Cauliflower Adobo Recipe (2024)

Tips*Break the cauliflower into larger pieces, lightly coat with olive oil, salt and pepper, and then broil on a cookie sheet to get some color and flavor. Much easier than browning in batches! *Decrease sugar to 1tsp or less if using rice vinegar, 1tsp if using white vinegar. I made this a vegan version for my family, and it was great! I added carrots, browned mushrooms, and sliced bell peppers, and served with sauteed kale and steamed brown rice. It's definitely something I'll make again.

Added sugar to any Filipino adobo is a recent development. Traditional adobo has no added sugars.

Perhaps "core" would be more descriptive than root. Stand the cauliflower up resting on the core (i.e. with the dome at the top). Cut it in half from the top through the core (the bottom). Rest the halves on the flat sides, cut those in half, now you have quarters, cut those in half. Voilà! 8 pieces which may be wedges or may not but that likely won't matter.

I'm not sure I understand what "cut through the root into 8 wedges" means. Can someone explain?

Not the first time I've seen that misuse in the cooking section/recipes. NY Times: toothsome means tasty or appetizing, not al dente.

I seared the cauliflower on an oiled sheet pan along with extra firm tofu and a few green beans to cut down on the oil. Added a splash of coconut milk during simmer.

Usual Filipino adobo uses 1:2 ratio of soy sauce to vinegar or vice versa, depending on preference (and region). If you don't like it too acidic, you may lessen the vinegar.

Oh wow, this was scrumptious! I also added sliced chicken breast that I had poached in lemon juice. As my husband and I were scarfing it down and making “mmm’” noises I thought that adding sh*take mushrooms would be excelent too. Tomorrow lunch I will serve the remainder of the caulflower with rice and more green sliced onions. Thanks for the great recipe. Caulifower with cheese sauce is now banished at our house.

I followed the recipe and when time to uncover and cook and baste a bit more I added a handful of rice noodles,fresh shiitake,and a cup of homemade chicken broth to make it moist to be served in a bowl. This is an outstanding and fast recipe!

Other vegetables you can cook adobo style are long beans, green beans, and kangkong/water spinach. I didn't know cauliflower can be cooked this way but why not?

Whenever a cauliflower recipe calls for slicing it into quarters I struggle to make it perfect and then wonder why I didn't just cut it into florets. This recipe too makes that distinction and next time I'll follow my instinct to brown the florets, not the wedges. This also enables the yummy sauce to crawl inside more of the indentations.

Sounds good. Simple and common sense yum. But “toothsome” is used incorrectly.

Ok, I see there are very few gardeners here. Cut whichever way you like per all the previous notes. In any case, you are NEVER cutting through the root, which is the part in the ground. You are cutting the core, as in a cabbage. When you buy either, the whole head you are buying is cut above ground level.

This sounds wonderful; I'm always looking for new cauliflower recipes. Wouldn't it be easier and faster to do this in the oven? I'm thinking roasting pan or sheet pan.

Got in a hurry and just cut up the cauliflower into florets, diced a chicken breast, threw both into a bag with the marinade and roasted at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, until the cauliflower had a nice char on it. Tossed on the scallions at the last minute. My husband loved it - but said he thought it would have tasted even better with a squeeze of lemon juice. (I also left off the bay leaf as I was in a hurry.)

Found the dish to be too salty, so next time would use low-sodium soy sauce. Like others, I added a couple other vegetables I had in the fridge, bok choi and carrots. This was good, but doubt I'd make it again.

This was excellent. We roasted the cauliflower on parchment paper. That worked well. About 45 minutes at 425. Used a Cascabel pepper. Great pepper with this dish.

Make with full amt of liquid

Excellent! After reading the notes, I opted to break up the cauliflower to roast in the oven. I added organic carrots and a fat kohlrabi cut into like-sized chunks, enough to bring the veg weight to 3 pounds. Roasted in two batches and then transferred to pot to cook with sauce ingredients. I used dark soy sauce and Saanam chili with extra bay leaves. Removed the veg early as they were cooking too fast. Found packet of roasted tiny potatoes in fridge and threw them in sauce. They were the best!

This came out soggy and sad

This is one of the tastiest things I've made recently. I'm tempted to make it every week. Thanks, Ali!!!

This is a wonderfully savory sauce but I missed the flavor of cauliflower - best , imo, for families where someone is resistant to the actual taste of cauliflower!

Found it difficult to thicken the sauce without overcooking the veggies. I added a cornstarch slurry to thicken it enough to coat the cauliflower while basting. In hindsight, I probably could have reduced the soy sauce a lot more and swapped in some black vinegar for acidity & color.

Made with one can black beans and enough rice for two people and ate the whole thing with B! Very good, did not adjust sauce proportion except for a little generosity with measuring. Jan 14 2023

I don't know what I did wrong but it was very sour and vinegary. Not toothsome

This dish was a fail for me. It tasted like a bowl of soy sauce. There was no balance or nuance, it just tasted flat…the other flavors didn’t have a fighting chance. Maybe adobo is one of those dishes that doesn’t work as well as a vegetarian dish. Or perhaps it’s this particular recipe- I wish I knew… if I try it again I will definitely make a point of sourcing fresh chili over dried red pepper flakes, anything to give it more pizzazz.

Very good, but definitely no sugar. Don't know why it calls for that, but I didn't put it in and never would. (Also, we didn't have canola oil, so I used olive oil.)

WAY too much pepper. Use 1 tsp instead of 2. It was almost inedibly peppery.

I used equivalent weight frozen cauliflower florets, thawed. Delicious!

I followed the recipe exactly except using tamari instead of traditional soy sauce and this was inedibly salty for me and I LOVE salt. I trusted my gut to not let the sauce reduce further and am glad i did because otherwise i would have thrown the entire batch out but at least I was able to choke it down once while chugging water. Unfortunately this recipe is a one and done for me.