In my series of “all cauliflower, all the time” posts, I am trying to review every cauliflower product that Trader Joe’s currently has but there are so many right now, I’m not sure I will get to them all in my lifetime. For those that aren’t into the latest and greatest food trends, Cauliflower is taking over the world. It’s a good day to be a cauliflower farmer. Cauliflower has supplanted Kale as the hot thing. Don’t get me wrong, kale is still hot stuff, but the cauliflower bulldozer is plowing ahead.
Trader Joe’s, never one to shy away from a food trend, has run with the cauliflower craze like nobody’s business. I don’t know how many cauliflower infused products they have but it has to be over 20 at this point. The freezer section is full of them.
I’m not one to shy away from Asian inspired food and any type of stir fry or fried rice or anything like that I immediately grab. To be honest, I didn’t have much hope for this. I’ve had other things like this in the past and they tend to be watery and bland. Cauliflower has a lot of water in it, a lot more than rice and when you start cooking the cauliflower tends to just turn to mush.
I don’t know what Trader Joe’s did to this riced cauliflower stir fry, but it works (with caveats). I followed the directions (you do not want to microwave this unless you cooked it already, it will just get watery) by adding some oil to a saute pan and dumping everything in. The KEY to making this work is 2 things. Protein and cooking the riced cauliflower long enough to dry it out. Make sure when you saute it, you make sure it’s sizzling and all the water has evaporated otherwise it will be a mushy mess.
The other thing this is missing is any type of protein. I don’t care how you roll, but this dish needs something to stick to your bones be it tofu, pork, chicken or shrimp. Hell, even a fried egg on top would be good. One last thing, it’s a little bland. I put some chili flakes, soy sauce and ketchup (yes, ketchup. Originally from Malaysia, it’s a staple and a lot of southern Asian cooking).
I don’t have anything against rice and in fact I eat a lot of it, but if rice was to disappear from the face of the earth, this would make a very good substitute. I will give this 8 Bells!