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.

I grew up with cauliflower cheese as a main course, with a rasher of bacon on the side. It was only for my parents. Once I turned 12 I was allowed it. It was special. We usually had ‘nursery tea’ rather than dinner with my parents, and cauliflower cheese never featured.
I still consider cauliflower cheese a treat meal.

Main dish, cheap and tasty.

Though my daughter makes it roasted and tossed in spices, so now we're fancy.

Spicing and roasting it before adding the cheese sauce? Or a different cauliflower recipe?

Main meal here. I had it last night with a portion of runner beans for a bit of green. So delicious

This reminded me of an incident years ago, when I was a teenager and still living at home. My DM used to make macaroni cheese (or mac and cheese as it now seems to be known!) once a week. She was chatting with a neighbour about evening meals and said 'My lot love macaroni cheese'. The neighbour (who was not a native Brit and unfamiliar with British dishes) asked what it entailed. My DM told her and the neighbour said 'What do you have with it?' DM said 'Vegetables or baked beans and French bread'. 'What,you don't have any meat with it?'. She couldn't get her head around a vegetarian meal!

That's how we had it as kids in the 60s. Main meal, with runner beans from the garden, brown sauce optional. This was dinner at the proper time, over and done by 1pm with Instant Whip for pudding.

I always save Parmesan rinds for in ragu, makes a huge difference

Happy to have it as a main if it has crispy lardons scattered on top.

My cholesterol 🌡

I do too-whenever I make a big batch of bolognaise I chuck them in-really lovely and feels nice not to waste that lovely cheesy end 🧀

I came back to report that I tried a couple of suggestions last night from this thread - the rind of my blue cheese and a decent glug of white wine in the sauce, plus I topped it off with garlic breadcrumbs before the oven finish. That made such a delicious difference! Thank you 🙏

Side dish here, i never had it growing up as a side or main, i think it was only about 5 years ago i ever even tried it

I’m the same age as you OP and also from Kent. Growing up it was always a side dish.
now, I’d normally have as a side but also happy as a main BUT I’d want green veg or salad with it to offset it and balance the dish.

the bit I find very strange is having that as a main with bread. I could see toasted sourdough crumbs on top of it if you wanted but the way you describe would be too carb heavy and one dimensional for me.

You know you can have a roast dinner without gravy, right?

With a thick slice of gammon is my favourite way of earing it. Earlier this week I was using up a gammon joint and put cheese sauce on steamed broccoli which was lovely. Now being on my own I find that some cauliflowers are too big and the little ones are the same price.