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Cauliflower Cheese
My cauliflower cheese bake is my ultimate comfort side. I roast the cauliflower first for extra flavour, then smother it in a velvety cheese sauce made with sharp cheddar and a touch of mustard. Baked until golden and bubbling, it’s rich, savoury, and completely addictive. Whether I’m serving it with a roast, grilled sausages, or just eating it straight from the dish, this cheesy cauliflower bake always hits the spot. It’s simple, satisfying, and properly indulgent.
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower, broken into florets
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 20g salted butter
- 20g plain flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 50g + 30g cheddar cheese, grated
- 25g + 10g Parmigiano Reggiano (or any hard italian cheese), grated
- Salt & pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C (fan) or 220°C (conventional).
- Toss the cauliflower florets through the olive oil and transfer to a baking dish. Roast in the hot oven for 20 minutes, or until the cauliflower is turning golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.
- In a pot over medium heat, melt the butter and flour together to make a paste. Continue to stir the paste until it just starts to colour.
- Slowly whisk in the milk, continuing to whisk until it is rich and creamy. Add the Dijon mustard, garlic powder, 50g cheddar, and 25g Parmigiano Reggiano, and stir until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Pour the cheese sauce over the roasted cauliflower and sprinkle over the additional 30g cheddar and 10g Parmigiano Reggiano.
- Return to the oven for an additional 20 minutes, or until the cheese has turned golden and bubbling.
Notes
- Roasting the cauliflower first adds a lovely caramelised flavour and ensures it's cooked through properly. Don't skip this step.
- I use this baking dish for cauliflower cheese. It goes from oven to table beautifully and holds the heat well.
- Breaking the cauliflower into even-sized florets ensures they roast evenly. Aim for bite-sized pieces rather than massive chunks.
- The roux (butter and flour paste) needs to cook for a minute or two to get rid of the raw flour taste, but don't let it brown too much or your sauce will taste burnt.
- Whisk the milk in slowly to avoid lumps. If you do get lumps, just keep whisking vigorously and they'll smooth out.
- Dijon mustard adds a subtle tang and depth to the cheese sauce. It's not overpowering, just enough to lift the flavour.
- Using a mix of cheddar and Parmigiano Reggiano gives you the best of both worlds: cheddar for richness and meltability, Parmigiano Reggiano for a sharp, nutty kick.
- Grate your own cheese rather than buying pre-grated. Pre-grated cheese has anti-caking agents that can make the sauce grainy.
- Season the sauce well. Cheese sauces can be quite bland without enough salt and pepper.
- The cheese topping should be golden and bubbling, not pale. If it's not quite there after 20 minutes, pop it under the grill for a minute or two.
- This is best served hot and fresh from the oven. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days and reheated in the oven at 180°C for 15-20 minutes.
- You can freeze cauliflower cheese in a freezer-safe dish for up to 2 months. Defrost in the fridge overnight and reheat in the oven at 180°C for 25-30 minutes, or until piping hot.
What I Cook With
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 150Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 22mgSodium: 254mgCarbohydrates: 14gFiber: 3gSugar: 3gProtein: 7g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
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Roasted Cauliflower Cheese Bake
The Only Way I’ll Eat Cauliflower
This roasted cauliflower cheese bake is the dish that changed my mind about a vegetable I had written off entirely. Cauliflower roasted until golden and slightly charred at the edges, then draped in a velvety béchamel with cheddar, Parmigiano Reggiano, Dijon mustard, and garlic powder, and baked again until the top is properly golden and bubbling. Not fancy, not fiddly, just really, really good.
M&S Almost Got It Right
Here in Scotland, a Sunday roast doesn’t just mean roast potatoes and parsnips. The Brits take their side dishes very seriously, and rightly so. Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, pigs in blankets, braised red cabbage, there’s always a full and enthusiastic supporting cast. One of the dishes I’ve come to love since moving here is cauliflower cheese, which is not something I grew up with in Western Sydney and certainly not something I’d ever considered making before. But after spotting it on a lazy M&S trip, I decided to give it a go alongside a few other bits and bobs for an extremely relaxed Sunday roast.
Let me be completely transparent: I have never been a cauliflower fan. It always struck me as bland, soggy, and a bit sad. But I do like to test myself, and once I tasted the cheesy version, something shifted. It still wasn’t quite love at first bite, but the potential was absolutely there. And in true fashion, I knew I could make it better. Because the secret, as with so many things, is roasting. Roast your cauliflower and everything changes. You get a bit of sweetness, a bit of nuttiness, and those golden charred edges are genuinely heaven.
The version you’ll find here is exactly that. Roasted cauliflower draped in a velvety béchamel, baked again with a proper golden top. It’s made its way into every Christmas dinner I’ve cooked since discovering it, and it’s always a hit, even with the fussiest of eaters. Which is all the endorsement it needs.
More Roast Dinner Sides
Roast First, Sauce Later
I was never going to boil the cauliflower and drown it in sauce. That seemed like a recipe for mush, and mush is not what we’re here for. Roasting it instead unlocks something in the vegetable that boiling could never touch. You don’t even have to go to town on seasoning, just olive oil and a hot oven does the job. It caramelises, crisps up in spots, and develops a depth of flavour that means your sauce doesn’t have to work overtime trying to mask what’s underneath it. The sauce can actually shine alongside the cauliflower rather than hiding it.
