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've never heard of having bread as a side with cauliflower cheese. Potatoes, yes. But now I'm thinking some croutons might be a nice addition.
Along with the tomatoes and lardons.
👌😁

We had it as a main when I was a kid, with chips and tomato salad. I still make it (without the chips these days). Have been known to have it with a jacket potato.

Definitely a main dish for me for dinner as a kid.

I’ve had it as a main dish a couple times when I’ve bought a ready made one and everyone in my house has been out, and I’ve not been that hungry. I’d never serve it as a main meal to my husband or children.

My mum used to put boiled eggs around the side of the cauliflower before she put the cheese sauce on & would cook it as a main meal (I'm in my 50s) She also made a cheese sauce every Sunday roast. As an adult I don't like cauliflower even with a cheese sauce but don't mind broccoli.

Main dish, although my mum used to put eggs in it and sometimes tomatoes/other veggies when I was a child.

It's made me think of cheese soufflé, which was my absolute favourite tea as a child!

I'd eat it as a main but

• as its carby and fatty I'd ditch the bread
• moderate my portion size
• have a fruit-based dessert like crumble and custard

That way I'd be full. Cauliflower wouldn't fill me but it's still really calorific and not very nutritious so fruit in small dessert and milky custard would help.

But both as small portions because they are part of the same overall meal.

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

i used to do it with curly chips or some sort of fried potato
but have now discovered a recipe which adds 100 gm of macaroni and do this.

Cauliflower cheese can be a main or a side. When I was growing up we would only have it as a main with potatoes, although yours (OP) with crusty bread sounds perfect. Has to be home made though, using mature cheddar in the sauce, and if a main, some of the grated cheese on top and finished under the grill.

I put bacon in it and serve it with roast pototaoes when I do it as a main. Think I might make it this week now that I have been reading this thread, forgotten how tasty it is

I chuck leeks, broccoli and kale into my cauliflower cheese. A packed vegetable bake smothered in homemade cheese sauce on an autumnal evening - yummy!

I suspect some people might be using packet mixes or jars for their cheese sauce 😱 which is just yuk

Lidl seem to have stopped doing those caulifower cheese pies (along with the other other veggie pies alongside them)! Which is absolutely disgraceful, and I was tempted to start a thread about it, 😀and an example of how veggie choices have been closed off by a more vociferous vegan minority. Those pies were full of fat, and probably not that healthy, but they were the nearest to junk food I allowed myself, and I'd rather eat them than some highly-processed meat substitute made from soya. My Mum made cauliflower cheese as a main meal, she and my Dad gulped it down, but I hated it, and didn't eat cheese at all as a kid, only dipped into mild cheese when I became veggie.

Sorry, droning on a bit there!

I have eaten cauliflower cheese as both a main meal and as a side. Cheese is filling so it is a substantial main.

Side dish.

I eat it as cauliflower is good for you but actually think cauliflower is minging.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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!

Either is completely acceptable, in appropriate quantities.

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

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

i add leeks and top with toms and mozzarella