Recipes: Easy Cauliflower Cheese

Cauliflower cheese can be a tricky dish to get right, but seeing as it’s a british national favourite, here’s a recipe that’ll have you adding it your family dining table for roast dinners, shepherds pies, stews and casseroles.

You Will Need:

3 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

1 kilogram of frozen of fresh cauliflower and/or broccoli

3 spring onions, washed and finely chopped

600 ml of semi-skimmed milk

50 grams of unsalted butter

400 grams of grated mature cheddar (or the cheddar of your choice)

50 grams of plain flour

1 sheet of tin foil

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 165 degrees.

Heat a medium sized saucepan to a low heat, then add the garlic and butter. Using a wooden spoon, keep them moving in the pan until the butter starts to go frothy.

Add the flour, again keeping everything in the pan moving with the wooden spoon until it forms an emulsion.

Add the milk, and bring the pan to the boil. Leave the pain boiling for ten minutes or until a film begins to appear on the top. Keep stirring as the milk thickens, then reduce the heat slightly.

As the mixture thickens, reduce the heat slightly and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

Once the sauce has thickened, remove it from the heat. Add the grated cheddar and small handful at a time and stir vigorously, so it’s absorbed. Repeat this process until the sauce is thick and even, keeping a little of the cheese for later.

Add the spring onions to the sauce and season with salt and pepper.

Arrange your cauliflower and/or broccoli in a good sized dish, then pour the sauce evenly over the top. Use a serving spoon to stir the cauliflower to ensure its coated evenly.

Season once again and sprinkle the last remaining cheese over the top. You can add more cheese here if you like, it’s entirely up to you.

Cover the dish with foil.

Place it into the oven and cook for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven, along with foil, and continue to cook until golden brown all over.

Serve as an accompaniment to your Sunday Roast dinner, or as a delicious mid-week snack hot or cold!