Our Roasted Cauliflower Salad served with a lovely Tahini Dressing is the perfect way to keep enjoying salads during the coldest months of the year. Filling, healthy, and absolutely delicious, this Middle Eastern-inspired dish will become a favorite in your kitchen.

Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Tahini Dressing

Do you have a favorite vegetable? These last few years I discovered I do, and yes, it's cauliflower! Since we started our food blog, we have created and tested many recipes using cauliflower as the main ingredient. The results are always surprisingly good.

It is probably one of the most versatile vegetables. You can cook almost anything with this winter vegetable and it will taste amazing. Have a look at our Cauliflower Recipes, from Cauliflower Rice to Cauliflower Steaks, you will find a whole selection of yummy dishes to cook using this veggie.

Our Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad was inspired by the traditional Lebanese Cauliflower, a simple dish made with seasoned fried or baked cauliflower served with a lemon and tahini sauce. Get ready to use your Za'atar blend and Sumac for this recipe.

For this Middle Eastern-inspired salad, we use a bunch of fresh ingredients to make a balanced and filling meal. The Tahini dressing adds to this dish the perfect last touch. At home, we serve this dish as a main course with some homemade Pita Bread but you can, of course, serve it as a side dish or appetizer.

Our Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Tahini Dressing is:

Vegan
A winter salad
Gluten-free
Healthy
Midlde-Eastern inspired
Nutritious
Quick to make
Easy to prepare

How to build the perfect Salad

We have a non-written rule at home when preparing salads. They basically need to be made of five layers:

Base: For this salad, we used a combination of baby spinach and arugula or salad rocket. You can use different types of leafy greens such as mache lettuce.

Fruit & Veggies: Cauliflower, avocado, and pomegranate are the veggies and fruits that go into our winter cauliflower and chickpea salad.

Protein: One of the most important ingredients to look at when making a salad is your protein. Especially when making plant-based salads, you want to make sure that enough protein is added to your meal if you are making it to have as a main dish. We add roasted chickpeas to this recipe. They add protein and a crunchy texture to the dish.

Nuts or Seeds: We normally like adding seeds and nuts to our salads to have that extra crunch and the nutritional benefits that these ingredients provide. For this salad, we use tahini for our dressing which is made by blending sesame seeds into creamy butter and roasted chickpeas to add that crunchy bite we love in our salads.

Salad Dressing: The best part of this winter salad is the delicious salad dressing we serve it with. It's made with garlic, lemon juice, tahini, and water. So rich and yummy! We know that tahini can be overpowering when eaten on its own or added to some dishes. Something magical happens when mixed with water and lemon juice. The tanginess of the tahini reduces and the taste is perfect to make dressings or sauces. We make a similar sauce for our Moroccan Tagine and we never manage to make enough! It's just delicious so if you feel a bit unsure about tahini, we invite you to give it another try.

How to prepare our Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Tahini Dressing Step by Step

Salads are not only a great option if you are looking for a healthy and fresh meal but they are normally quite easy and quick to prepare.

Season the cauliflower and chickpeas. Preheat the oven to 200C or 400F. Using a big mixing bowl, add a cauliflower head cut into florets and chickpeas. Add olive oil, za'atar, cumin, coriander, sweet paprika and salt and combine all the ingredients until the cauliflower florets and chickpeas are well coated. You can always adjust with more oil or spices depending on the size of your cauliflower. For this recipe we use a medium sized cauliflower.
Bake the cauliflower and chickpeas. Transfer the cauliflower and chickpeas onto a baking tray and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the chickpeas are crunchy and the cauliflower tender and golden. Make sure to stir the ingredients halfway to ensure that everything is cooking evenly.
Prepare the salad dressing. Our tahini dressing is made using simply five ingredients: Tahini, garlic, lemon, water and salt. Combine the tahini, pressed garlic, fresh lemon juice and salt in a mixing bowl. Using a whisk or a fork, combine all the ingredients and pour water slowly while you keep whisking. Keep adding water until you reach the desired consistency. You want to get a creamy texture for the perfect dressing consistency.
Build your salad. Once your cauliflower and chickpeas are ready to go, you can start building your salad. Let them cool for a couple of minutes before you add them into the salad bowl to make sure the leaves stay fresh. Add the spinach and rocket leaves, baked cauliflower and chickpeas, pomegranate, avocado cut into big slices, fresh mint finely chopped, sumac to add a delicious lemony touch and some extra Za'atar to taste. Right before serving, add your homemade tahini dressing.

Serving Suggestions

Add more ingredients to our Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Tahini Dressing

We wanted to keep this recipe simple and not overload it with too many ingredients but while making it we kept thinking of really nice combinations that you may want to try.

Preserved lemons. We always have homemade preserved lemons in our kitchen. We are lucky to have two beautiful lemon trees at home that gives as lemons almost all year-round. Preserved lemons will make for a lovely addition to this salad.
Lemon zest. If you don't have preserved lemons or Sumac that the recipe calls for, use lemon zest to give your salad a lovely lemony touch.
Toasted almonds. Another ingredient that would go beautifully in this salad are toasted almonds or other nuts such as pine nuts or cashews.
Add other green leaves. We chose baby spinach and rocket salad but you can add other leaves or even sprouts to your salad.

Serve as a main or side dish

We will normally serve this salad as a main dish. It's filling and perfect to have as a fresh and healthy lunch or dinner. Our favorite way to serve this meal is with some freshly baked Pita Bread. You could even make a Pita Sandwich filling the Pita pockets with our yummy salad.

Another way to enjoy this colorful salad is with homemade falafels. Have a look at our Beetroot Falafel Recipe for some inspiration.

This recipe is a great option if you are looking for meals that are good to make ahead. Simply leave the dressing in a different container and add before serving. Keep the salad in an airtight container and store it in the fridge for 2-3 days.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

5 from 2 votes