This easy Oven Roasted Cauliflower Steaks with Pesto and Beans dish is so simple yet the flavors are so elevated! Perfect year round!
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Are you ever looking for a dish that good to add to your meal rotation year round? If so, then this Oven Roasted Cauliflower Steaks with Pesto and Beans recipe is your newest addition!
This easy vegan meal idea is great no matter what the season is, but one of the great things about this dish is that it presents very well making it a great addition during the holiday season as well!
Cutting the cauliflower into steaks, makes it the perfect main course option to feed to family and friends.
Why You’ll Love This Dish
Flavorful
Each part of this dish is seasoned on it’s own making sure that optimal flavor is achieved.
Not only that, but then it’s roasted for all those flavors to marry together and then topped with one of the most delicious pestos that you’ve ever tried!
Nutritious
You can always find delicious meals, but delicious and nutritious don’t always go hand in hand. However, they do with this dish.
Our main components of the cauliflower and beans come together to give us protein, fiber, and antioxidants. Not to mention the pesto being a great source of healthy fats and vitamins.
Oven Roasted Cauliflower Steaks with Pesto and Beans Ingredients:
Gather your ingredients!
Below are notes about the ingredients before we get into the full recipe located lower in this post on how to make vegan dish:
- Cauliflower – We are cutting a head of cauliflower into thick slices, also called cauliflower steaks. This allows for a fasting cooking time than just roasting a whole cauliflower, but it also making for a wonderful presentation for dinners
- Butter Beans – are not only a great source of protein, but provides for an amazing textural difference with each creamy bite
- Pesto – we’re making a homemade pesto with basil, pine nuts, garlic, lemon, salt and olive oil. The herby and saltiness of the pesto pairs perfectly to bring the dish together
- Onions and Garlic – our aromatics for the bean portion of the dish starts adding our flavor right away
- Spices – we are using a variety of spices for both the cauliflower and beans in order to take our flavor to the next level- you’ll need smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper for this recipe
- Rice Vinegar– adds notes of richness with a slight hint of sweetness
- Vegetable Stock – we prefer using a low-sodium vegetable broth for this recipe to add in more flavor than just water would do
Substitutions and Variations:
- Cauliflower – you could try this recipe with cabbage steaks or even something like baked potatoes
- Butter Beans – other white beans could be substituted like great northern or cannellini beans
- Pesto – you can also use store made pesto for a quicker option or swap with something else like a roasted red pepper hummus. Alternatively, you can swap the basil with spinach or parsley or do half and half of a combination of the three. Pine nuts can be subbed with walnuts, cashews, or sunflower seeds.
- Onions – you can replace shallots with a sweet or yellow onion as well
- Rice Vinegar– you can sub with sherry vinegar or a red or white wine vinegar
- Vegetable Stock – water could always be substituted
Step by Step Instructions:
To start you’re going to preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C).
Start by making the pesto. Add all your pesto ingredients except the olive oil to a food processor. Then pulse until broken down. While pulsing, drizzle into the olive oil until well combined. Place in fridge.
Wash and dry your cauliflower heads. Remove any leaves from the cauliflower. Combine your spice mixture – smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
Cut 1-inch thick slices from the cauliflower head. You should get 3 to 4 slices from each head depending on the size of your cauliflower.
Place each cauliflower steak on a lightly greased baking sheet. Then, drizzle with olive oil and rub the oil across each steak. Sprinkle the mixture and rub in to make sure entire steak is covered if needed. Flip and repeat so that both sides are covered with oil and spice mixture.
Cover your pan with aluminum foil (or another same size or larger baking sheet upside down). Cook for 5-7 minutes, then remove foil and roast for 10 minutes. Flip carefully and cook for another 7-8 minutes.
Add in remaining olive oil to a skillet over medium low heat. Add in shallots and let cook for a few minutes until they start to brown and develop some caramelization. Add in garlic and cook for an additional minute.
Add your beans, stock, and pepper and stick together well. Let cook for 3-5 minutes or until fragrant and heated throughout. Add in rice vinegar and dried parsley. Stir together and remove from here.
To serve, add cauliflower steaks to a serving platter. Add beans across and on the sides. Top with fresh basil and parsley if desired. Serve pesto on the side or spread across.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Swap the pine nuts in the pesto for sunflower seeds. Otherwise, this dish is Top 9 Allergen free.
