Smoked Cauliflower “Fotato” Salad

It’s finally BBQ season! I can’t tell you how much I love being able to open up the patio doors, have a glass of wine and grill something. It’s just another way to get creative. We have had a few different smokers over the years including the Green Egg and a Traeger, which we have now. It’s just easy and adds such a delicious smoky flavour. One of my favourite things to grill is veggies. I’ve smoked tomatoes for tomato soup, cabbage, zucchini and recently cauliflower. You definitely don’t need to smoke the cauliflower for this recipe. It would be great steamed, or if you want to add some texture you could roast it too.

This is a great low carb option to regular potato salad, or if you are watching your calories it is significantly less as well. One cup of potatoes is 160 cal and 30 grams of carb vs 30 calories and 3 grams of carbs! That’s a huge difference. When you factor in the calories from the mayo, potato salad is pretty calorie dense, so I find having a healthier low carb/low calorie option nice. Plus I actually love cauliflower.

If you are interested in lowering the calories and fat even more, you could always swap out half of the mayo for sour cream. I would suggest using full fat sour cream though. Fat free, lite mayo or lie sour cream usually has added modified food starch and malodextrin to thicken it up. It doesn’t sound that bad but it is actually very processed and can cause a lot of digestive issues. I prefer to keep things natural. I also enjoy feeling satiated from fat and not getting hungry an hour later like I do from low fat products. Morevoer, you end up eating less from full fat products because you feel full faster.

Cauliflower Fotato Salad, serves 4-6

• 1 med head of cauliflower
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 4 eggs, hard boiled, chopped
• 1 jalapeño, diced, optional
• 1 green onion, sliced thinly
• 1-2 pickles diced
• 1/4 cup pickle juice
• 1/2 cup mayo ( I use Hellmans olive oil mayo), or substitute some mayo for sour cream
• 1 Tablespoon dry mustard
• 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 4 slices cooked and crumbled bacon, optional
• smoked paprika for garnishing
• salt and pepper to taste

If you are smoking your cauliflower, remove the core and smoke for 45 minutes on 195F. Then break apart and steam. If you aren’t smoking the cauliflower, break it down into bite size pieces and steam until tender, but not mushy, you want a bit of a bite to it, 10 – 15 minutes. While the cauliflower is steaming, cook your bacon if you are using it. Dice the celery, pickles, eggs and jalapeño. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a big bowl. Once the cauliflower is done, toss everything together and top with crumbled bacon and a sprinkle of smoked paprika. Serve as is or chilled.

Nutritional info for a 1 cup serving, does not include bacon: 250 cal, 5 grams net carbs, 6 grams protein, 20 grams fat