These Roasted Cauliflower Bowls are loaded with smoky, crispy cauliflower, black beans, crunchy slaw, avocado, and cilantro chimichurri sauce. Easy, healthy, and vegan! Video.
Enter with Love the temple that is your own heart… silently allowing the deep within to flow on and into the deep beyond. ~Ramana Maharshi
I have made this so many times and it is always SO GOOD. This is my boyfriend's 'favorite meal of all time'. He requests it for his birthday!
This is how you turn a head of cauliflower into dinner. Roast it with cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, and a touch of chipotle until caramelized and smoky, then pile it over rice with seasoned black beans, crunchy Mexican slaw, avocado, and a generous spoonful of cilantro chimichurri.
These Roasted Cauliflower Bowls hit all the right notes-smoky, spicy, creamy, crunchy, and fresh. They’re naturally vegan, easy to customize, and hearty enough for dinner, with plenty of plant-based protein and fiber from the black beans.
Why you’ll love this CAULIFLOWER BOWL recipe!
Big, bold flavor! Smoky roasted cauliflower, seasoned black beans, crunchy slaw, and herby chimichurri make every bite fresh and full of flavor.
Wholesome and satisfying. Black beans, veggies, and whole grains come together for a nourishing, plant-based meal that actually fills you up!
Perfect for meal prep. There is so much comfort in knowing something healthy awaits in the fridge! Prep the components ahead and assemble healthy, colorful bowls in minutes throughout the week.
Repurpose leftovers! All of these ingredients can be repurposed during the week to make tacos. Simply tuck everything into warm tortillas!
Cauliflower Bowl Ingredients
- Cauliflower: The star of the bowl! Cut it into small florets so you get plenty of caramelized, crispy edges as it roasts.
- Smoky spices: Cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, chili powder, garlic, and optional chipotle give the cauliflower its bold, smoky flavor.
- Black beans: Quickly seasoned with cumin, chili powder, and smoked paprika for an easy source of plant-based protein and fiber.
- Red bell pepper: Roasts alongside the cauliflower, adding sweetness and color.
- Rice: Creates a hearty base for the bowl. Use white or brown rice, quinoa, black rice, or your favorite cooked grain-or leave it out for a lighter low-carb bowl.
- Mexican slaw: Adds the cool, fresh crunch that contrasts beautifully with the warm roasted cauliflower. Shredded cabbage or sliced radishes work in a pinch.
- Cilantro chimichurri: The bright, herby sauce that brings the whole bowl together. I’d be generous with it!
- Avocado: Adds a cool, creamy element that balances the smoky spices.
- Optional toppings: Pickled red onions, cilantro, sprouts, radishes, lime, or your favorite hot sauce.
*See recipe card for more details
How to Make Cauliflower Bowls
1. Prep. Preheat the oven to 425F and prepare the rice or quinoa. I like to use Cilantro Lime Rice for this recipe- or skip it for a lower-carb bowl.
2. Roast the cauliflower. Add cauliflower, olive oil, salt, and spices to a large bowl and toss. Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet, using two pans if needed, and spreading out into a single layer. Slice the bell pepper in half and place open-side down on the baking sheet. Roast 12 minutes, then rotate the racks and toss the cauliflower.
Bake for another 12-15 minutes, or until golden and fork-tender.
3. Assemble the other bowl components. Make the Chimichurri Sauce and the optional Mexican Slaw and Pickled Onions.
4. Season the black beans. Drain and rinse the black beans, then add them to a small pot and gently warm with water, spices, salt, and oil. Alternatively, you can cook black beans from scratch the day before, or make our Mexican Pinto Beans!
5. Build the cauliflower bowls. Now it’s just a matter of assembling. Which is why I love love love bowls! Have fun and make them pretty, friends! And remember, you can take the leftovers and repurpose them into tacos the next day! So tasty!
To each bowl, add rice and beans, top with roasted cauliflower, and drizzle with chimichurri sauce. Garnish with Mexican slaw, avocado, pickled onions, sprouts, and cilantro. Watermelon radishes are sooooo beautiful here.
Cauliflower Bowl Tips
- Cut the florets evenly. Similar-sized pieces will finish roasting at the same time. I like some flat edges on the florets because they make good contact with the baking sheet and caramelize beautifully.
- Give the cauliflower plenty of room. This will make them crispy! Spread the florets out in a single layer without overcrowding the pan. Use two baking sheets if needed. Crowded cauliflower will steam rather than crisp.
- Roast at high heat. A 425F oven helps create deeply golden, slightly crisp edges while keeping the centers tender.
- Don’t skimp on the spices! Cauliflower can handle bold seasoning. Make sure you toss the cauliflower well so the oil and spices coat every nook and cranny.
- Aim for contrast. The best bowls have something warm, cool, creamy, crunchy, smoky, and tangy. Don’t feel like you need every topping, but avocado plus something crisp and something pickled makes a big flavor difference.
