Would you consider cauliflower cheese a meal?

[dudsville]

So, I'm steaming veg (cauliflower, carrots and brocolli) and sauteing mushrooms, and I'll add some frozen peas and spinach. But this is just veg in a cheese sauce. WOuld you consider this a meal in itself?

Yes if there was bacon.

Yes I think of it as a meal, lots of different nutrients and it sounds like a Buddha bowl

With some sprinkled breadcrumbs and grated cheese on top, stuck in oven for 20 mins plus some garlic bread, yum ..

That's the best part - like on a gammon roast where the sauce leaks on to the meat and into the other veg. Absolutely wanted - I don't find cauliflower any more filling that broccoli either

It was always a main meal and never a side dish in our house, but my mother grew up in the war when people didn't have quite such high expectations of what was a side and what wasn't. Macaroni cheese was also a meal then, not a side called mac n' cheese...

Yes I would consider it a meal and have on occasion served it up as a main dish at teatime, for 4 of us. DH might then have a slice or 2 of toast later on.

We eat meat but are trying to cut down for environmental reasons.

We’d have that with bacon or sausages and a jacket potato.

Ottolenghi has an amazing recipe in Simple where it is definitely not a side dish.

It's not cauliflower cheese, though, is it? It's assorted veg in a cheese sauce.

I find the wrangling over whether something is or isn't "a meal" a bit baffling. If the people eating it are satisfied, and the food contains a range of useful nutrients, that's good enough for me. I personally probably wouldn't just have a bowl of cheesy veg on its own, however; I'd be hungry again within an hour. I'd add pasta or garlic bread, and possibly chicken in the sauce.

Salad? With cauliflower cheese? You’re a monster @GinTonic123 😆

Regular meal at ours, cauliflower florets in middle of dish and boiled potatoes round the outside with cheese sauce over the top - in oven to get nice and crispy on top

yes
and it sounds delicious.

Yes it is a proper meal. It doesn't need bacon or sausages or garlic bread. There's enough carbs in the sauce alone.

With a pork chop or a gammon steak, yes.

For my vegetarian son, yes! For me, no

We always have it as a side with gammon (steaks or joint) roast potatoes and peas. Delish!

I'd have it with either boiled gammon or fried bacon ans a few small spuds ans carrots glazed with butter and parsley

Yes with bread and butter or garlic bread.

It would make a nice lunch, but for dinner I'd serve it with bacon or sausages, slices of gammon or a steak.

Adding pasta would make it more substantial, but unless I was on an economy drive, I probably wouldn't serve it for dinner. With all the different ingredients including pasta, you've made a vegetable pasta bake, rather than cauliflower cheese, so maybe it would make a nice vegetarian meal.

With a baked potato, yes. I am having it for my dinner right now.

Yes its a meal. No different to if you had all those bits of veg and mixed it in a curry sauce instead of the cheese sauce. No one would say a veggie curry wasnt a meal

Definitely. It has all the ingredients for a nourishing meal.

asked this very question as a patient in an eating disorder unit and the dietician said it wasn’t a meal. Needs a carb source too ( I considered the flour in the sauce enough and was told not)

it’s yummy though

Sounds yummy.

I had aubergines parmigiana last night with garlic bread and was filling and delicious.

Yes, make this regularly with crusty bread