This is the best Cauliflower Piccata recipe! It’s easy to make, full of flavor, and tastes just like a restaurant quality meal every time!
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This is the best cauliflower piccata! Not just saying that because it’s my recipe, but truly this recipe is one of our family’s favorites.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure my children were going to like this dish, however, it’s one of their favorites. It’s one of my favorites not only because of the flavor, but it’s also so easy to make and takes little effort.
It truly tastes like a restaurant quality meal every single time without taking a lot on my part.
What is piccata?
If you’ve never heard of piccata, it’s an Italian dish that is very popular in Italian-American restaurants and typically made with chicken or veal. The sauce is made with lemons, butter, parsley, and capers.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Flavorful – with the aromatics, seasonings, and other ingredients that we build upon end with a super flavorful side dish that you will love
- Restaurant Quality – this dish tastes even better made at home, which means you get a restaurant quality meal in the comfort of your own space
- Easy – This doesn’t need a lot of ingredients or time which makes it a deliciously easy meal!
🥘Recipe Ingredients
Gather your ingredients!
- Cauliflower – this is the main ingredient for our dish. Cauliflower is great as a neutral base that tastes on flavor and absorbs it perfectly
- Capers – have a lemony, salty, briny taste that pairs amazingly with the vegan butter and lemons of this dish
- Shallots – these little bursts of flavor are in the onion family but have a sweetness to them but have a less punchy taste to onions
- Lemons – one of the bass flavors of piccata, this recipe uses lemons for the acid and to enhance the flavor
- Cornstarch – is used to thicken the sauce
- Vegan Dry White Wine – we used a Sauvignon Blanc, but feel free to use your favorite dry white wine for cooking. Make sure that you are using a vegan wine.
See my recipe card below for a complete list of the ingredients with measurements.
Substitutions and Variations:
- Cauliflower – you can sub this with broccoli instead or try with chickpeas. You can also do this with mushrooms, but you can skip the roasted first if you go with that options.
- Capers – while we don’t recommend swapping the capers, you could use chopped artichoke hearts instead, but you will want ones soaked in a brine to get the similar flavor
- Shallots – you can use white or yellow onions instead
- Cornstarch – swap with arrowroot powder, or chickpea or oat flour
- Vegan Dry White Wine – lemon water, or just use more stock would be a wine replacement.
Recipe FAQs:
As long as you make sure the vegan butter is soy free or swap with oil, this dish is top 9 allergen free.
We don’t recommend freezing this dish all together, but you can make the sauce in batches and freeze just the sauce.
This dish is best served the same day, but can be made 1-2 days in advance.
Other Vegan Restaurant Quality Recipes to Consider:
More Recipes To Try
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The Best Cauliflower Piccata
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower, cut into 1 inch slices
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoon vegan butter
- 2 shallots, thinly sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoon capers
- 1 lemon, half cut into thin slices, half for juice
- 2 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 cup vegetable stock (240g)
- ½ cup dry white wine (120g)
Instructions
- Preheat over to 425 degrees F. On a baking tray, add the cauliflower pieces. Drizzle with oil and toss together. In a small bowl, combine all the spices. Sprinkle half over the cauliflower, flip and sprinkle the remaining seasoning on the other side. Bake for 20-25 minutes, flipping halfway through, or until the pieces are fork tender.
- In a skillet, over medium heat, add vegan butter and let melt. Add shallots and let softened for 2-3 minutes. Add garlic and stir, cook for 30 seconds. Add capers, lemon slices, and lemon juice. Stir.
- Add cornstarch and stir together until no powder remains. Add vegetable stock and wine, stir, scraping any fond off the bottom of the pan. Let cook for 2-3 minutes or until it thickens. Add baked cauliflower pieces and spoon some of the sauce over top. Serve over pasta, rice, mashed potatoes, or by itself.
This was absolutely lovely! I skipped the wine and just used extra veggie broth, and I did have some briny artichokes to throw on top. turned out great.
Love the artichoke idea! Glad you enjoyed
Not a fan of capers or wine…..what to do? plus it is just me and your dihses are family size
grateful
wine can be replaced with stock, and the capers could be left out (or replaced with olives maybe). The lemony taste and the brininess of the capers are what make piccata different from just a lemon sauce so just keep that in mind. You’d just have a herby/lemony sauce without
This was amazing! Easy and delicious
So glad you enjoyed
As someone who only “dabbles” in plant-based recipes, I thought this was excellent, and was just as good, if not better, than chicken and salmon piccata. Can’t wait to make it again!
Thank you so much for saying that!
I have shared the recipe with family and friends and we all agree we love it!
So happy it’s a hit!
I made this last night and it was delicious! Both my husband and I loved it. I used extra vegan butter and 1/3 less wine. I served it over pasta. Thanks for creating and sharing!
So happy you both loved it!
YUM! just make a couple of modifications:
-doubled up on the sauce
-blistered some tomatoes in the oven and added them in at the end
– added some spinach at the end and let wilt from heat
-added 1/2 tbsp of kitchen bouquet for extra flavor and a very subtle darkened color to the sauce (I’m Cajun and the richer and more “gravy” there is, the better)
Next time I might only add half of the lemons to the pan or half of the juice. The lemon flavor sort of took over more than I hoped. I could have also just had some very pungent lemons that were used while making this particular recipe.
Overall, this recipe was amazing and so easy for those new to the plant based life. Will definitely be making more!
Thanks for sharing how you bulked it up. Glad you enjoyed
This recipe is AMAZING!! So delicious! I almost cried when my husband (who cooked it) said there were no seconds 😂
HAHAHA, tell him to stop gatekeeping the seconds LOL