This creamy cauliflower sauce is a hit. Perfect for pasta, pizza, or anything else you might want to cover in white cauliflower creamy deliciousness.
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Made this tonight and absolutely loved it! The possibilities are endless with this sauce and I love how healthy it is. Thanks so much for sharing.
Katie
This. Sauce. I make it all the time. I use it in tons of recipes. I spoon-feed it to myself straight out of the blender.
So it’s only appropriate that I dedicate an entire post to my all-time favorite, super adaptable, absolutely totally delicious creamy cauliflower sauce. The garlic, butter, creamy cauliflower cooked to perfection all pureed up in that blender (or food processor, because you have a well stocked kitchen unlike me even though I blog about food, say what?) is just life changing.
I honestly have a hard time NOT putting it in every recipe that I make. If something seems to be lacking, this sauce just magically pops into my mind. Bing! Like, hey! maybe a little cauliflower sauce will help this recipe be amazing! Which is a great idea until things start to get out of control as is often the case in my brain, and somehow I find myself wondering if cauliflower sauce would be good in pumpkin bread. Gross. No, it wouldn’t. But maybe…
Too much, Lindsay. Too much.
HOW TO MAKE OUR CREAMY CAULIFLOWER SAUCE:
This sauce is really flexible. It can kinda become anything.
Mostly for me, it becomes Alfredo sauce for my noodles and I call it Healthy Fettuccine Alfredo. (Or if you want the classic Alfredo sauce, I’ve got you right here.)
And it can also become creamy cauliflower garlic rice. Good grief, I love this stuff.
Hey guess what? Coming soon it will become sauce for a white chicken alfredo pizza. Yeahhhh there’s a reason why I want you to have this recipe in your head. A reason that involves thick yummy whole wheat crust, this sauce, white melty cheese, chicken, tomatoes, and on, and on, and on, and on.
Before I launch you into the recipe, I feel like I should say this: this is not made from cream and butter and flour. It’s made from caul-i-flower. Get it? Flour? Flower? While I personally consider this sauce to be magical, it’s not going to taste like it’s made from cream and butter. Well, actually, it kind of does, and MANY of you have said how much your cauliflower-shy families loved this sauce, so who knows. I just want to remind the skeptics that this is indeed cauliflower sauce, so you can expect it to be at least a little bit, um, cauliflowery.
And creamily delicious.
Did I already mention howmuchIlovethisstuff?
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Creamy Cauliflower Sauce
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: makes about 5 cups 1x
Description
This creamy cauliflower sauce is a hit! Perfect for pasta, pizza, or anything else you might want to cover in white cauliflower creamy deliciousness.
Ingredients
- 8 large cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 5–6 cups cauliflower florets
- 6–7 cups vegetable broth or water
- 1 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper (more to taste)
- 1/2 cup milk (more to taste)
Instructions
- Garlic: Saute the minced garlic with the butter in a large nonstick skillet over low heat. Cook for several minutes or until the garlic is soft and fragrant but not browned (browned or burnt garlic will taste bitter). Remove from heat and set aside.
- Cauliflower: Bring the water or vegetable broth to a boil in a large pot. Add the cauliflower and cook, covered, for 7-10 minutes or until cauliflower is fork tender. Do not drain.
- Puree: Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cauliflower pieces to the blender. Add 1 cup vegetable broth or cooking liquid, sauteed garlic/butter, salt, pepper, and milk. Blend or puree for several minutes until the sauce is very smooth, adding more broth or milk depending on how thick you want the sauce. You may have to do this in batches depending on the size of your blender. Serve hot! If the sauce starts to look dry, add a few drops of water, milk, or olive oil.
Notes
I like to add a little bit of olive oil for the flavor and to help keep the sauce really smooth. Several other readers have mentioned that they really liked the addition of Parmesan cheese as well.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Category: Sauce
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: creamy cauliflower sauce, cauliflower sauce, alfredo cauliflower sauce
My adult special needs son thought Alfredo was a fond memory until we found this recipe. Fair notice I’m born of an Italian mom and skeptical of “substitute” traditional recipes. This one is truly amazing! One piece of advice, be picky about your cauliflower … no brown spots. Do add 1/4 cup of fresh grated Parm or Romano! Love, love, love this recipe!
Unfortunately this did not turn out well and was almost inedible. I’m guessing there was too much garlic (who knew there was such a thing??). My cloves were pretty big so I only used 7, though the recipe specifies large cloves so I figured I didn’t need to cut down the quantity significantly. A volume measurement would be helpful to double check against since “large” is hard to quantify.
ummm, YUM!! You were not lying! This recipe is amazing!! I, too, started dreaming of all the different meals I could incorporate this recipe into! It is a game changer for me to find this creamy deliciousness of a sauce that mimics an alfredo but is sooo much healthier…GAME CHANGER! thank you!
Made this tonight and it made a ton so I froze 2 bags of the sauce for an upcoming trip. I did not add milk because it did not need it and I added juice of 1 half of a lemon and about 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast. I used GF pasta..This was so good
This was incredible. I added pignoli nuts together with the garlic to the butter.. thank you!
Tasted really good but it was more like a soup than a sauce it was so liquidy
Happy because I used up the last of my cauliflower that was almost bad!
Sad because it’s the single most blandest thing I’ve ever eaten 🙁
Seasoned the heck outta it, TOO NO AVAIL. The cauliflower absorbed and canceled out any attempt at flavor :,(
Lindsay. I don’t know why I underestimated this – but truly, wow. You cannot even tell. Also had to share that I cooked the cauliflower in the instant pot (just 3 cups of stock) for 3 minutes and quick release. I removed about 1 1/2 cups of cooking liquid before blending with an immersion blender. It was perfection. 🤌🏻🤍
This sauce is wonderful. It could easily be vegan too. I added one carrot for sweetness and color. SOOOO GOOD.
I just made this recipe to go with eggoplant parmesan and a side of bucatini, and it was super delicious! since i have milk protein issues,i used almond milk instead of regular milk and plant butter. i had plenty left over and have used it as a dip for chicken nuggets and other random things as well. this is going to quickly become my fave go-to sauce.
This recipe is great!! Really yummy as it is but also works really well as a base for other sauces!
For a low fat/fat free, gluten and dairy free curry sauce, I left out the butter and milk and added some concentrated tomato paste, ginger, and a heap of curry seasonings to the garlic when I sautéed it, and it worked a treat for cooking for a group with lots of dietary
How about using this sauce for mushroom risotto!
Have you ever tried to freeze it? I’m wondering what it would be like after. Or is it good for another few days to try with another dish.
Hi, Lisa! Other readers have frozen this sauce with luck.
Hello! Do you recommend fresh or frozen cauliflower for this recipe? Thank you!
We usually use fresh, but frozen will work too!
The sauce is sooo yummy- I like it more than regular alfredo. The only change I made was to cook the cauliflower in the milk instead of broth or water to retain all of the nutrients that leach into the liquid during the cooking process. I did 1c. milk to every 2 c. cauliflower and used a low-carb milk.
I’m trying to find a recipe to use up my frozen cauliflower and carrots. Do you think it would work if I add carrots into this recipe, then use it to top pasta?
I think it’d work out just fine!
Wow! So delicious! Thanks for this recipe!!