Mindful Chef Cauliflower Steak Review

I hope you’re all hanging in there! The UK lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak is here, and we have to be mindful and resourceful of the food we buy. With supermarket shops having become a bit of a challenge, we decided to try out a Mindful Chef delivery! Our order came with 3 meals, but we decided to review the Harissa Cauliflower Steak recipe. Mindful Chef have an expert chef who creates new and exciting dishes every single week. It’s perfect for those of you who easily tire of the same dishes (like us). We chose Mindful Chef out of all the other food delivery companies because they have amazing vegan options. They’re also environmentally mindful about their packaging too!

This recipe is flavoursome cauliflower, cut into “steaks” and smothered in a rich apricot harissa sauce. We also received green veg and quinoa to serve with a vegetable medley on the side. The dish is usually delivered with green beans but these were out of stock, so instead they sent sugar snaps. These were just as nice! The dish is then topped off with a smoky chimichurri sauce, onion marmalade, and a sprinkling of pistachios. The chimichurri sauce arrives ready prepared which is handy.

Here’s the recipe: 

• 1 cauliflower
• 2 tbsp apricot harissa paste
• 240g chickpeas
• 160g quinoa
• 1 red onion 
• 2 red peppers
• 2 courgettes
• 1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 360g green beans
• 2 tbsp smoky chimichurri
• 30g pistachios 

Recipe Guide & Review

The recipe begins by asking you to turn the oven to gas mark 7/220C and boil a kettle. I always agree with this advice as you never know when you will need the hot water! 

Start off by boiling the quinoa in a pan with a few grinds of salt. Bring to the boil and then let it simmer for about 10 minutes until soft. In the meantime, prepare the cauliflower steaks. Start by removing the stalk and any excess leaves. I’d never made cauliflower steaks before, so I took a moment to think about the best way to cut them. I decided to cut from the stalk down. This definitely created the best ‘steak’ effect as the cauliflower florets are fanned out and as flat as possible. 

Once you’ve cut your caulisteaks, lay them on an oven tray with any excess cauliflower pieces. Sprinkle a small amount of oil over and then rub in the apricot harissa.  Next, chuck the chickpeas on top and roast in the oven for 15 minutes.

While the caulisteaks are cooking in the oven, finely dice the red onion and add to a pan. Cook for 5 minutes until soft, then mix in the maple syrup and pomegranate molasses. This will create the onion marmalade. This concoction has a really great taste and complements the rest of the dish amazingly.

Cut the courgettes into 1cm discs, and the pepper into thin slices. Pan-fry the pepper for about 3 -4 minutes. Then add the courgette discs for a further 2 minutes so that they are cooked but not sloppy. Courgette tastes best with a little bite to it. Once you’ve done this, it’s time to add the cooked courgette and pepper to the quinoa. In a separate pan, boil the green beans. 

Now we are ready to plate up! Remove the tray of cauliflower steaks and chickpeas from the oven. Place a steak with some chickpeas on a plate and serve with the quinoa mix and green beans. Top each dish off with the onion marmalade, chimichurri and some pistachios and dig in!

Taste Test

Overall this was a great dish! In these unprecedented times when ingredients can be scarce, you can’t go far wrong with a simple meal of well-seasoned grains and vegetables. Ordering from Mindful Chef saved us a trip to the supermarket and from having to bodge something together. Instead, we were able to relax, knowing the ingredients and a step-by-step guide were provided! They are fantastic for an injection of healthy ingredients with a wonderful flavour profile for each dish.

Our only criticism for this recipe is that the portion of chimichurri wasn’t overly generous and the dish was a little dry as a result. However, it was still really tasty and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope you’ve found my Mindful Chef Cauliflower Steak review to be useful! Leave a comment below with your thoughts and if you’ll be giving this one a go!

This post isn’t sponsored. We just really love the recipe & wanted to share our honest opinion! But if you want to give this and other recipes a go, you can order your first Mindful Chef box here. Top tip: if you give Mindful Chef a ‘like’ on Facebook and then browse your newsfeed for a couple of days after, you might find a sponsored ad with a discount on your first order!