Mexican Style Riced Cauliflower

This Mexican fried rice, fire recipe is one we typically prepare on the weekends and use as a side dish in our weekday lunches. However, we frequently use on the site for dinner as well. Find the recipe easy to fix and because we are not terribly fond of tomatoes sauce or tomato paste we have reduced the total amount of tomato paste you might see in some other recipes.

Mexican Style Riced Cauliflower Ingredients

• 2 pounds (32 Ounces) of rice cauliflower (fresh or frozen)
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon sun-dried tomato paste or regular tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 4 cloves garlic finely minced
• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder
• ½ teaspoon white pepper
• 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil or olive oil
• 1 cup diced carrots
• ½ cup diced onion
• 1 small chili pepper minced (optional)
• 1 14 ounce can of kidney beans (optional)
• 1 cup baby or petite peas (fresh or frozen)
• ¼ cup minced cilantro (optional)

Mexican Style Riced Cauliflower Directions

1. First, gather all your ingredients
2. Clean and dice your carrots, onions, and other vegetables you may use
3. Open drain and rinse your kidney beans and allow them dry as possible
4. In a large nonstick pan add your oil at a medium setting
5. Once hot but not smoking, add carrots and cook for a couple of minutes and tell nearly tender
6. Add onions and cook until translucent
7. Add cauliflower and cook for two minutes and thoroughly thawed.
8. Add all other spices and ingredients except the baby peas, kidney beans, and cilantro
9. Heat for another couple of minutes, stirring gentle, until all ingredients are well combined.  At this point, the cooked cauliflower rice should have a reddish color.
10. Cook for two more minutes, add baby peas, kidney beans, and cilantro stir thoroughly.
11. Turn off the heat and remove from burner.
12. Now, you may serve hot as a dinner side or allow the cauliflower to cool off and stored in a refrigerator for use at a later time.

Cook’s notes

• I usually add a couple of teaspoons of sodium free chicken bouillon, but this is a strictly optional item, and I don’t always add the bouillon.
• When working with frozen rice cauliflower, I typically cook each pound separately for about three minutes each to the point that they are not frozen any longer before beginning.
• While adding the kidney beans is strictly optional, it does bring up the protein level of the riced cauliflower some, and it adds character.
• I frequently use frozen peas, but I do rinse them in some cool water and allow them to dry, before adding them to the cooking cauliflower
• Adding chili is purely optional; however, we typically add some finely chopped poblano pepper, or half heat jalapeno, or my wife’s favorite a small Sereno chili.
• This recipe while intended as a healthier version of mexican rice, is also similar to spanish rice

Prep Time

• 5 mins

Cook Time

• 8 – 10 minutes

Total Time

• 15 minutes