- Try a different sauce! The chimichurri makes this bowl, but if you are looking for a new variation to try, swap the black beans for a can of chickpeas (or our roasted chickpeas) and serve with our Lemon Tahini Sauce!
Serving Suggestions
This cauliflower bowl makes a satisfying, high-protein stand-alone plant-based meal. For something lighter, skip the rice and serve as a salad over shredded cabbage or greens (like arugula or romaine), or simply double up the Mexican Slaw. For extra protein, add our Tofu Sofritas, Crispy Tofu, Baked Tofu, or Grilled Tofu! If you’re not vegan or vegetarian, this bowl goes well with our Grilled Chipotle Chicken.
Turn leftovers into tacos or burritos, using warm corn or flour tortillas. Serve with our Fermented Hot Sauce or 5-Minute Hot Sauce.
Meal Prep & Storage
You can cook the rice or quinoa ahead of time, as well as prepare the seasoned black beans, Mexican Slaw, and Chimichurri Sauce. It feels so good to have some healthy things in the fridge, and it makes the cauliflower bowls easy to assemble during the week!
Store the rice, beans, cauliflower, slaw, chimichurri, and toppings separately. Leftovers will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Looking for more? Check out our 33+ Best Cauliflower Recipes, 50+ Easy Dinner Ideas, 40 Most Popular Vegan Recipes, and Healthy Vegan Buddha Bowls!
More Cauliflower Recipes You Might Like
Watch how to make cauliflower Bowls
After you try this Cauliflower Bowl recipe, let us know how it turns out in the comments below. Your review will help other readers, too! Sign up here to join our community and receive our latest recipes and weekly newsletter! xoxo Sylvia
Roasted Cauliflower Bowl
- Prep Time: 25
- Cook Time: 25
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 3-4 1x
- Category: bowls, buddha bowl, entertaining, Main, Make-ahead, meal prep, vegan dinner, vegetarain Main
- Method: roasted
- Cuisine: Amerian, South American
- Diet: Dairy-Free, fiber, Gluten Free, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Vegetarian
Description
These Roasted Cauliflower Bowls are loaded with cripsy, smoky spiced cauliflower, black beans, crunchy slaw, avocado, and cilantro chimichurri. Easy, healthy and vegan!
Ingredients
Smoky Roasted Cauliflower:
- one head of cauliflower, cut into small florets
- red bell pepper, cut in half
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons coriander
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Seasoned Black beans:
- 1 x 14-ounce can black beans (serves 2-3, feel free to double) rinsed, drained
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- drizzle olive oil
2 cups cooked rice (optional, or sub quinoa or black rice)
Mexican Slaw ( optional, or sub shredded cabbage or radishes)
Other toppings: sliced avocado, pickled red onions, cilantro, sprouts.
Instructions
425F oven
- If making rice or quinoa, cook it according to directions first.
- Roast the Cauliflower: Toss Cauliflower with olive oil, salt and spices in a large bowl, and place in a single layer, on parchement-lined sheet pans ( you may need two. Cut the bell pepper in half and place on the same sheet pan open side down. Roast 12 minutes, turn cauliflower over, rotating racks ( top rack will cook faster) and cook another 12-15 minutes, until nice and golden, and fork-tender.
- Make the Chimichurri Sauce, and optional Mexican slaw and optional pickled onions
- Season the black beans: Warm up the black beans in a small pot on the stove, adding water, spices, salt, and oil.
- Assemble Bowls: Layer rice and beans, top with roasted cauliflower. Drizzle with a little chimichurri sauce and garnish with the slaw, avocado, pickled onions, sprouts and cilantro.
Notes
Store leftovers for up to 4 days in separate airtight containers.
Repurpose these into tacos. Fold the warm cauliflower into warm tortillas, add chimichurri sauce, Mexican Slaw, avocado, seasoned black beans if you like, and your favorite hot sauce! Yum!!!
These also taste great as a wrap or burrito!
Nutrition
- Serving Size: with rice, black beans, avocado and Chimichurri sauce
- Calories: 534
- Sugar: 5 g
- Sodium: 461 mg
- Fat: 27.9 g
- Saturated Fat: 4.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 62.6 g
- Fiber: 16.6 g
- Protein: 14.2 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
I am not the type of person to post reviews, but after trying at least 10 of your recipes and all of them turning out to be incredibly delicious, I just wanted to say thank you!
Hi Haley- this made my morning! Thanks so much, glad you are enjoying the recipes- and really appreciate the review. They really do help the blog! All the best.xo
Best dinner I ever made! We loved it. Great leftovers for the next day too!
Awesome Lisa!
oh my this is a great recipe!! It is a bit labor intensive but so worth it. I made if for supper club, tripling the recipe and hoping for leftovers but they almost cleaned it up! The flavors mix together so well; it is filling and fresh at the same time. Next time I’ll cut down on the olive oil a bit, but other than that, it is an outstanding meal in a bowl!!
