This little side dish is a great way to play with veggies. Next time I plan to add broccoli and diced red pepper to my Cauliflower Muffins.

Made with cauliflower, almond four and flax seeds, these spongy muffins are a nifty little side dish for dinner. This recipe is from George Stella’s The Complete Low-Carb Cookbook. The recipe makes 12 muffins total, so you’ll have plenty of leftovers.

I did make the mistake of chopping the cauliflower too small, which resulted in over cooking it. The cauliflower ended up too mushy rather than crunchy in the muffin. Lesson learned for next time.

While the bacon, cheddar and Parmesan makes for a nice flavor, I needed a little more punch. I ended up salting my muffins and melting a little butter on top. Yum!

These need more color too. The muffins look bland when you open them up. So the next time I might try adding some broccoli and/or coarsely chopped red bell peppers to the mix. That will up the carb count, but not too much.

Loaded Cauliflower Muffins
Net Carbs: 1g/muffin
Weight Watchers PointsPlus: 4/muffin
Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 C cauliflower, chopped into bite size pieces
• Non-stick cooking spray or ghee for muffin pan
• ½ C almond flour
• ½ C cooked bacon, broken into bits
• ½ C sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1 C almond milk
• ¼ C Parmesan cheese, grated
• ¼ C milled flax seed
• 3 eggs, large
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. onion powder
• ¼ tsp. salt*
• ¼ tsp. black pepper

Directions

• Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add chopped cauliflower and cook until crisp-tender (2-3 minutes). Drain cauliflower and pat dry.
• Preheat oven to 375 and grease a 12-cup muffin pan.
• In a large bowl, combine cauliflower with all ingredients; mix well.
• Evenly pour the batter into the muffin cups; should be enough batter to fill all 12 cups 2/3 of the way.
• Bake 20-25 minutes, until the tops of the muffins begin to brown. The muffins are done when a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out mostly clean. Let cook 5 minutes before serving.**

*The next time I plan to add a little salt to my boiling water so the cauliflower absorbs it.  Hopefully that will add the punch of flavor I needed.

**I ended up cooking my muffins 5 minutes longer (30 minutes total) for a  firmer muffin.