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Nope. 10 cloves of garlic is not a typo. This isn't an apologetic, half-assed amount of garlic tucked in for a background hint. But chill. This garlic mashed cauliflower does get a little mellow as it cooks, and it makes an awesome lower-carb upgrade from standard mashed potatoes.
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Potatoes are potatoes, and there's nothing that a cauliflower can do to convince you that it is successfully cosplaying as a French fry or something like that. And that's why this isn't just "cauliflower pretending to be potatoes and not quite pulling it off."
Instead, I threw in some nice subtle herbal flavors, a tiny touch of Dijon mustard, and this year you are going to have on your hands a MORE flavorful mash to serve with your tofu turkey on, or mushroom Wellington and vegan brown gravy. No biggie.
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🥰 Why you'll adore this Garlic Cauliflower Purée
✊ Vegan AF & GF: Olive oil and plant milk carry the creaminess while butter and all other dairy crap sit on stools with dunce caps on looking mighty dejected. It's one of the super-not-weird gluten-free vegan recipes that people will smash at your holiday table.
🥔 The Mashed Potato Swap That Actually Slaps: Lower carb, waaay more flavor, still creamy. This holds its own on the plate instead of feeling like a consolation prize for people watching their carbs.
⏱️ One Pot, One Food Processor, Done: Boil it, blend it, drizzle it, and you're finished. Quick to pull together and there's barely anything left to wash after.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all my vegan Thanksgiving recipes, this one was perfected with feedback from over 1,000 recipe testers. A somewhat concerning number of them confessed to eating it straight out of the food processor with a spoon. No one lost a finger as far as I know, and that's the only way I can sleep easy at night.
🤘learn to make insanely flavorful vegan sides
This guide to my most popular vegan side dishes is 100% FREE, & you'll love the actual heck out of it 🥰
🧄 Garlic Cauliflower Mash Ingredients
Garlic
10 cloves (yup, 10), boiled soft alongside the cauliflower, front and center flavor-wise, not hiding in the background at all.
If you're avoiding onions and garlic, no stress. Just skip them and blend in a small amount of prepared horseradish to taste, or rock it out with some truffle oil instead.
The Mustard
My personal pick for this recipe (and most cooking applications, to be transparent) is a nice creamy Dijon, but you can get away with just about any mustard, as long as we're not talking squeeze-bottle yellow hot dog mustard, that's a hard no because: LAME.
Maille and Grey Poupon are both great, totally affordable options sitting right there in your local regular-ass supermarket.
The Milk
You don't need much, but soy or oat milk gets you the creamiest end result. But really any unsweetened, unflavored plant milk works. Just don't, under any circumstances, grab a vanilla one, that's a genuinely barfity-gross time waiting to happen.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
🤯Variations
White Truffle Mashed Cauliflower
Roast a whole head of garlic instead of boiling it, then squeeze the cloves right into the food processor. Swap the olive oil for Da Rosario or Truff truffle oil and this stops being a side dish and starts being a reason to rub mash all over your body from head to toe. A ton of cheap truffle oil for sale is just synthetic flavoring with maybe 1 sad truffle shaving just so they can say it contains real truffle.
Rosemary Mashed Cauliflower
Ditch the thyme, add 5 teaspoons of chopped rosemary instead, and let this go full herby overload.
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📖 How to make Garlic Cauliflower Mash
This is a genuinely fast side dish, mostly just boiling and blending, so don't overthink it. Follow the steps and tips below, or scroll to the recipe card if you already know your way around this one.
Step One
Boil George:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add the cauliflower florets and garlic and cook for 10-12 minutes, until the cauliflower is completely tender and the garlic is soft.
Step Two
Drain in the Membrane:
Drain through a colander and let it drip dry completely.
Step Three
Blend It Like Beckham:
Transfer the cauliflower and garlic to a food processor. Add the olive oil, plant-based milk, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, thyme, salt, and black pepper. Process until completely smooth, scraping down the sides as needed.
Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Move to a serving bowl and make a shallow well in the center.
Step Four
Butter Call Saul:
Melt the vegan butter over medium-low heat, or warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. Once warm, about 60 seconds, drizzle it over the mashed cauliflower. Garnish with chives, thyme sprigs, and coarse ground black pepper.
Some kind of gravy is pretty much mandatory, IMHO.
💡 What Gravy Do I Rock This With?
Mushroom gravy is the move, obvi! Vegan brown gravy is for anyone who wants the classic Thanksgiving flavor without any complicated crap. Onion gravy is sweet, dark, and caramelized.
If a seitan brisket or vegan turkey roast is on your table, rocking them out with this mash and some vegan sausage gravy is straight up insane stuff.
👉Top tips
- Steam Instead of Boil If You Want It More Garlicky: Boiling water pulls flavor out into the pot along with the moisture, diluting the garlic as it cooks. Steaming skips that dilution entirely, so the garlic actually punches through instead of getting watered down. You will just need more time to get everything tender enough to puree smoothly.
- Warm the Serving Bowl Before Plating: My mom always dumps her hot pasta water into the serving bowl right before plating, just to heat the bowl up first. Same trick works here. A cold bowl sucks the heat out of the mash fast, and cauliflower cools way quicker than potatoes since it's holding less starch. A hot water rinse and a quick wipe dry keeps it warm waaay longer at the table.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
Eh. I guess yes, though it tends to hold more water than fresh, so drain and dry it especially well after boiling or steaming.
🧊 In the Fridge
Store in an airtight container for up to 4 days. It thickens as it chills, so a splash of plant milk when reheating brings the texture back.
🔥 Reheating
Warm gently in a saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently, or microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring between each. Add a little liquid if it needs loosening up.
✌️More Mashed Sides You'll Dig
Garlic Mashed Cauliflower Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 large heads cauliflower cut into florets
- 10 cloves garlic peeled
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened plant-based milk
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon thyme fresh or dried
- 2 ¼ teaspoons salt or to taste
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
To Garnish:
- 1 tablespoon vegan butter or extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons fresh chives finely chopped
- 2 sprigs thyme
- ¼ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add the cauliflower florets and garlic and cook for 10-12 minutes, until the cauliflower is completely tender and the garlic is soft.
- Drain through a colander and allow to completely drip dry.
- Transfer the cauliflower and garlic to a food processor. Add the olive oil, plant-based milk, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, thyme, salt, and black pepper. Process until completely smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides as needed.
- Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. Transfer to a serving bowl and make a shallow well in the center.
- Melt the vegan butter over medium-low heat, or warm the olive oil over medium-low heat. After 60 seconds when the fat is warm, drizzle it over the mashed cauliflower. Garnish with the chives, parsley, and coarse-ground black pepper.
Notes
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