Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes recipe is delicious, low carb traditional mashed potatoes substitute and is just as smooth and creamy. Cauliflower taste is 1 out of 100, I promise!
Cauliflower really is a versatile vegetable! Try to make cauliflower rice with it, cauliflower potato salad and even cauliflower crust pizza!
Table of Contents
- Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Ingredients for Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes Recipe
- How to Make Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
- Other Methods to Cook Cauliflower for the Mash
- Tips for Best Results
- What to Serve with Mashed Cauliflower?
- How to Store
- FAQs
- More Cauliflower Recipes to Try
- Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes Recipe
You can swap cauliflower mashed potatoes (aka mashed cauliflower or cauliflower mash) for traditional starchy potatoes and consume fewer calories. Almost no one will notice!
I love my healthy mashed potatoes and Instant Pot mashed potatoes but I make this low carb alternative as well.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Easy: Cauliflower cooks faster than actual potatoes and there is no peeling involved.
- Quick: Ready in 15 minutes total!
- Fewer calories: One potato has approximately 26 grams of carbs, 1 cup of cauliflower has 5 grams of carbs.
- Simple ingredients: Just 3 ingredients plus salt and pepper.
- Flavorful: This mashed cauliflower recipe uses the same garlic, butter and salt found in traditional mashed potatoes. They give cauliflower potatoes a very similar taste!
Ingredients for Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes Recipe
You will need 5 simple ingredients to make this ultimate comfort food. I am also including notes on possible substitutions.
- Cauliflower: One large head of cauliflower of about 2 pounds. You can also use about 6 cups or 1.5 pounds of pre-cut fresh or frozen cauliflower florets.
- Garlic: Fresh whole garlic cloves are added to water and then mashed with cauliflower for more flavor. You can substitute 4-5 cloves of roasted garlic or 1-2 teaspoons of garlic powder instead but fresh garlic is the best!
- Butter: I prefer to use real butter but ghee, coconut oil, vegan butter or even olive oil will work. If your butter is unsalted, add more salt.
- Salt and freshly ground pepper: To season and to taste.
- Optional fresh herbs: Like minced chives, green onion or parsley for garnish.
How to Make Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
Here is a quick overview how to make cauliflower mashed potatoes with 4 simple steps. Full recipe card is located below.
- Prep: Separate cauliflower into florets and chop them into even size pieces. Learn how to cut cauliflower in this tutorial. In a medium pot, combine cauliflower, garlic and enough cold water to cover the vegetables.
- Cook: Place lid on top and bring to a boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes or until cauliflower is very fork tender. Drain cooked cauliflower and do not discard garlic.
- Season: Add butter, salt and ground black pepper to taste. Garlic stays too.
- Blend: Best way to mash cauliflower is by using an immersion blender or in a food processor. Garlic is blended as well. Just process until smooth texture or desired consistency. Adjust salt and pepper to taste, if necessary.
Recipe Tip
Cauliflower mash tastes best when it’s served fresh within few hours or at least the same day. Next day cauliflower puree has more prominent cruciferous taste and smell.
Other Methods to Cook Cauliflower for the Mash
If you would like to use any other method for cooking your cauliflower, here are a few other options, including how to cook cauliflower rice instead to make this cauliflower mash recipe.
In all of my tests I found that cauliflower cooked with water rather than roasted cauliflower yields the most creamy texture.
- Steam: In a medium pot with a steamer basket bring a few cups of water to a boil. Then add chopped cauliflower, cover with a lid and cook for 10-15 minutes or until soft.
- Slow cooker: If you would like to make it in a crockpot, just use my slow cooker cauliflower mashed potatoes recipe all together.
- Instant Pot: I cook cauliflower as part of other steamed vegetables in Instant Pot. Just place it in a basket, add 1 cup of water and pressure cook for 0 minutes. I would wait 2 minutes before releasing pressure for extra soft cauliflower for the mash.
- Cauliflower rice: If you have fresh or frozen cauliflower rice, you will need about 1.5 pounds of it. Preheat large skillet then add a bit of oil, add cauliflower rice and saute until very soft, 5-10 minutes. You want to stir it a few times and know that frozen rice will take a bit longer (no need to defrost it first).
Tips for Best Results
For the best cauliflower mashed potatoes follow these expert tips.
- Make sure cauliflower is very soft: When you insert the fork, it should go into it like knife into soft butter. Soft cauliflower equals creamy mashed cauliflower.
- Remove excess water: No one really wants an extra watery mash. Drain your cauliflower in a colander for about 2-3 minutes, this will allow all water to drain.
- Using frozen cauliflower florets: Add cauliflower to a boiling water. It will take a few more minutes to come to a boil rather than fresh cauliflower. That is the only difference.
- Use more florets than stems: When pureeing, florets will produce more creamy texture than stems.
- Cooking garlic: Cooking garlic makes it less spicy. Once mashed with cauliflower it adds nice garlicky flavor.
- Extra additions: You can add a bit of cream cheese or sour cream to mimic traditional mashed potatoes even more. For cheesy flavor, add Parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast, if vegan. For a bit of a tang, a dollop of Greek yogurt will do. Just note the calories content will change.
What to Serve with Mashed Cauliflower?
