Pickled cauliflower is a favorite snack around our house, especially when we add Indian spices. Salty, tangy, and spicy pickled cauliflower is delicious as a side. Add it to pizza, sandwiches, or curries and now we’re talking! Turmeric cauliflower has a lot of health benefits from the colorful and anti-inflammatory turmeric spice, but then it transforms into a probiotic food when you make fermented cauliflower.
Oh yeah it’s good for you, but even more awesome is the bold flavor!
When you think pickled vegetables, the first thing that might come to mind might be lacto-fermented dill pickles, but there are many other great pickling vegetables. Try cauliflower!
Raw cauliflower tends to have a mild flavor, unlike its green cousin broccoli. It’s nice and crunchy and can easily take on other flavors the way tofu does. Also, adding colorful Indian spices like turmeric turns the bright white color into a beautiful yellow or gold. Making fermented pickled cauliflower is simple and doesn’t take a lot of time. This is one of the best cauliflower recipes to make your mouth water!
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Let’s get to it.
Easy Indian Pickled Cauliflower Curry Recipe
Makes 1 Quart
Originally we came across this awesome recipe from Melanie at Pickle Me Too when I had her on the podcast. What a great idea to add Indian spices to pickled cauliflower. It’s a party favorite!
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cauliflower, cut into bize-size chunks
- 2 garlic cloves, smashed
- 1 T salt per 2 cups water (3.5% salinity ratio)
- 1/2 T curry powder
- 1/2 T chili powder
- 1/2 T turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp cayenne powder
Pick and wash a beautiful head of cauliflower. If it has a few spots on it, you can always cut those off.
Cut the head in half and remove the hard stalk pieces. Chop the head into bite-size pieces that would be nice to snack on. We like slightly longer pieces to make them easier to grab.
Peel and smash the garlic to release the flavorful goodness. Fill mason jar with the cauliflower and garlic to neck of the jar.
Add the beautiful Indian spices and shake to get down in the jar.
Cover with the salt brine. We like to add a cap and shake it to get all the spices mixed up.
Add a fermentation weight or a small jelly jar to weigh all the ingredients below the brine. Don’t forget to put your jar on a small plate to catch the overflow that’s likely to happen! If you’re using glass fermentation weights, you could also add a fermentation lid with an airlock to keep oxygen out.
Leave it to ferment on the counter for three to six days or longer depending on the flavor you like. Try a little every day to see how much of a tangy flavor you enjoy. We like six days.
Pickling Cauliflower and Lacto-Fermentation
Like most fermented vegetables, after a few days bubbles will start to appear out of nowhere on the cauliflower inside the jar. This is from the lactobacilli bacteria breaking down the sugars and starches in the cauliflower creating lactic acid and gases.
The gases naturally start to rise to escape and a gentle nudge will dislodge and send them rushing to the surface of the jar. This is all natural and lets you know you’re on the right track. It’s also fun to see and feels like a science experiment.
The most important thing to remember is to make sure all your ingredients stay submerged so nothing pops above the surface because mold is not your friend! Fortunately, pickling cauliflower is easier than other ferments because even a light weight will keep the pieces from floating to the top.
Enjoying Your Curry Pickled Cauliflower
After days being submerged in a salt brine and spices you’ll see the fermented cauliflower take on a golden color and taste salty and tangy. If you taste it and like it, then it’s done! Once you have a batch of these in your fridge, it’s hard not to keep snacking so you might want to make a bunch.
One creative way you might consider enjoying this recipe is making a vegan buffalo cauliflower recipe using fermented cauliflower instead of raw. Starting with a salty and sour flavor could lend an extra WOW factor to buffalo cauliflower bites. Let us know if you try it!
We hope you love this recipe as much as we do. Enjoy!
