrong: I like gravy if it's nice gravy - it just shouldn't go with cauliflower cheese.

Glitter0 · 28/10/2025 00:29

Definitely a side dish :)

WearyAuldWumman · 28/10/2025 00:27

When I was a child, cauliflower cheese was a main dish. I think it was about 2000 before I encountered it as a side dish. (I'm 65.)

Fandango52 · 28/10/2025 00:24

FaitesVosJeux · 27/10/2025 22:11

Always a main dish here - baked with triangles of sourdough round the edges which go all half cheesy half toasty. Food of the Gods.

That sounds amazing! Probably a stupid question, but how do you put the sourdough on it? Do you just arrange it on the top so it goes down the side of the dish? I’d love to try it with the sourdough at some point.

Seajaye · 28/10/2025 00:23

It was served as Main dish ,with peas carrots and potatoes, when I was growing up in 1970's, but we did have other meat free dinner sometimes such as home made cheese & onion or cheese and tomato flan, the days before it was called quiche, with and usually served with a salad and new potatoes.

Strokethefurrywall · 28/10/2025 00:22

We always have/had it as a side dish to our roasts but when I was in UK over summer, a pub in Somerset was serving it as a main so I ordered it.
It felt odd at first, like I “should” have something else with it, but when it came with half a warm French baguette I wasn’t disappointed. Just a bit gassy. 👍

dailyconniptions · 28/10/2025 00:21

It's completely fine as a main dish or as a side, because it's delicious. It can definitely be both.

LadyDarcy80s · 28/10/2025 00:20

It’s a side dish.

Floatlikeafeather2 · 28/10/2025 00:13

We regularly (approx. once a week) have either cauliflower or broccoli cheese as a main meal, though it has to be made properly. I sometimes do garlic bread with it, sometimes roast potatoes, sometimes oven chips. When I was a child it was a complete meal on its own but we did always have a pudding. We don't eat meat at all but even if I did, the thought of serving cauliflower cheese alongside something doused in gravy makes my stomach churn. Mind you, the thought of gravy makes my stomach churn anyway.

EilonwyWithRedGoldHair · 28/10/2025 00:01

NinaGeiger · 27/10/2025 22:11

We had it as a main dinner. To the point where the first time I saw cauli cheese served with a roast, I thought it was weird they'd cooked a completely different dinner to go on the side

This. DH's family have cauliflower cheese as a side with a Sunday roast, and that was the first time I'd ever come across the concept.

samarrange · 28/10/2025 00:00

We have it as a main, but with plenty of crumbled bacon on it. Usually no potatoes but some nice crusty bread can be good to mop up the cheese. I put lots of cheese in the bechamel — any kind that I have in the fridge, so it's often cauliflower quattro formaggi.

EleanorReally · 27/10/2025 23:59

i add leeks and top with toms and mozzarella

IHaveAlwaysLivedintheCastle · 27/10/2025 23:59

Main. I think it's quite odd as a side dish.

chaosmaker · 27/10/2025 23:58

Youremylobster86 · 27/10/2025 23:46

I'm in Wales and never heard of cauli cheese as a main- flabbergasted!

That's just you, I'm also in Wales and it's fine to have it as either!

bridgetreilly · 27/10/2025 23:58

Either is completely acceptable, in appropriate quantities.

Selttan · 27/10/2025 23:58

I’ve only ever had it as a side but now I’m kicking myself for never having it as a main. What a great idea!

NokiaRock · 27/10/2025 23:57

Side dish. But I have never liked it, anyway Grin. DD likes it with a roast which I personally think is gross (gravy curdling with cheesy sauce 🤮). But each to their own.

chaosmaker · 27/10/2025 23:56

Cauli and broccoli cheese, can also add egg and make it a quiche type thing. without eggs I also add onions, mushrooms and maybe ham/bacon. It is a luscious thing. Garlic in it too

IamEarthymama · 27/10/2025 23:55

Oh definitely a main dish here!
A M&S cauliflower, ( they are the best), extra mature cheddar cheese, with some grated mozzarella mixed into the topping, There must certainly be some English mustard in the sauce. Once bubbling hot with lovely brown bits on the top, it is served with parmentier potatoes ie tiny roasties, and perhaps a slice of bread to mop up the sauce.

This has been a favourite meal for all my life; my mother used to have it ready for my lunch on school days, hers was absolute perfection.

I can’t bear cauliflower cheese if it is lukewarm though, it must be absolutely volcanic in telprature.

LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa · 27/10/2025 23:54

It’s a side dish. But as a dweller from just over the other side of the QE2 bridge, we know that you Kentish lot are wrong ‘uns, so it sounds about right that this would be a main dish in one of your depraved houses.

EmotionallyWeird · 27/10/2025 23:54

My mum used to make it as a main dish. Occasionally we would have chips with it but not always, especially if there was a substantial pudding. I liked it (the way she made it, anyway), and never thought of it as incomplete. I was actually quite surprised as an adult to find that it was sometimes served as a vegetable accompaniment to other things.

DH doesn't like it so I haven't made it for years, but I suddenly really fancy some! The version with bacon sounds good!

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