Nashville hot chicken may be king in the land of regional American food, but Nashville hot cauliflower is coming to steal the crown. Coated in hot sauce-spiked buttermilk batter, fried to golden brown perfection, and drizzled with the iconic spicy oil, this vegetarian dinner is crispy, flavorful, and so delicious that its status as a “vegetarian entrée” is almost beside the point.
Cauliflower steaks aren’t complicated to cut, but just keep in mind that each steak will need part of the center stem attached so it holds together as one cohesive piece. You should be able to get four complete steaks out of a single head of cauliflower, but don’t panic if one of them breaks apart—just bread and fry the two pieces separately. No one will care.
Read on for more tips on this vegetarian version of a regional classic. Looking for more cauliflower fun? Check out our General Tso’s cauliflower.
What is Nashville hot chicken?
Nashville hot chicken is a regional specialty first invented by Andre Prince Jeffries of Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack in—you guessed it!—Nashville. In its most traditional form, it’s breaded and deep-fried chicken tossed in a super-spicy oil and served with dill pickle chips and white bread. Today, many hot chicken shacks offer different versions with varying levels of spice, so you can choose if you want your mouth to be simply burning or absolutely on fire.
Why are we letting the breaded cauliflower rest? Can’t I just fry it immediately?
It might be tempting to skip the 30-minute resting time before frying, but please don’t! Resting the breaded cauliflower gives the flour the chance to join forces with the buttermilk and egg in the wet dredge, producing a stronger, more cohesive—and ultimately more delicious—breading.
Why are we using fry oil instead of fresh to make the spicy oil?
It might seem odd, but there are two good reasons to use the hot fryer oil in our spicy oil. First, the hot oil comes already infused with the spices that were in the cauliflower’s breading, which adds to the overall flavor. Second, ladling the hot oil over the ground spice mix blooms the spices, activating their aroma and flavor more fully.
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