Cauliflower Schnitzel

You might know the deliciously fattening and wonderful food that is the German schnitzel–as does my family. I regularly make chicken schnitzel for us but lately I’ve been trying to cut down on the fat and calories so I’ve been looking for healthier options. I found one good one–substituting the chicken for cauliflower! And it just so happened that a good friend of mine whose husband is a truck driver had a load of cauliflower that was rejected because the boxes fell over so she shared some with me. While it doesn’t sit too well with my husband, my 18-month-old son loved it and that is a good thing in my book. It’s hard enough to get toddlers to eat vegetables so when my son does, I don’t complain–I make it over and over again!

Ingredients:

Half head of cauliflower
1/2 cup of flour
1 Tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil

Cut up the cauliflower into bite-size pieces or whatever size you like (but no bigger than a child’s fist).

Steam the cauliflower with your preferred method. I put the cauliflower into a microwave-safe bowl, added a little bit of water, covered it with plastic wrap and left one corner of the bowl exposed. I then microwaved it for 5 minutes on high power. You don’t want the cauliflower to be too mushy or it will fall apart when you try to dredge it with the egg and flour.

Beat the eggs in one bowl until frothy. In another bowl, mix together flour, paprika, Cajun seasoning, salt and pepper.

Heat up the oil in a large skillet. Dredge each piece of cauliflower through egg then through the flour mixture, then through the egg again and back to the flour. Finish up with one more coating of egg then set in the hot oil to fry. Fry 2-3 minutes on each side, depending on how big the pieces are.

Once done take each piece out and set on a plate that’s been covered with paper towel (to absorb the excess oil). Serve immediately and enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce.

We had ours with ketchup and homemade bread 🙂