I did make the mistake of slightly overdoing the roast one time, entirely because I was live on Twitch, chatting away while my poor cauliflower was quietly charring in the oven. By the time I remembered it was in there, those florets were considerably more burnt than golden. Silver lining: they were still delicious. Those deeply crispy, almost burnt edges were honestly the best bit. I stand by this.
This method works especially well when you’ve got a roast dinner with lots of rich, salty sides. The deep roasted cauliflower combined with a cheesy, savoury sauce gives a lovely contrast that holds its own next to roast beef, lamb, or a glazed ham without overwhelming anything. It doesn’t require much, just a bit of patience, a hot oven, and ideally a free oven shelf when you need it.
A Christmas Table Non-Negotiable
This cauliflower cheese bake is now completely non-negotiable at my Christmas table, she writes in what is very much not December. I don’t care if we’re feeding four people or fourteen, it goes on the menu. It’s one of those dishes I’ve quietly perfected over time, which is saying something given that I still don’t particularly like cauliflower in any other form. Once roasted and smothered in this sauce, it becomes something else entirely, and that transformation is the whole point.
Christmas for me is about tradition and indulgence. It’s when you go all out. More wine, more side dishes, more legitimate excuses to nap between meals. This bake features because it balances beautifully with everything else on the table. If you’ve got crispy roast potatoes, silky mash, and something green for virtue’s sake, this adds exactly the right creamy, savoury note without tipping anyone over the edge into food coma territory. Or at least not until the pudding arrives.
It’s also surprisingly flexible for a dish that sounds quite specific. It reheats well, travels well if you’re taking it to someone else’s house, and can sneak its way into a midweek dinner if you’re feeling like something a little more special than a Tuesday warrants. Add some crispy bacon or shredded roast chicken and it becomes a meal entirely in its own right. The cauliflower won’t even be the point anymore, and coming from someone who doesn’t like cauliflower, that is the highest possible praise.
Ingredient breakdown
Cauliflower
One whole head of cauliflower broken into florets, which get roasted before the cheese sauce goes anywhere near them. This is the step that separates a genuinely good cauliflower cheese from a watery, underwhelming one. Roasting at high heat for twenty minutes caramelises the edges and drives off excess moisture, which means the cauliflower brings flavour to the dish rather than just diluting the sauce. Break it into even, bite-sized florets rather than massive chunks so everything roasts at the same rate and fits comfortably on a fork.
Olive oil
Just enough to coat the cauliflower florets before they go into the oven. It helps them caramelise and develop those golden edges rather than just steaming in their own moisture. Nothing complicated, just toss and roast.
Salted butter and plain flour
These two go into the pot together to form the roux, which is the base of the cheese sauce. Cooking them together into a paste for a minute or two before the milk goes in is what gets rid of the raw flour taste, but don’t let it colour too much or the sauce will taste slightly burnt underneath all that cheese. The roux is what gives the finished sauce its body and thickness, and getting it right at this stage means a smooth, glossy sauce rather than a thin, watery one.
Milk
Whisked into the roux slowly and gradually rather than all at once, which is how you avoid lumps. Add it in a thin, steady stream while whisking continuously and the sauce will come together smoothly. If you do get a few lumps, keep whisking vigorously over the heat and they’ll smooth out. The milk transforms the roux into a thick, creamy béchamel that the cheese then melts into.
Dijon mustard
A teaspoon of Dijon goes into the sauce with the cheese and adds a subtle, tangy depth that lifts the whole thing without making it taste distinctly mustardy. It’s one of those ingredients that you wouldn’t necessarily identify by name in the finished dish but would notice immediately if it wasn’t there. Cheese sauces without a little mustard can taste flat and one-dimensional, and Dijon is the classic fix.
Garlic powder
A small amount adds a quiet savoury warmth to the sauce that garlic powder does better than fresh garlic here, because fresh garlic in a béchamel can be slightly raw-tasting and uneven. Garlic powder disperses evenly through the sauce and just sits in the background doing its job without announcing itself.
Cheddar and Parmigiano Reggiano
Used in a split quantity, some going into the sauce and some reserved for the topping, and the two cheeses are doing different jobs. The cheddar melts into the sauce beautifully and provides that rich, creamy, classic cauliflower cheese flavour. The Parmigiano Reggiano adds a sharp, nutty intensity that cheddar alone doesn’t have. Together they give you a sauce with depth and complexity, and a topping that goes properly golden and develops those irresistible crispy patches in the oven. Grate both yourself rather than buying pre-grated because the anti-caking agents in pre-grated cheese make sauces grainy rather than smooth.
Salt and pepper
Season the sauce generously because cheese sauces need more seasoning than you’d expect to taste properly balanced rather than bland. Taste before the sauce goes over the cauliflower and adjust accordingly.
Serve this with
- As part of a Sunday roast alongside whatever else is coming out of the oven.
- Roast beef or lamb with gravy, where the cauliflower cheese does the job of both the vegetable and the side.
- Grilled sausages and mashed potatoes for a proper comfort food spread.