Thanks so much and Happy New Year to you- hope you are well Mert!
Another winner! My fiancé recently went plant-based (I’ve been for awhile). He LOVED this recipe, as did I! I believe his exact words were “this is, like, really really good. Wow. Please make this again.” Love that the recipes on your blog are so reliably delicious, nourishing and veggie forward!
Thanks Kirstyn! Always feels good when the people we cook for enjoy the food too.;)
Absolutely delicious! Everything together was so tasty, loved all the elements, the sauce was especially good. Thank you 😊
Thank you so much! I am 20 y/o and I am just getting into cooking more plant based meals. I made this for my family and they loved it! Its so fresh and colourful and delicious!!! Sending alllll my love and gratitude to you for this amazing recipe!!!!
Awww… thanks Hailey!
Oh my goodness, this was SO delicious! We’ve been trying to adopt a more plant-based diet and these bowls were such a hit with my husband ~ he said it was one of his favorite dinners to date! Thanks for sharing your amazing recipes!
Great to hear Jen!
Thank you AGAIN! I’ve made one or two of your chimichurri recipes before but this was the first time we’d tried your cauliflower bowl. It was so very good – and so easy.
You’re amazing.
Awwww… thanks!
This was such a great recipe! We made the tacos of of it. The chimchuri sauce is out of this world! It takes anything it touches to a whole new level. The whole family loved this meal!
This is my latest favourite meal! I make it with the sauce recipe and pickled onion recipe which are both at the top of the page. It is soooooo good!
This was delish! I can’t get over how much produce goes into this bowl and that’s a good thing! I made Mexican style rice and added canned black beans to it. For the pandemic I bought a huge Costco size bag or rice not knowing if it was the end of the world. lol Once that bag of white rice is gone, we will return to our brown rice.
The roasted veggies are what make this dish! Simple to follow.
Delicious!
wow, just wow. This is probably one of my best meals I’ve ever made. The combination of all of the flavors is AMAZING. It was definitely time consuming but it was so worth it!!
Yay!!! Glad you liked it!
Delicious! Will be making this often!
Thank you.
This recipe is the best…the pickled red onions, Chimichurri sauce, Mexican slaw and seasoned black bean recipes…everything works great together. This is now one of our weekly meals…so tasty!
Awesome Izzie!
This recipe is amazing! It’s a lengthier one but you can make the slaw, onions, and sauce ahead of time. I double the recipe and my husband and I ate it for lunch all week. So delicious and beautiful!
So delicious! Great mix of flavors. Didn’t have cabbage so also used crispy kale and a few heirloom tomatoes. Also loved it the next day as tacos like u suggested. Thanks!
I roasted the cauliflower along with sweet potato and served as tacos with the seasoned black beans and Vegan Cilantro Crema, for the crema I substituted cashew milk plain yogurt for the silken tofu (I didn’t have the tofu on hand). I also added curly kale to the tacos for texture and added greens.
Awesome 🙌 Great to hear and glad you enjoyed this!
Wow! I just made this recipe and it is amazing! It took me a while to make all the components but it was worth it. Everyone commented on how great it was, so I wanted to share the love! Thank you. 😊
Great to hear, thanks, and happy everyone enjoyed it! 🙌
I’ve just made the roasted smoked cauliflower/pepper mix and could eat it from the sheet pan 🙂 I also did the Mexican slaw and am serving it up for dinner tonight with a smoky, spice rubbed wild salmon with black beans & corn, plus some tri-coloured quinoa. I’ve made your pickled onions before and they’re delish and will make the chimichurri next time I make the dish…cos this is going to be a regular in our household from now on! I love how all your food is so colourful 🙂
Thanks Shirley!
The cauliflower was a major flavor bomb, topped with the chimichurri and pickled veg the meal was making my taste buds dance. I subbed in refried beans, and pickled green beans with the red onion and omitted the slaw. Thank you Sylvia!
Did you make your own tortillas? Those look yummy! Planning to make this for my birthday dinner, thank you for sharing your amazing recipes, love them all
I did not. But I have a tortilla press I’ve been meaning to dust off. I just used Trader Joe’s corn and flour blend. Happy Birthday Jenn!
I’m not much of a cauliflower fan but this recipe changed all that. Even my meat eating husband loved it, had his in a tortilla. Will def make again!
Made these as bowls last night- and now currently eating them as tacos. Can’t decide which I like better! Both so delicious! Love that I have extra slaw, pickled onions and the chimichurri sauce to use on other meals this week. Great idea Sylvia- thank you!
I tried this recipe for dinner last night. Very tasty. It took quite a bit of time to make all the different components – roasted veggies, pickled onions, rice, seasoned beans, chimichurri sauce, but it was easy to do and the flavourings were great. I didn’t make the slaw, but topped it all with avocado. Will definitely make again, thanks for the recipe.
Thanks Maria! It’s great for mean prep, and you can use all the sides in other things now too.