Curried Cauliflower Salad

With all due respect to New York Times Cooking, I've been making this dish for the past 15 years.

Recently, my brother-in-law asked me if I’d seen the new curried cauliflower salad sandwich recipe published in New York Times Cooking. He wasn’t the first person to ask me if I’d seen this recipe, if I’d made it, and what I thought about it. Other home cooks seemed to think this idea of swapping cauliflower for chicken in this 80s-era salad was more avant-garde than I did. 

My brother-in-law, Mike, and I often talk about food and cooking. Like me, he is the primary cook in his household. How it is that I became obsessed with cooking while my sister is content to leave it to her husband is a mystery to be explored in a future newsletter.

Anyway, I very often make New York Times Cooking recipes that Mike mentions to me. Sometimes they need a little veganizing, but I trust his instincts. The recipes are paywalled, or I’d share some family favorites. If you have a subscription, leave a comment and I’ll list some links there. (Mike is a Cruciferous reader—he may chime in with his, too.) 

The day we talked about the curried cauliflower salad sandwich recipe, it just sort of bugged me. I took a moment to try to figure out why it didn’t strike me as an especially new or different recipe. It dawned on me that I, myself, had written a similar recipe for my 2009 cookbook, Almost Meatless. 

Almost Meatless is a book about how to make animal products more of a condiment and less the star of your meals. My curried cauliflower salad was actually a curried cauliflower and chicken salad. In that recipe, you mix roasted cauliflower and chicken together. 

It was more cauliflower than chicken, and I noted in the recipe that it was just as good with no chicken whatsoever and more cauliflower. That’s how I made it when I made it for myself in the months and years after first testing it. 

And then I went on to forget all about this dish until a few weeks ago. I sent photos of the pages of Almost Meatless to Mike.

See? My food ideas are ahead of their time! 

Usually way, way too far ahead—but again, that’s a topic for a future newsletter. 

I decided to update my 2009 recipe for Cruciferous, taking some inspiration from Ham El-Waylly’s New York Times Cooking version as well. But first, a few notes:

About curry powder: They are all different. Some have salt in them, which will affect the amount of salt you want to use in this recipe. If you have a curry that contains salt, don’t use any additional salt and season to taste at the end. 

About the final texture: When Dan tasted it, he wanted everything to be chopped more finely and held together with the mayonnaise, almost like a curried cauliflower spread. I seemed to recall some people having this preference when it comes to chicken salad, too, actually. I pulsed leftover salad in the food processor to make it less chunky and it’s good that way as well. Try it if that appeals to you.

About mayonnaise: The New York Times Cooking version of this recipe calls for twice the amount of dressing—a half cup of mayo plus a half cup of yogurt. I don’t like drowning things in dressing, so I kept it lighter. You could add more mayo or add plain unsweetened vegan or dairy yogurt. Another option, if you are serving it on a sandwich, would be to spread some mayo on your bread first. 

About apples: I think grapes are a terrific sub here. Use 1 cup of quartered seedless grapes. 

About spiciness: Depending on your preferences for heat and the spiciness of your curry powder, you may want to add a pinch of cayenne. But do so at your own risk—when I tried, I went too far. Even ⅛ teaspoon might be too much. 

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Curried Cauliflower Salad

Makes about 4 1/2 cups, enough for 4 to 8 sandwiches depending on the size

1/3 cup currants

1 large head cauliflower, about 2 pounds, broken down into florets (about 9 cups)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup vegan mayonnaise

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 scallions, white and green parts, chopped (about ½ cup)

1 apple, peeled and chopped fine (about 1 cup)

3/4 cup cashews, toasted and chopped

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

Preheat the oven to 450℉.

Pour hot water over the currants and set aside to rehydrate for 10 minutes. Drain well.

Toss the cauliflower with the olive oil, curry powder, and salt. Arrange evenly on 2 rimmed baking sheets and place them on the lower two racks of the oven. Roast for 10 minutes, then rotate the baking sheets. Continue cooking until the cauliflower is tender and brown around the edges, about another 10 minutes. 

Let the cauliflower cool. (Some brands of vegan mayonnaise get weird when mixed with hot ingredients. My favorite brands are Hellman’s and Vegenaise.) 10 minutes should do it. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the vegan mayonnaise and lemon juice. When the cauliflower is cool, add it to the mayonnaise and lemon juice along with the scallions, apple, cashews, currants, and parsley. Season to taste with additional salt and freshly ground black pepper if desired. Transfer to a sealed container to chill and let the flavors meld for at least one hour.

Serve the salad on its own, over a bed of greens, on crostini as an appetizer/snack, or in a pita or soft baguette.