I highly recommend to make cauliflower mashed potatoes right before serving. It tastes the most creamy and fluffy this way. Here are a few suggestions for pairing it:
- Special occasion: It’s a perfect side dish for a lighter Thanksgiving feast served with boneless turkey breast, healthy cranberry sauce and low fat gravy.
- Chicken: Serve year round for family dinners with baked chicken breast or air fried chicken breast and a side of garlic green beans.
- Beef and lamb: Cauliflower mash makes wonderful base for capturing meat with sauce like slow cooker rump roast, braised lamb shanks or eye of round roast.
- Pork: My favorite recipe to serve over the mash is Instant Pot pork chops because there is a lot of sauce to mix with it.
- Seafood: Serve with honey garlic salmon or lemon butter baked cod, both have good flavorful sauce to drizzle on top of it.
- Swap mashed potatoes in another dish: Some recipes use mashed potatoes as part of the recipe. One of my favorites is cauliflower Shepherd’s pie!
How to Store
I recommend to make and enjoy this recipe the same day. I know other recipes online say otherwise but this is my personal experience and preference.
I do not suggest to reheat it next day. It’s a good idea to make only what you will eat same day. You can cut the recipe in half, if you need to.
I also do not suggest to freeze it. I tried and I did not like the results.
FAQs
To make cauliflower mash thicker, like in my video, you have to remove extra water. Place drained cooked cauliflower florets in a towel lined bowl and let cool down until safe to handle. Then hold onto the ends, make a ball and twist to squeeze out extra moisture. The trick is not to touch super hot blob with hands and use tongs instead.
However, I personally prefer the recipe as is, I tested it both ways.
Regular potato masher will produce more rustic with chunky texture “mashed potatoes”. But it works if you don’t have an immersion blender or a food processor. I also think a hand mixer or standing Kitchen Aid mixer will work. Some readers have just mashed cauliflower with a big spoon!
It tastes almost like mashed potatoes but less starchy and has a tiny bit of cruciferous vegetable taste. Otherwise it is same creamy, buttery and garlicky.
More Cauliflower Recipes to Try
- Cauliflower biscuits
- Cauliflower risotto
- Cauliflower stuffing
- Cauliflower fried rice
- Mexican cauliflower rice
- Air fryer buffalo cauliflower
- Vegan cauliflower pizza crust
Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2.5 – 3 lbs medium cauliflower head
- 2 large garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp salted butter
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Separate cauliflower into florets and cut in smaller chunks.
- In a medium pot, combine cauliflower, garlic and enough cold water to cover the vegetables.
- Place a lid on top and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes or until cauliflower is fork tender. Drain and do not discard garlic clove.
- Optional step: For thicker mash, transfer cooled boiled cauliflower into linen towel, twist and turn, and squeeze excess water. For more thin mash, leave as is. Matter of personal preference.
- Add butter, salt and ground black pepper. Using an immersion blender or a food processor, process until very smooth or desired consistency.
Video
Notes
- Serve: Cauliflower mashed potatoes taste best fresh and consumed same day. Next day, there is a very prominent cabbage smell.
- Reheat: I do not suggest to reheat it next day. I recommend to make only what you will eat same day. You can cut the recipe in half.
- Freeze: I also do not suggest to freeze it. I tried and I did not like the results.
We are dairy free so liked this method. I used 1tbs coconut oil and 1 tsp salt in vitamix. Did steam garlic with the cauliflower. May try oven roasted next time
Steam the cauliflower in basket & use half butter &half cream cheese. Works for me!!!
Thanks for the other suggestions !!!
I will try it… It looks YUMMY.
Hi Olena, I buy my Kerry Gold Butter from Costco and stock up, as it’s more expensive in regular grocery stores… thanks for the recipe, I’m going to give it a go tonight!
Hi Sylvia. Costco in Canada doesn’t carry it.:( However, since I don’t use butter a lot it lasts forever. Let me know how you like these.:)
For grassfed butter, look for Kerry Gold butter from Ireland. It is amazingly delicious.
I agree. There is also Kiwi brand. I also bought my local farm’s grass fed butter and it went bad really fast like real butter from childhood in Ukraine. It became dark yellow outside and tasted bitter. Ew but at least I knew that I had real butter. I didn’t expect that but now I know.
I made it today! Very tasty! Thank you for recipe! 🙂
Boiling the cauliflower as we speak. But why add the garlic in the water when it will be drained?
Cooked garlic adds nice flavour. It is less mild than raw one and better in this dish.
I used organic free range chicken broth instead of the water and it was delicious! The broth gives the cauliflower so much flavor! Thanks for the recipe!
So far my attempts at mashed cauliflower haven’t turned out too well, but your recipe looks terrific, and I like Suzanne’s suggestion of roasting rather than boiling to reduce the water content (and nutrient loss). I’ll give both methods a try, using your recipe. Thanks!
I promise this is delicious! I am very honest about my recipes and do not like BS.
I discovered that mashed cauliflower comes out much better if you roast it in the oven with a little olive oil, rather than steaming or boiling – less water content that way. I like to roast mine with garlic and red onion for extra flavor, before puréeing in the food processor.
I should try that! Thanks for sharing!
Great idea! Thanks.