This buffalo cauliflower recipe is essentially vegetarian buffalo chicken wings! Serve with blue cheese dip for a satisfying game day snack.

Buffalo Cauliflower with Blue Cheese Dip

In a culture of fast food, quick and empty calories, and mind-twisting marketing, it’s sometimes hard to decipher what’s true, real, and good. Before Alex and I started eating whole foods, I sometimes felt like life was empty and tasteless. Greasy takeout and TV dinners were unfulfilling, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Something like homemade roasted buffalo cauliflower “wings”: that was beyond even our wildest imagination.

Want wings? Try these amazing Buffalo Cauliflower Wings.

Eating real food

Discovering real foods and real people, the taste of fresh brewed drip coffee, and a salad with garden tomatoes off the vine opened up a whole new world to us. A world that tasted fresh and honest and REAL.

It would be easy to turn your back on everything from that other food culture. However, we’ve become passionate about tying the two together. Letting new and real emerge and meld with the old. Instead of swearing off buffalo chicken wings with a game of football, we wanted to try to make something satisfying and real in its place. And that, was the birth of this buffalo cauliflower recipe with blue cheese dip.

How to make buffalo cauliflower

These days, buffalo cauliflower is pretty popular: in cookbooks and restaurants alike. What’s our take on it? We roast the cauliflower using our favorite method until it’s tender and blackened. Then we toss it with homemade buffalo sauce: tangy and just the right amount of spicy. Some buffalo cauliflower recipes have breading on the cauliflower so that it’s crunchy. But here, we’ve kept it sans breading to be super simple and healthy. (If you prefer crunchy, try this Crispy Breaded Cauliflower.)

What’s great about eating whole foods is that they can be incredibly delicious. This buffalo cauliflower doesn’t taste like a sacrifice in the least! This healthy appetizer recipe is a great alternative to buffalo chicken dip, which is tasty but can be high calorie. Simply roast up your cauliflower and slather it in blue cheese dip: it’s a healthy snack that tastes seriously indulgent.

Here are the general steps for make buffalo cauliflower (for quantities, see the full recipe below):

Chop a cauliflower head into florets. Want a trick on how to chop florets quickly? See How to Cut Cauliflower.
Mix the florets with olive oil and kosher salt, and roast at 450 degrees for about 30 to 35 minutes, until tender.
Meanwhile, mix up the buffalo sauce: mince 1 garlic clove. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the garlic and Frank’s Hot Sauce.
Once the cauliflower is roasted, remove it from the oven and mix with the buffalo sauce to taste.

What is buffalo sauce and why is it called that?

Buffalo sauce is a spicy sauce made with hot sauce and butter served with chicken wings or buffalo wings. Why is it called buffalo sauce? There is contention around the exact origin of the name, but consensus is that the wings were invented in Buffalo, New York somewhere in the 1950’s or 60’s. They became popular in the 70’s and 80’s, which is around the time several large chains began to specialize in them (which will go unnamed)!

Now that there’s an interest in plant-based eating, buffalo cauliflower wings are having quite the moment for vegetarian and vegan eaters. They can be found on lots of restaurant menus: including the restaurant right around the corner from where Alex and I live here in Indianapolis! Most restaurants serve buffalo cauliflower breaded and fried to simulate a meaty texture. We leave that to the restaurants and make this healthy non-breaded version when we have a craving at home.

Is buffalo sauce vegan?

No, buffalo sauce contains butter so it is not vegan. If you eat vegan or plant-based, you can substitute non-dairy butter or try coconut oil (though it will have a bit of a coconut-y undertone). Let us know if you try a vegan version in the comments below.

How to make blue cheese dip

To accessorize with our buffalo cauliflower, we also happened to have some yogurt and blue cheese on hand. We stirred this together to create into an impromptu healthy blue cheese dip. For a healthy spin, we like to use plain whole milk or Greek yogurt in place of where you’d typically use sour cream. You can also try a ranch version of our blue cheese dip in our Buffalo Cauliflower Sandwich.

Here are the basic ingredients for a healthy blue cheese dip:

Plain whole milk yogurt (or Greek yogurt)
Blue cheese crumbles
Garlic powder
Salt & black pepper

It all comes together into a creamy, tangy and savory dip that’s perfect for dipping this buffalo cauliflower: or any veggies! You can absolutely serve this with a crudite patter, sans cauliflower.

Looking for game day recipes?

This buffalo cauliflower with blue cheese dip is perfect for game day, or a party table full of easy finger food recipes for a crowd. A few of our top game day finger food recipes:

This buffalo cauliflower recipe is…

Vegetarian and gluten-free. For vegan, plant-based and dairy-free, use vegan butter or coconut oil for the cauliflower and omit the dip.