Making recipes with cauliflower is becoming more creative by the day! The buffalo vegan wings are made with baked cauliflower in panko breadcrumbs and taste phenomenal! You get a soft, only slightly chewy texture of cauliflower, a lovely crisp baked panko breadcrumb topping that is drenched in hot sauce. This honestly took me by surprise and tasted beautiful!
First up take your cauliflower head, give it a gentle wash and remove any of the outer leaves with a knife. You should expose some of the links within the cauliflower by doing this so you are able to cut off reasonably neatly some of the roots of the cauliflower to leave you with some nice florets, try to make them roughly the same size.
Leave on a lined baking tray for the moment and pre-heat the oven to 160c fan or equivalent.
Meanwhile make the batter. Mix the milk with the water, onion powder, paprika, salt and pepper. Add in the flour then whisk until thickened and smooth. Get a separate bowl and pour in the panko breadcrumbs. Now add the caulifower into the batter mix, then into the panko breadcrumbs using one hand to keep the other one clean. Repeat until you have a nice lined tray of cauliflower coated in the batter and breadcrumbs. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until lightly golden.
Meanwhile mix the hot sauce with some pepper and olive oil in a bowl, when the cauliflower is done use some tongs to dunk them one at a time into the hot sauce to coat it fully. Let it stain the cauliflower, and let any excess run back into the bowl. Repeat with all other pieces of cauliflower and bake for a further 20minutes.
Serve with an optional dip of vegan mayo mixed with lemon zest, a litle lemon juice, salt, pepper and a tsp of minced garlic. These were super delicious, baked and very, very easy! Enjoy, as a meat eater i’d definitely try them again and again.