HOW TO MAKE CAULIFLOWER RICE (3 WAYS!)

Hello my friends, it's Dani, and today I am showing you how to make and cook cauliflower rice. Now this is an easy, low-carb recipe slash technique that would be perfect for anyone who's wanting to eat grain-free, low-carb, or if you're simply looking for more delicious ways to work more vegetables into your diet. Now if you're not familiar with cauliflower rice, it's literally just cauliflower grated into tiny little bits, and it looks a lot like rice, and it has a similar texture as well, so it works for a lot of different recipes. Cauliflower rice is also a great way to add more volume to your meals. So while I don't think anyone needs to be hyper-focused on calories, it is interesting to note that one cup of cauliflower rice has about 25 calories and 2 grams of fiber, while one cup of traditional rice has about 200 calories and 1 gram of fiber. So it's a great choice if you're trying to lighten up your meals or if you're just looking to add a little bit more nutrient density. So there are two ways, well actually technically three, that you can make cauliflower rice. Two of them require a food processor, one of them uses a box grater. Now the food processor is going to be a little less energy and effort on your part, the box grater takes a little bit more effort, but again, all three of these techniques are very doable. So if you don't have a food processor, you're going to want to pull out your box grater and here's what you're going to do. Start by giving the cauliflower a good rinse under some cold water, and then you just want to pull off these outer leaves, these green leaves on the outside. Pull off as many as you can, and if it has a long stem like mine does here, then you're just going to trim that stem off, and then cut the cauliflower in half. From here you're going to see right in the center that there's a thick core and it's a little bit fibrous and tough, so if you just take your knife at an angle coming in on both sides of that core, it will pop right out. Then from here you can just cut the cauliflower into big hearty chunks, or into quarters depending on the size of your cauliflower. Then grab the box grater, and on the large holes of the box grater, you're just going to grate the cauliflower back and forth until you've worked your way down, and when you get right down to the nitty gritty, be very careful with your fingers, okay? If it feels not safe, then just keep that piece of cauliflower and enjoy it as a snack. That's what I do. Also important to note, if you wanted to grate your cauliflower ahead of time, and then store it in the fridge, you would just transfer it into an airtight container, and this would keep in your fridge no more than two to three days. It does get a little bit stinky because the gases from the cauliflower release, so in a perfect world, you do want to use this sooner than later. You could also freeze it, in which case it would last for up to three months. Now if you have a food processor, you have two different options, and I'm going to show them both to you. So again, you're going to wash and prep your cauliflower like we did before, but this time you're going to cut the cauliflower into smaller bite-sized pieces, so you really just want nice hearty-sized florets. Then you can take those florets, place them right into the food processor. You don't want to fill it, I would say, more than halfway, otherwise it's going to have a hard time breaking the cauliflower down. So it's best to do this in batches. So get it into your food processor, pop on the lid, and then turn it on, and within about 20 to 30 seconds, it's all going to be broken down, and you will have this nice, fine cauliflower rice like I have here. Now you may notice that a couple pieces of cauliflower don't break down. No big deal, just set them aside and put them in with the next batch of cauliflower. Then the third and final technique that I'm going to show you is probably the easiest way to do this, and that is to use your grater blade that comes with the food processor. It looks just like this. So you get that on your food processor, again, you're going to work with small florets of cauliflower that you can fit into the chute of your food processor. Just get them in there, turn it on, and it's going to grate them right into the bowl. Super easy. And then you just repeat that until you've worked through all the cauliflower. And you're going to see that this technique creates almost like a mozzarella cheese type of grated cauliflower. It reminds me a little bit more of like a basmati rice. But let me show you the difference between all three techniques. This one over here was the box grater, and to me, this is a little bit more like a traditional rice. You can see that texture right here. Then the second one, this is the one that we grated right in the food processor, and this is a bit finer. It's almost like a couscous or a quinoa. It's a little bit smaller and lighter. And then the third one was with the grater blade in the food processor, and you can see that this one looks almost a little bit more like a shredded mozzarella cheese. And so it reminds me a bit more of, say, a basmati rice. But again, all three of these techniques are completely effective, so as always, use what you have at home and make it work for you. Okay, so now I'm going to show you how to cook up the cauliflower rice. It is super, super simple, but this is also a very good time to mention that you can also, in just about any grocery store these days, buy cauliflower rice pre-riced in the frozen section of your grocery store. And just out of curiosity, I just wanted to check it out, and I have to tell you, dime for dime, for the effort and the cost, it might even be more efficient to buy it pre-made at the grocery store. Because I'm finding that about one head of organic cauliflower is giving me about four cups of cauliflower rice, and that head of cauliflower cost me $5.49. Whereas this bag of organic frozen cauliflower rice that I bought at Whole Foods has about four to five cups of cauliflower rice in it, and the cost of it is $3.79, and you don't have to rice the cauliflower yourself. So whether you make it yourself or you buy it frozen, when you're ready to cook it up, here's what you're going to do. I'm going to heat a nice, big saute pan over a medium-high heat. You could also do this in a cast iron pan if you prefer. And I'm going to heat about a tablespoon of olive oil at the base. You don't need very much. And if you didn't want to do any oil, you could skip it, even put a little bit of broth in the pan if you prefer. Then I will add the cauliflower rice to the pan, and I just simply season this with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. If there's only three things you're going to keep in your house, let it be those three because it's such a great way to add so much flavor to just about anything. Give that a stir, get all of the seasonings mixed throughout the cauliflower, and I'm just going to let this cook for about six to eight minutes or until the rice has heated through and it's become nice and tender. Essentially, it's steaming in the pan, and you're going to know that it's ready because the color is going to soften a little bit. It's not going to be this bright white. It's going to have a little bit of translucency to it. Now, you can easily elevate the flavors by adding some sauteed onion or garlic, a little bit of ginger, soy sauce, whatever flavors and seasonings you enjoy with your rice, experiment with that here with the cauliflower rice. It's so simple, but it's so good. You can also use cauliflower rice as the base for a stir fry. You can use it in your stuffed peppers. You can work it into your meatballs. There's so many different ways to enjoy this, and if you're looking for a way to enjoy it right now, you might want to check out my chicken burrito bowls. They are perfect for lunchtime meal prep, and they are layered with vegetables, chicken, and yep, cauliflower rice. So I'll see you over there. Cheers!