Air Fryer Frozen Cauliflower
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Air Fryer Frozen Cauliflower. How to cook air fryer roasted frozen cauliflower. We cooked air fryer cauliflower, along with other vegetables from frozen and are here to show you the results, including the best way to cook frozen vegetables in an air fryer.
Air Fryer Frozen Cauliflower
Cauliflower sits beside broccoli as one of my all time favourite vegetables and after showing you yesterday air fryer frozen broccoli, I am back today with cooking frozen cauliflower in an air fryer.
Culture can be a funny thing.
The way from country to country, or even state to state, we have a totally different way of enjoying a vegetable.
Growing up in England the favourite side dish at Christmas and at Sunday lunch was always cauliflower cheese.
It involves lots of roasted cauliflower smothered in a creamy cheddar cheese sauce.
It was also my first choice when I was a vegetarian too. I could never get enough of it.
But put cauliflower cheese in the US and many would call it the new AMAZING keto side dish as it is known as the macaroni cheese but swapping macaroni for cauliflower.
We even have our instant pot cauliflower cheese recipe that is made that way.
The same can be said for many other delicious cauliflower recipes. Ask a British person what buffalo cauliflower is, and they would look at you open mouthed.
But the great thing about the air fryer is that you can take frozen cauliflower, cook it in the air fryer and turn it into whichever local dish you like.
Make cauliflower cheese, buffalo cauliflower, blackened cauliflower and so many others.
Can You Cook Frozen Cauliflower In An Air Fryer?
Absolutely! But even better it is all about personal choice. We all like our roasted cauliflower differently.
I like a slight crisp just like you would get if you roasted cauliflower in the oven.
Yet you might be reading this and thinking to yourself that you would like your frozen cauliflower to be blackened cauliflower, or you might want a spice hit and make buffalo cauliflower with it.
The air fryer provides you with the tools to make your frozen cauliflower, then you just choose how you would like the finished result to be like.
Why Frozen Cauliflower In An Air Fryer?
Frozen cauliflower is FANTASTIC cooked in an air fryer. I feel like I need to shout this out and tell you how AMAZING it really is.
Because until you have done frozen vegetables such as cauliflower in the air fryer, you will not see the great potential.
Firstly, frozen cauliflower has already been blanched. This means that it has had a quick cook already and it will speed up the cooking time in the air fryer.
Secondly, it has already been chopped up for you, so it saves you any prep work.
Thirdly, no food waste as you get the amount of cauliflower out of the freezer that you need, and you don’t have to worry about that half a cauliflower you forgot about that went mouldy.
Cooking Frozen Cauliflower In Air Fryer (3 Ways)
There are 3 main ways that you can cook frozen cauliflower in an air fryer.
- Roast frozen cauliflower in the air fryer basket directly from the frozen bag of cauliflower.
- Steam your frozen cauliflower in the instant pot and then roast in the air fryer for a quicker option.
- Steam your frozen cauliflower in the instant pot and then use the Mealthy Crisplid or other air fryer converter to crisp the cauliflower to turn it into roasted delicious cauliflower.
We have explored all three of these air fryer frozen roasted cauliflower options and we have our opinion of what works best.
They are also easy to expand the cooking time if you want to make blackened cauliflower or you can season with hot sauce to make buffalo cauliflower.
#1 Roasted frozen cauliflower in the air fryer basket
In our opinion, takes way too long and quite often you have a crispy cauliflower and a hard as nails cauliflower stem. We are not a fan of this.
As well as this you can have a little vs large problem and need to find frozen cauliflower florets that are equal in size.
I wish we loved this though, as it would be wonderful to dump cauliflower in the air fryer basket, forget about it and then come back when it beeps.
#2 Steamed frozen cauliflower in the instant pot + air fried for crispness
Can I mention that this is the best air fryer frozen cauliflower that you will ever try? When I was recipe testing our air fryer cauliflower from frozen, I never told Dominic which was which and he also agreed that this was the BEST.
