Vegan Cauliflower Korma

Indian cuisine is one of our favourite cuisines, and Korma is definitely my favourite Indian curry. Our Vegan Cauliflower Korma represents everything we love about Indian food in one dish. It's creamy, fragrant, slightly spicy, slightly sweet, and it just tastes delicious.

When we travelled around India we learnt so much about their food culture. While in India, we took some cooking classes and ate like piggies as it was our main reason for travelling to India, to get immersed in their delicious cuisine. I think our Indian dishes have improved 200% since we came back from that trip!

We have become really picky about Indian food. We know how it's supposed to taste and the fact that we've been living in Germany and Spain these last 5 years, made it really challenging to find proper Indian food. Seriously, I remember this one time when I got served a Veggie Korma that tasted like a dessert. It was so sweet that we couldn't even eat it. But after many disappointments we have found the solution when it comes to Indian food: make it at home!

How to make the perfect Plant-Based Korma

Our recipe is vegan and gluten-free. You can modify the soy yogurt and coconut milk for dairy products for a vegetarian dish.

Ingredients

Cauliflower. We always try to get a big, fresh and good looking cauliflower as it will be the centre-piece of your Korma.

Onion, garlic and ginger. These three ingredients make the perfect base to start many Indian dishes. When you stir-fry these ingredients together, a unique fragrance can be smelled in the kitchen. This makes me so happy as I know a yummy meal is coming on the way! For the garlic and ginger, we use a press to make a paste so the ingredients are combined better into the sauce.

Spice mix. When cooking Indian food, many spices are needed. If you like cooking, and you have yet not bought tones of spices you are missing out! Especially if you like Indian or Asian food, you need your kitchen loaded with spices, the good quality ones. The spice mix we prepare for this Korma dishes contains garam masala, cloves, cumin powder, coriander powder, cardamom pods, cinnamon, curry powder, turmeric and of course salt and pepper. You can as well get a set like this one from Simply Organic and have all the spices needed to start cooking Indian meals at home.

Soy Yoghurt and Coconut Milk. Korma calls for creaminess, and to give it that creaminess we use sugar-free plain soy yoghurt and coconut milk. You can use soy milk or oat milk but the coconut milk will provide a lovely creaminess and nutty flavour.

Almond Butter. Instead of ground almonds, we like adding one teaspoon of homemade almond butter. We always have it in the fridge as we prepare it bi-weekly and it's a little twist to the classic Korma that we love. If you have almond butter, this is a perfect time to use it. If not, you can substitute this ingredient for almond powder or crushed almonds.

Maple Syrup. We use organic maple syrup to give our Korma a sweeter taste but you can add 1 teaspoon sugar or agave.

How to prepare our recipe Step by Step

1. Cut the cauliflower into florets, place on a baking tray and coat with a little bit of coconut oil or any other vegetable oil, salt and pepper. Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden. We place a baking mat on the tray to prevent the Cauliflower from sticking to the bottom.
2. Heat some oil in a large pot over medium heat and add the onion and cook until softened. Add the crushed garlic and ginger and cook for two more minutes.
3. Then add the spice mix into the pot and stir until fragrant. This shouldn't take longer than a minute. Add a little bit of water and leave it to simmer for a couple of minutes. We add water to prevent the spices from burning.
4. Pour the yoghurt and milk into the pot and stir. Leave to simmer for at least 10-15 minutes before adding the almond butter and maple syrup.
5. Take the cauliflower out of the oven when fully roasted and transfer into the pan. Mix well so all the cauliflower florets are coated with the Korma sauce and your curry will be ready to serve.
   
   For a better presentation, add some raisins and toasted almond flakes on the top. This will give the dish some colour contrast and a little crunch to those first bites!

Serving Suggestions

Korma is a main-dish that can be served with different side dishes to make it more complete. As it's a creamy curry, we always serve it with some naan bread, chapatis or papadums to get all that delicious sauce.

Basmati rice is a must as well when serving an Indian Curry. If you want to slightly flavour the rice while cooking it, add some cardamom pots or a cinnamon stick into the pan.

You can as well, serve some wraps on the side, like these delicious Red Lentil Wraps.

When we have people over, we normally make two different curries so people can try a bit of both and we serve them with naan bread, papadums and rice. If you want to combine this curry with another delicious and easy to cook at home curry, don't miss our Vegan Palak Tofu Paneer and our Chana Masala.

If you have any leftovers, you can keep it in the fridge using an air-tight container up to 4 days or freeze it for a longer period.

How to cook the perfect Basmati rice

Basmati rice is the right option when you are looking for the right type of rice to serve with your curries.

Cooking rice and getting it to be light and fluffy can be really tricky if you are not using the right pan, lid or water ratio. To cook basmati rice, the ratio we use is 1:2 rice to water after rinsing the rice with cold water.

Place the water and rice in a medium-size saucepan. You don't need to use a large pot if you are not making rice for many people. Choose a high temperature and bring the water to boil with the saucepan uncovered. When the water starts to boil, reduce the temperature to the lowest and cover the pan with a lid that fits perfectly so the steam doesn't escape.

When most of the water is gone turn the heat off and leave the pan covered to rest for another 8-10 minutes.

Using a spatula or a fork, move the rice so any extra steam will go out and your rice will be ready to be served with your favourite curries.

If you tried our recipe, please leave a comment or tag us on Instagram @sixhungryfeet. We are always happy to see your creations!

More delicious Vegan Indian Recipes:

• Aubergine Curry (Eggplant Curry)
• Crispy Onion Bhaji
• Gobi Manchurian
• Tawa Pulao
• Butter Bean Curry