Easy Buffalo Cauliflower Wings
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Easy Buffalo Cauliflower Wings are baked — not fried — and deliver all of the flavor of fried buffalo chicken wings in a lighter, but equally tasty appetizer or main dish!
If you are looking for some great starter ideas using delicious Buffalo flavors, look no further! Try my recipes for Buffalo Mac and Cheese Cups, Blue Cheese Stuffed Buffalo Chicken Meatballs, and Buffalo Popcorn Chicken.
Remember when buffalo flavors were only for chicken wing joints? Then it somehow got into that buffalo chicken dip that everyone started serving at parties and then that kind of branched into buffalo-flavored everything, THEN people decided that cauliflower was the bees’ knees so that started to become a key ingredient to swap for meat with buffalo sauce and now here we are.
For those times though when you want to go meatless or you’re hosting a friend or family member who has diet restrictions this buffalo cauliflower is perfect!
Why This Recipe Works
Perfect vegetarian option – Looking for something meatless but yet still tasty? These cauliflower wings ARE IT. Brimming with flavor and texture, you’ll never even miss the meat!
Easy – How easy are these buffalo cauliflower bites to make? You can get these done start to finish in just 35 minutes with minimal ingredients! So. Easy. Yet so tasty!
Versatile – If you’re looking for small bites, this baked cauliflower with buffalo sauce is perfect. However, if you’re looking for a larger piece of cauliflower, then you can slice the head into “steaks” and cook and sauce it as directed.
Keto-friendly – Whether you’re on a Keto diet or just watching your carb intake, these buffalo cauliflower wings would make a perfect addition to your diet.
Here’s How You Make It
Prepare the Cauliflower
- Turn the oven on to 450 degrees to preheat and prepare a baking sheet.
- In a bowl, combine the salt, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, and black pepper. Then, add the milk and stir.
- Now dip the cauliflower bites into the milk mixture, turn them to coat completely, shake off any excess milk, then arrange them in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.
- Put the buffalo cauliflower in the oven to bake for 10 minutes. Turn the cauliflower pieces over with a fork, then put back into the oven for another 10 minutes.
Prepare the Sauce
- While the cauliflower cooks, make the buffalo wing sauce by combining the butter, buffalo wing sauce, and honey in a medium saucepan, bringing it to a boil over medium heat, stirring and cooking for another 2-3 minutes.
- Remove from heat.
Putting the Buffalo Wings Together
- Finally, brush the buffalo sauce all over the baked cauliflower, bake them again for another 10 minutes. Serve fresh with ranch or blue cheese dressing for dipping.
Expert Tips
- To break down the cauliflower, simply cut off the stem and start to break the cauliflower down into smaller pieces, whatever size you prefer, but remember to make them all roughly the same size so they’ll cook all at the same time.
- Depending on the size of your cauliflower pieces, you’ll need to bake them about 10-15 minutes at 450 degrees on a greased baking sheet.
- Remove the buffalo cauliflower from the oven when they begin to look tender-crisp and a tad brown around the edges, but before they turn too brown all around.
- For extra crispy buffalo cauliflower wings, broil them for the last 2-3 minutes of the final cooking time.
Frequently Asked Questions
ffalo sauce, so the story goes, originated in Buffalo, NY. It is typically made of a mixture of hot sauce, vinegar, butter, and Worcestershire sauce and maybe some seasonings, depending on the restaurant’s version. Me, I skip all that work and just go ahead and use a pre-made Buffalo sauce like Frank’s Red Hot or something similar. I add the butter because it adds a richness and thickens just plain old hot sauce. Plus, I like to add that touch of honey to dial down the heat just a tad. That’s my (not so) secret ingredient.
Serving Suggestions
Wondering what to serve with buffalo cauliflower? The possibilities are endless! When I serve this dish, it’s typically with some other apps and lighter, finger foods, because one of the best ways to eat is to make a ton of shareable dishes and get a bite of everything. That being said, here are some of my go-tos:
- A simple tossed green salad, because you want to feel like you’re getting in all your veggies too right?
- Baked Lemon Pepper Wings, to satisfy all your “real” wing-loving friends.
- Looking for a dip that feeds a crowd but is really easy to put together? Then try this BBQ Chicken Dip!
- Baked Coconut Shrimp are easy enough to bake alongside the cauliflower and both can be ready at the same time!
- Queso Blanco? Yes, please!
- Cowboy Caviar is so simple to toss together and even easier to gobble up, so you might want to double the recipe!
More Meatless Recipes You’ll Love
- Chickpea Curry
- Baked Garlic Parmesan Potato Wedges
- Baked Sweet and Sour Cauliflower
- Best Baked Cauliflower “Mac” and Cheese
Did you make this Easy Buffalo Cauliflower recipe? YAY! Please rate the recipe below!
Easy Buffalo Cauliflower
Ingredients
for the cauliflower
- 1 head cauliflower, chopped into florets
- ½ cup flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¾ cup milk, or buttermilk
for the buffalo sauce
- ½ cup buffalo wing sauce
- 3 tablespoons salted butter, add 1/8 teaspoon salt if using unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ranch or blue cheese dressing for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees and grease a baking sheet.
- Stir together flour, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, and black pepper. Stir in milk.
- Dip cauliflower in the milk mixture, turning to coat completely, shake off excess and arrange in a single layer on prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 10 minutes, use a fork to turn over cauliflower pieces, and bake another 10 minutes.
- While cauliflower is baking, combine buffalo wing sauce, butter, and honey in a medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, cook 2-3 minutes, then remove from heat.
- Brush buffalo sauce all over the baked cauliflower, bake another 10 minutes (I like to broil it for the last 2-3 minutes).
- Serve fresh with ranch or blue cheese dressing for dipping.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
buffalo sauce on the cauliflower added a nice flavor, but it turned out a gooey mess. Not the crispy cauliflower we were looking for
Loveeeeee<3 yummiest snack ever
Thank you! So glad you enjoy this recipe 🙂
That was AMAZING!! I don’t think I’ll eat cauliflower any other way from now on.
Not too bad. Just too much time for me spent prepping and cooking. The batter was just ok. Probably due to old flour and made buttermilk from a powder. I can see cooking cauliflower and drizzling with Buffalo sauce as a side dish. I had blue cheese dressing and celery sticks with mine. Saved the left over sauce ( not the batter of course) for a drizzle over my omelette in the morning.
It turned out so good! I keep trying different recipes. I used part 1%milk and part soy milk. Broiling really helps. I used half the Frank’s Hot sauce as I don’t like it too spicy.
I really like this recipe. I picked it because it’s baked. I also thought the batter was too thick so I added more buttermilk. I also
Thought they were good without the buffalo sauce. My daughter has a gluten sensitivity so I used gluten free flour. I find that the gluten free flour works well for most recipes. I also thought they were good without the buffalo sauce.
I greased my pan but I ended up with more batter sticking to the pan than the cauliflower.
I read your comment about making sure the measurements were exact. I followed the instructions exactly and ended up with soggy, batter-tasting cauliflower. My milk mixture was extremely thick but I used planet oat oat milk which is a really watery milk for reference. Not sure what I did wrong except maybe use plant based milk but I probably won’t make this again.
Deliciously tasty! Great recipe!
My cauliflower was a bit soggy. I followed the recipe. Any suggestions? The flour batter seemed a little thick
I would make sure you got the measurements correctly because the coating should be very watery. I’m pretty sure that’s why the cauliflower ended up being soggy. There is a video of me making this recipe in this post, hopefully the visual will help!