roast cauliflower, chickpea, Dijon and parsley salad

This roast cauliflower chickpea salad recipe perfectly illustrates the importance of balance in flavour and texture and will teach you new techniques for making vegetables the star of the show.

I’m sharing this recipe on Sara Cox’s show on BBC Radio 2 as part of my time as chef of the week. I was given cabbage, cauliflower and spinach to make a meal of by listener, June. I created a slightly different version of this recipe – adding wedges of cabbage to the cauliflower and adding a green goddess dressing to use the spinach. I’ve added the details of the dressing below.

Why roasting cauliflower is a game changer

Roasted cauliflower is such a handy addition to meals. It has just the right amount of stodge to replace piles of rice and bread with curries, stews or roasts. Roasting dumbs down the more cabbagy undertones, forces out the moisture and allows the sweeter, toasty notes to sing. This makes it much more appealing to children or people who don’t usually like greens. And health wise, cauliflower has more vitamin c than broccoli and ticks the same boxes as leafy greens without being so…green.