You see the cauliflower stem is tender as the cauliflower is perfectly cooked, yet the crispy roasted cauliflower texture remains.
You can also cook a lot more compared to roasted in the air fryer basket because it is perfectly cooked already and then you are just crisping it.
Plus, wait until you see how fast it cooks compared to avoiding the instant pot.
#3 Steam frozen cauliflower in the instant pot and crisp with the Mealthy Crisplid
This is one of those cooking experiments that you want to work but didn’t. The Mealthy Crisplid was going for ages and it just didn’t crisp the cauliflower enough.
In fact, you would have to feel for crisp bits and was just like reheating the cauliflower. Such a shame as it would make roasting cauliflower so much easier.
I call this my Ninja Foodi Frozen Cauliflower Method. That is because a Mealthy Crisplid turns an instant pot into the Ninja Foodi.
Everyone can relate to the Ninja Foodi, but not everyone has heard of a Mealthy Crisplid or an Instant Pot Air Fryer Lid.
Frozen Cauliflower In Air Fryer Oven
I love the idea and have experimented too with frozen cauliflower in the air fryer oven. You can cook a lot more cauliflower and it is a better option if you want to make blackened cauliflower.
How Long Do You Cook Frozen Cauliflower In Air Fryer?
Frozen cauliflower air fryer time is JUST 6-8 minutes when you have followed our method below and cooked the cauliflower in the instant pot FIRST for 0 minutes.
Or also consider, if you are cooking frozen cauliflower florets that are HUGE. Then adjust the pressure cooker time to 2 minutes, but keep the same air fryer cooking time.
Or if you are cooking frozen cauliflower in the air fryer directly and not pressure cooking, you are looking at a combined cook time of 15 minutes.
How To Cook Frozen Cauliflower In Air Fryer?
Below I am sharing with you my favourite way to make frozen roasted cauliflower in the air fryer and that is combining the efforts of an instant pot with the air fryer.
That way (as mentioned above) you have the best of both worlds. Your frozen cauliflower florets are perfectly cooked, and your cauliflower is crispy like it has been oven baked.
Cooking frozen cauliflower in the air fryer is so simple:
- Load your frozen cauliflower into a steamer basket. Place a cup of water in the instant pot and lower in your frozen cauliflower in its steamer basket.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Set the valve to sealing and cook for ZERO minutes.
- When it beeps quickly manually release pressure.
- Load the cauliflower into the air fryer basket, sprinkle with favourite seasonings and spray with a little extra virgin olive oil.
- Cook for 6 minutes on a medium heat.
- Serve.
Air Fryer Frozen Cauliflower
Ingredients
Kitchen Gadgets:
Air Fryer Frozen Cauliflower Ingredients:
- 400 g Frozen Cauliflower
- 1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Salt & Pepper
- Parmesan optional
Instructions
- Pour a cup of water into your instant pot inner pot.
- Add in your steamer basket and load up your steamer basket with frozen cauliflower.
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Place the lid on the instant pot, set the valve to sealing and cook for zero minutes.
- Quickly release pressure when it beeps and load your drained frozen cauliflower into the air fryer basket.
- Season with more salt and pepper.
- Spray with extra virgin olive oil to help crisp up the cauliflower.
- Cook for 6 minutes on 180c/360f.
- Serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!
This sounds great but what if you don’t own a instant pot? I would follow your recommended way of cooking but I don’t have a instant pot and do not really want to buy one.
Hi Linda,
If you don’t have an instant pot/electric pressure cooker I would recommend you follow this recipe instead: http://recipethis.com/air-fryer-frozen-broccoli/.
Its based around broccoli rather than cauliflower and shows how to cook it 3 different ways including just in the air fryer. You can then follow the same system for cauliflower.
Kind regards
Sam
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Thanks for this recipe but if you want to try this just be careful as frozen cauli does have a tendency to crumble but this came out great, i had mine with a sprinkle of cheese and breadcrumbs 🙂