Yes. Once cooled completely, you can store in an air tight container in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Yes. You’ll need to use two sheet pans to cook your cauliflower steaks, but you can double the pesto and beans in the same devices.
We wouldn’t recommend freezing this dish.
What other vegan main dishes could I make?
If you love this vegan recipe, you may love these even more:
- Oven Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Edamame with Peanut Sauce
- Creamy Coconut Rice with Spiced Chickpeas
- Easy Vegan Chickpea Curry
- Vegan Green Bean Salad with Feta and Almonds
- Vegan Crispy Roasted Cauliflower
- Vegan Arugula Salad with Chickpeas Avocado and Cherry Tomatoes
- Vegan Zucchini Fritters
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🥳 Get the Full Recipe
Oven Roasted Cauliflower Steaks with Pesto and Beans
Ingredients
Pesto
- 2 cups fresh basil, packed (more for garnish if desired)
- ⅓ cup pine nuts, (sub with sunflower seeds, walnuts or raw cashews)
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper, optional
- ¼ cup olive oil, more for smoother texture
For Cauliflower
- 2 large heads cauliflower, washed and patted dry, leaves removed
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ tsp salt, more or less to taste
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper, more or less to taste
For the Garlic Beans
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 medium shallots, minced (sub with yellow or white onions)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 30 oz butter beans, drained and rinsed
- ½ cup vegetable stock
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 teaspoon rice vinegar
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). Add pesto ingredients except the olive oil to a food processor. Then pulse until broken down. While pulsing, drizzle in the olive oil until well combined. Place in fridge.
- Cut 3 to 4 1-inch thick slices from the cauliflower head. Combine cauliflower spices in a small bowl – smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
- Place each cauliflower steak on a lightly greased baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and rub the oil across each steak. Sprinkle the mixture and rub in to make sure entire steak is covered if needed. Flip and repeat so that both sides are covered with oil and spice mixture.
- Cover your pan with aluminum foil (or another same size or larger baking sheet upside down). Cook for 5-7 minutes, then remove foil and roast for 10 minutes. Flip carefully and cook for another 7-8 minutes.
- Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to a skillet over medium low heat. Add in shallots and let cook for a few minutes until they start to brown and develop some caramelization. Add in garlic and cook for an additional minute.
- Add beans, stock, and pepper and stir together well. Let cook for 3-5 minutes or until fragrant and heated throughout. Add in rice vinegar and dried parsley. Stir together and remove from here.
- To serve, add cauliflower steaks to a serving platter. Add beans across and on the sides. Top with fresh basil and parsley if desired. Serve pesto on the side or spread across.
Video
Nutrition
This recipe was inspired by Eating Well.
thank you
looks fantastic sans all the unnecessary oil, thank you
Thanks, enjoy!
I made it pretty much as directed, except I stirred the pesto in with the beans and that not only made the beans a little tastier, it also incorporated the pesto in the dish easily. Another one I’ll be making again!
Great idea!
Made last night and WOW?? Love that combo of Spicy Roasted Cauliflower and fresh bright Pesto! Took the advice and did the initial baking covered in foil.
Cashews and Sunflower seeds Pesto with some sweet basil. Added a pinch of chili oil to pesto and some Kasmiri chili powder in place of some of the Smoked Paprika.
Beans were solid as a side dish. Will definitely make this again. THANKS!
So happy you enjoyed the dish!
AMAZING! Everything I make from this website is SO GOOD. So appreciative of all your time, care, and generosity in sharing your cooking with us.
This makes us so happy, thank you for your kind words
Do not sleep on this recipe!! I love all beans and just when I thought that I couldn’t love butter beans more I was wrong. Also, don’t skip the pesto. This added such a lovely flavor that was bright (from the lemon) and flavorful. It really made it taste even better!
So glad you loved it!
Thank you so much for this recipe larisha and Andrew. I just made this recipe tonight, and it was great! so quick and easy for a weeknight dinner. I will definitely make this again. 😊
Awesome! So happy you enjoyed it
I love this recipe!!❤️❤️❤️
YAY!
Dear Andrew,
thank you for this lovely recipe. I just made it and absolutely It’s delicious.
Thank you for the many recipes without the presence of vegan cheeses and meat substitutes. They are not so available in my country and I also do not like them much.
I love your content and visual aesthetic.
Much love from Bulgaria.
HI Nevena! So happy to hear that you are enjoying the recipes