You Will Always Make Cauliflower This Way ~ Cauliflower Cheese Bake Recipe

I used to hate buying cauliflower it can be a pretty boring and Bland vegetable that would often go bad in my fridge but ever since I started making it this way that doesn't happen anymore in fact now I want to buy two cauliflowers it's that good this here is cauliflower cheese bake also known as cauliflower cheese cheesy cauliflower casserole whatever you want to call it this decadent but easy veggie side dish will have even the veggie haters in your life falling to their knees okay we won't go that far we're going to start with a nice medium-sized cauliflower and I'm going to rip all the leaves off the bottom and some people actually eat those leaves but we're not going to do that today the best way to deal with a cauliflower is always to cut it in half then you take each half and cut it into quarters now with the knife you want to just wedge cut that core out on an angle and that will release all the little florettes so those little fettes will just break apart naturally and you can make these fettes as large or small as you want just be sure they're all the same size I'm going to cut them down a little further by taking a few of these and cutting them in half I'm looking for bite-sized pieces that'll fit nicely on a fork whoo get back here I'm going to transfer the fettes over to a plate and I'm only doing half of the cauliflower today that's going to be enough to feed three maybe four people if you make the fettes all the same size then they're going to cook evenly so here I have a pot of boiling water and I'm going to add some salt and then when it comes to a boil I'm going to start adding the cauliflower pieces I don't want to overcrowd the pan so I'm going to do this in two batches so I want to let it boil like this on medium for about 6 to 7 minutes now I like my cauliflower nice and soft for this dish so if you're going for more an Al Dente then I would go for about four or 5 minutes I certainly don't want the cauliflower to be mushy or falling apart but I also don't want there to be a lot of snap to it when you eat this I want this to kind of melt in your mouth so here we have our cauliflower all all blanched and ready to go you could do this step a day or two in advance if you wanted to now I'm going to take this pot and drain it and right into the same pot I'm going to melt some butter and my heat's on medium once this is all melted down I'm going to add some allpurpose flour and this what we're making here is called a r and this is what's going to thicken our sauce so I'm just going to let this cook over medium low heat now until everything's really well mixed together and I want to cook it for about 30 to 45 seconds it should start to smell kind of toasty now I'm going to add in a teaspoon of mustard powder you could use any herb or spice you want at this point some paprika would be nice oregano and now I'm going to slowly start to whisk in some cold milk and for all my baking and cooking I always like to use whole full fat milk everything just tastes a lot better that way now that doesn't mean you can't use 2% milk or how some people know it as partly skimmed you'll still get a great tasting sauce that way but the whole milk just adds that extra richness now let this come to a boil and let it cook for about a minute that's the only way it's going to start to thicken and after it's cooked for long enough about a minute or two it should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon so when you run your finger along the back of the spoon like that and if the sauce doesn't run that means it's ready you've cooked it long enough so I'm going to shut off the heat and now add in my chopped old cheddar cheese yes chopped because why dirty a cheese grater for cheese that's going to melt anyway so just let the heat of that sauce melt the cheese down and this is going to be the perfect base for anything you want to make if you want to serve this with nachos pour it over macaroni for mac and cheese maybe over broccoli how do you like cheese sauce I would love to know in the comments right now I'm going to heavily season this cheese sauce cuz I like it very zesty and I'm going to pour it over my blanched cauliflower by the way if you're looking for the complete recipe for this lovely cauliflower cheese bake say you're the type of person that likes to print their recipes and have them with them you can find it on my website the link is in the description under the video and don't forget to share this with all your friends that might like this recipe on all the social media sites it really helps the channel out a lot and I always really appreciate it now this wouldn't be complete without more cheese sprinkled on top now would it so I'm going to chop up some more old cheddar cheese my favorite and make it look all pretty and this is going to go into the oven for about 35 minutes or so it really depends on your oven but you're looking for a nice bubbly golden brown top and wow check out how amazing that looks you might want to let this rest for about 5 to 10 minutes before digging in how good would this be on any cold winter night it can be served with pretty much anything and one cool thing I didn't mention is you can use pretty much any kind of cheese you want for this if you wanted a kind of stringiness to your sauce then mozzarella is the cheese that's going to give you that earlier I said this would feed about three or four people but at the rate I'm going it looks like I might be about three or four people oh well I'm telling you guys if you have picky kids that don't eat cauliflower make this for them and they will love it or for that picky eater in your life that just refuses to eat vegetables I bet you they would like this and if you're anything like what I used to be like and are throwing away heads of cauliflower because you don't know what to do with them well you just might never do that again