The Cauliflower Cheese Conundrum

I think the amount of cauliflower cheese I would eat, I would call it a main dish…but I would have it with a “side dish” of 4 or 5 rashers of smoked bacon. And ideally some roasted cherry tomatoes as well.

Lots of cheese sauce because there's nothing worse than cauliflower cheese with mean sauce! Cut bread into smallish triangles and arrange round the edge of the dish with at least half dunked in the sauce. Bake as usual. The undunked bits go toasty and the dunked bits go kind of chewy and soaked with sauce.

Would have to jazz it up a bit to get it past the teenagers - if its going to be a main I add an equal amount of broccoli and a tin of tuna. Works for us.

Love how polarising this is- very British!

It’s a side dish. It’s the only way I really like to eat cauliflower but it’s always a side for a Sunday roast.

I thought that... I love a whole roast cauliflower, but that looks like an uneasy union between roast cauli and cauliflower cheese.
Probably tastes fab though.

I think that the macaroni side dish has come over from the States.

I'm surprised that so many people on here are unaware of cauliflower cheese as a main dish. Perhaps it's age related? (I'm 65.)

Ok , where is the rest of the sauce??

I would have it as a main with some brown rice, which balances out the richness of the cheese sauce nicely, and maybe a steamed green vegetable as well. I think it's weird to have with a roast dinner but I'd still eat it if offered.

What I think is really weird is how some places now offer macaroni cheese as a side.

This sounds amazing... how do I do this?

I’ve never had it as a main, always as a side… but cauliflower cheese with crusty bread for dinner? That’s what I’ll be having tonight now so thanks OP!

I’ve just worked out based on a standard portion from the recipe we normally use and it’s about 15g protein and 6-7g of fibre. That’s about half what I’d aim for of both in an evening meal.

Yupp

It used to be a main dish for me growing up and very delicious it was too. Also with some crusty bread on the side, maybe some hard boiled eggs nestled in there. Personally I think the habit now of serving it as a side to a roast dinner is way OTT - roast dinner just needs some roast potatoes and other roasted/steamed/boiled vegetables as a side (and I’m also of the view that Yorkshire puddings should only be served with roast beef, not other roasts).

I’m Scottish and love cauliflower cheese with a roast(Though I detest gravy so the two never meet on my plate) and I often see it served at carveries or sometimes in a restaurant with a roast dinner.

It’s a rubbish tea.
Even if you live in Kent.

I actually said that cauliflower cheese IS a main dish. If it's served with sausages, it would be generally better classified as a side dish. (There would be no point in me insisting that the sausages were a side dish to the cauliflower cheese, because that's just not the common understanding of the meaning of those words.) I agree that we need to change the general view that meat is 'main' and that vegetables are an optional extra.

It's a main, I always think the cauliflower cheese as a side with a roast dinner thing is very English, it's not something anyone I know would do except English pals.

I'd serve chips and peas with it though (I'm Scottish). There's a bakery near me that does a cauli broccoli cheese PIE - it's a taste sensation, and they'll serve it in a roll for you. Saor Alba and their double carbs!

It's a main dish here with crusty bread.

Never served as a side.

To an extent, fine. But there are conventions. I wouldn't serve beans on toast at a dinner party or for Christmas dinner. And frankly meal planning would be 100 times harder without conventions, so I'm glad of them. And they change over time, which is all good.

But that shows the thinking about how vegetables are viewed in this country. How come you view the sausages as 'main' and the cauliflower as 'side'.

The whole thing is a main meal itself, the sum of many parts, like meat and two veg, are the veg the side in that dish or part of the main meal, just like the meat is only part of the main meal.

Im eating salmon, guacamole and a mixture of red peppers, onions, green and black olives, garlic, olive oil, capers. Thats a main meal. None of the components are 'the main'.

It can be either, so no-one is being unreasonable.

We usually have it with a couple of slices of bacon or sausages, but its the main component of the meal. Id absolutely smash it as the main though. Id eat it for breakfast, lunch and tea. Bloody love it however or whatever its served with!

Cauliflower is very high fibre/ low calorie and there's lots of protein in the sauce from milk and the cheese so I think it's pretty balanced unless you want/need loads of carbs..

We have it as a main dish with buttered toast. Sometimes, baked tomatoes on top too, or with broccoli in it. Loads of fibre and protein (with the amount of cheese I use!) so I think it is a complete meal really. Lovely for a weeknight or Sunday tea.

I see that I am slightly in the minority though and am only recently getting my head around it being presented as a side dish with a roast. The only meal that I would have cooked cauliflower cheese as a side dish with would be a boiled or baked ham and potatoes.

Definitely not regional. I grew up in Stockport and as I said earlier, I never came across it until I was an adult! Perhaps my mum didn't like making cheese sauce!