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.

How could it be a faff? Funnily enough I decided to have some the other night, chucked cauliflower in water, dumped a teaspoon of butter in pan, sprinkled on flour, stored in milk, added block of cheese, mixed it with cauliflower, whole thing took less than 10 minutes. My mum taught me to make a cheese sauce when I was about 7. No recipie needed, just use your eyes. I added chopped parsley this time, it was lush

i bake it in the oven, til the cheese is brown

Do you have high cholesterol?!

I never came across cauli cheese until I was an adult. So consequently I've never cooked it, though it is sometimes offered as a side dish at the school cafeteria that I work in. I take a couple of florets but try to get bits without too much cheese!!

Cheese is literally protein and fat.

Main. With chips if I'm very hungry. Wasted as a side.

I actually do have to eat a higher protein diet (diabetic on a GLP-1) but that isn’t necessarily an obstacle. Make sure it’s properly cheesy (not just a few tablespoons only for flavour) and add some nuts to the side salad. Plus the carb of your choice to bulk it out as needed (which would be not too much for me but more for a hungry teenager).

Have it as a main if you fancy or as a side, there are no laws in place.

I quite often have home-made cream of cauliflower soup as a main course.

I have only ever known it and eaten it as a side.

But where I live, very often macaroni cheese is a side dish as well.

My older DC had it as a main when they were kids. I can’t stand the stuff… 🤢 It wasn’t till I went to a Toby carvery about 10/12 years ago and saw it sat with the rest of the veg I discovered it’s also considered a side with a roast dinner. ExH used to make cauliflower and broccoli cheese to go with Christmas dinner. 🤢

It can be either. We used to have it as a main, but it’s used as a side surprisingly often now.

When I buy a cauliflower to accompany say a roast I usually only use half, the rest I use for cauliflower cheese as a main course. I add in some bacon bits, mushrooms if I have any. It’s a perfectly good main course.

It’s either! Small for a side, large for a main.

I just slice it into triangles and arrange around the side of the dish making sure at least half is dunked in the cheese sauce 😊

I have it as a main with a jacket potato 🥔.

@Speckly I grew up in Kent too and recall fields of bloody cauliflowers. Some people had cauliflower cheese as a main. We didn't.

My favourite dinner is: pork chop (a proper one with a bone and bit of kidney), grilled with a smear of mustard and dash of worcester sauce, mushrooms, cauli cheese and proper chips made in the chip pan. I sometimes have it when dh is away (with oven chips .

I don't serve it with gravy on the plate and can't compute that it goes with a roast but In feel much the same about meat and fruit. (Duck a l'orange or with cherries, ham and pineapple for instance). I also don't much care for bread being a part of my main meals. But people like what people like.

My husband's family had it as a main meal, I had it as a side dish. Now ....only at Christmas!

We used to have it as a main as kids. I wonder if it's a north/south divide thing. (Or a rich person/poor person divide maybe - we were poor).

I only have it as a side now, if at all. My children don't really like cauliflower.

It's a side dish and we always had it with bacon growing up. My dm made the most divine cauliflower cheese though I could have eaten it on its own very happily. Never seen it as main on menu before

You're fun

Shut the front door!! People are having cauliflower cheese as a MAIN!! I love this!!! Adding it to our meal list for next week!!!!

Why are you so precious about this? I eat quite a high protein diet because I lift weights, there are SO many benefits of both of these things. Just because it’s not for you doesn’t mean it’s not healthy and a sensible decision for others.

Main or side. I usually serve it with a jacket potato or with a layer macaroni on the bottom of the gratin dish because I have teenage sons with hollow legs.

Soupyspoon,100% agree with you, food snobbery on Mumsnet and when I see people are going to be virtually on the point of starvation after beans on toast, I just think,no wonder 60% of the population is overweight.. do people not consider it's first cousin macaroni cheese to be a main meal! I do serve mine with extra veg, usually peas or green beans..

I’m your age and never had it for a main. My mum would serve it with gammon and perhaps green beans.

Grew up vegetarian and we had it regularly!