Low carb lovers feast your eyes on this Loaded Cauliflower Rice Casserole. Loaded with cheese, bacon, and a little red pepper to spice things up, this cauliflower rice casserole will knock your socks off and make you forget you ever used to like rice or potatoes.
Low Carb Vegetables
Ever since I started to follow a low carb ketogenic diet, I’m always on the hunt for delicious lower carbohydrate recipes to replace my favorite high carb meals.
Some of my favorite low carb vegetables to swap for high carb vegetables are cauliflower for rice, jicama for potatoes, and spaghetti squash for pasta.
Much like our Greek style Cauliflower Rice Salad, for today’s cauliflower rice casserole recipe you can use either fresh or frozen cauliflower, florets, a whole cauliflower head or pre-riced cauliflower. The choice is yours!
How To Make Cauliflower Rice
You can purchase cauliflower rice in the produce section or in the freezer section of your grocery story, however, it is very easy to make cauliflower rice at home using a whole head of cauliflower. Here are the steps to make cauliflower rice when you have a whole head of cauliflower:
- First you need to wash the head of cauliflower
- Then you will coarsely chop the cauliflower into big chunks
- Place the cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl, add 2 tablespoons of water, cover and cook on high power for 3 to 4 minutes
- Carefully remove the covering. Drain the water out
- Now with a fork or potato masher, mash the cauliflower until it is a rice like texture
- Be careful not to mash it too much. It’s okay if you do, as it will still taste delicious but it will be more mashed potato like in texture.
Loaded Cauliflower Rice Casserole
For this Loaded Cauliflower Rice Casserole we add in all of our fixings next. This loaded cauliflower rice is much like loaded potatoes with cheddar cheese, butter, heavy whipping cream, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to give it a little kick! You can also add in some mozzarella cheese if you want to have that ooey goey effect!
After you’ve mixed up the ingredients for the loaded cauliflower rice casserole, it’s time to add the cauliflower rice mixture to a casserole dish. We are going to pop this bad boy into the oven on broil for approximately 10 minutes. This I found is the perfect amount of time to let the cauliflower casserole start to brown on top. TIP: Leave the oven door ajar when broiling and watch it closely so it doesn’t burn.
While the cauliflower rice casserole is cooking fry up some bacon in a skillet. Oh how I LOVE me some bacon! I use uncured bacon to save the bacon fat for frying up eggs and veggies later in the week. This is also a good time to thinly slice some scallions, because scallions are pretty and make everything taste better right?
When the cauliflower rice casserole is nicely browned, remove it from the oven and top with bacon and scallions. Enjoy!
Other delicious cauliflower recipes you need to try!
- Bacon Cheddar Cauliflower Soup
- Instant Pot Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice
- Cauliflower Cheese Casserole
- Mashed Cauliflower and Arugula Stuffed Portobellos
- Bang Bang Cauliflower Bites
- Creative Cauliflower Recipes
So there you have it folks! This is my go-to side dish when I have family and friends over. It’s such a crowd pleaser and they never can tell that this loaded cauliflower rice casserole is low carb!
If you try this recipe, I would love it if you could rate it and share it with your friends 🙂
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Loaded Cauliflower Rice Casserole
Low carb lovers, feast your eyes on this loaded cauliflower rice casserole. It’ll knock your socks off and make you forget you ever used to like rice or potatoes.
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower
- 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 cup cheddar cheese
- 1 Tablespoon butter
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
- 4 slices bacon cooked
- 2 scallions (greens and whites)
Instructions
Pre-heat the oven to broil.
Wash cauliflower head.
Coarsely chop the cauliflower into big chunks.
Place the cauliflower in a microwave safe bowl, add 2 tablespoons of water, cover and cook on high power for 3 to 4 minutes.
Carefully remove the covering. Drain the water out.
With a fork or potato masher, mash the cauliflower until it is a rice like texture. (It’s okay if you mash it too much. It will still taste delicious but it will be more mash potato like.)
Add in cheddar cheese, butter, heavy whipping cream, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Mi till well combined. The heat of the cauliflower with melt the butter and cheese.
Next add the mixture to a casserole dish.
Put in the oven under broil for 10 minutes.
While the casserole is cooking fry up the bacon.
Also while the casserole is cooking, thinly slice some scallions.
Carefully remove the casserole from the oven and top with crumbled bacon and scallions.
Enjoy!
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