The Cauliflower Cheese Conundrum

[Speckly]

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.

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

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 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).

Yupp

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.

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!

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

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.

Ok , where is the rest of the sauce??

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Never seen MN also torn!!!

Cauliflower cheese (or 'au gratin' in a lot of recipe books) was always a main meal. The idea of serving a vegetable in a cheese sauce with a roast seems weird in the extreme, and I suspect only started to happen (in the last 20, maybe 30 years) when buying it ready-made became possible. Before then we either served things cooked around the meat, or simply steamed or boiled vegetables dressed with a little butter.

It's a very well balanced meal, mostly vegetable, first class protein from the milk and cheese, and a little starch from the flour in the sauce and the crumb topping. If you need more ballast than that, mashed or baked potato, or bread, can provide it.

Meals where the main protein was cheese never used to be seen as unusual - macaroni cheese, cheese pudding, cheese soufflé - all much encouraged during WW2, but there in the pre-war cook books.

Oooh, I’ll be trying that, thanks!

With sly bacon bits in the mix?

A main course in my long-ago childhood, when people relied on cheese and eggs for affordable protein. In recent years I notice it’s become a regular side in a pub Sunday roast.

I sometimes do a mix of cauliflower and macaroni cheese and have it as a main course. Yum.

Me to. I have only ever seen it as a side, but if macaroni cheese can be a main, I don't honestly see why not. Might try it for us this weekend as our dc like cauliflower.

Good idea!

Yes I have begun to load our macaroni cheese with cauliflower and actually it improves it.

Thats really low, what are you putting in it and how big is the portion? A bog standard ready meal is around 20-30g of protien which is the optimum amount of protein the body can effectively process in one sitting.

The only trouble with it, is that too many people overcook the cauliflower, and/or don’t drain it properly (preferably it should steam-dry for a minute or two) and are either too stingy with cheese for the sauce, or use wishy-washy mild Cheddar - or both.