Spicy Baked Cauliflower and Sweet Potatoes

SIDE DISH ALERT!! This is a side dish. Just FYI. I like side dishes. I just hate making them.

Sorry if you’re still having issues with my blog. I know I am. I’m getting a new host. Obviously my old one sucked huge ass. Soon all will be well and I won’t have this crap to complain about. Guess I’ll have to find something else. Oh, men. Duh.

Wanna know about some songs I’m really diggin’? No? Good. Let’s do this.

Muse – Madness

Imagine Dragons – Radioactive

Churchill – Change

Mumford & Sons – I Will Wait (this song will never get old. mostly because the video is at one of my favorite places on earth)

Anywho, I recently started reading a new book. It’s called Beautiful Disaster. My friend Pilar from California told me to read it MONTHS ago and I finally got around to buying to book. A real book. I don’t have no fancy Kindle or anything cool like that. I’m the old school way. With the easy to tear pages that I can fold when I stop for bathroom breaks or do one of the 50 things I feel like doing in a day.

You see, I’m not really good at reading. Probably because I have ADD. Or is it ADHD? In any case, I’m easily distracted…as you can probably tell from reading my blog. I just don’t like concentrating on one task. So while I read, I tend to think about the 10 other things I should or could be doing. Then I forget about what I read. Then I have to go back and read it 3 more times. So you can imagine how long it takes me to read a book. Or how studying went for me throughout college years.

My friend even mentioned to me the other day how slow of a reader I am. What a d*ck!

But thankfully this book is a love story so I’m DIGGIN it. I freaking love love stories. I’ve told you before that I’m a hopeless romantic, so this book fulfills my love needs since mine are lackluster.

Print

Spicy Baked Cauliflower and Sweet Potatoes

  • Yield: 3-4 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 head of cauliflower, stem and leaves removed, roughly chopped,
  • 1 sweet potato, diced
  • 1 yellow onion, diced
  • 4 tablespoons fat of choice, melted (i used bacon fat)
  • 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
  • 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Add all ingredients to a 9×13 glass baking dish. Mix well.
  3. Place in oven to cook for 30-35 minutes until sweet potatoes are tender.
  4. Eat up! Oh you so spicy!

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Oh, Hi! I’m Juli.

I’m a food hoarder. And a really bad dancer. If you don’t know me well, you will probably not understand my humor. Therefore, I apologize ahead of time. Thanks for listening to my ramblings of my ever-changing life and trusting my kitchen mishaps. Your trust in me is appreciated.

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49 thoughts on “Spicy Baked Cauliflower and Sweet Potatoes”

  1. I made this for my paleo dad and definitely not paleo teenage brother and he LOVED it, even the cauliflower which he “doesn’t” eat. Great, easy recipe!

  2. LOVE Mumford & Sons and Imagine Dragons. Are you a fan of Serena Ryder?

    Back to food…SO excited to make this! I’m having a serious love affair with sweet potatoes lately. Also, avocado. Separate issue. 🙂

    Glad you’re getting your site fixed! I always look forward to your posts!!

  3. I also hate making sides, but made this today – spicy! I only used 1.5 tsp cayenne. I also baked this for about an hour. It is yummy

  4. I made this last night! Super yummy but REALLY spicy! I used 1.5 heads of cauli and 1.5t cayenne and left out the red pepper flakes and it was still right on the brink of too spicy. (And we are Texans that love spice and put really hot sauce on everything!) But the flavor was outstanding! Next time I will add a lot of garlic. Thanks for the recipe! This is definitely an alternative to my regular roasted cauli!

  5. This was awesome! Always looking for non-boring paleo sides, since meat recipes are always easy to come by. Also leaves room open for tinkering with the spice blend.

  6. So I made this for my grain eating (to be read: non paleo) friends…for Xmas Dinner. Left off the red pepper flakes and cut the cayenne in half. Ummm, not a drop was left! They wanted the recipe, but I want them to think I can cook…so…they didn’t get it.

    It’ll now go into my rotation.

  7. I made this for my non-Paleo family and had to pass out recipes when I got back home! HUGE HIT, thank you for that! Although my family is accepting of my food choices, it’s nice to show them that my food isn’t nearly as horrible and boring as it sounds when I describe all the things I can/can’t have. I also halved the cayenne, you’re too spicy for me! And I also added a pound of ground turkey which went over /fabulously/ and filled me up. And had to cook a little longer because of the sweet potatoes. GREAT recipe as always, lady.

  8. Made this last night and my husband, who hates cauliflower, loved this! I also used bacon fat, a quarter of the cayenne, added garlic and chunks of red and yellow pepper. This is our new fav side dish! Thanks so much for sharing 🙂

  9. Great recipe! Loved that book. The sequel “tragic disaster” is coming out next year. All from Travis’s perspective. Can’t wait!

  10. Super delicious! Although my hubby and I made it without the sweet potatoes and with half of the cayenne and it was stll oh-so-spicy! (And we’re from Arizona. We eat spicy all of the time!) Next time we will include the sweet potatoes and/or go with less cayenne. Thanks for the great recipe! Love your stuff!

  11. Delicious recipe, I’m currently eating left overs for breakfast right now. My mouth is on fire though. I might have to decrease the cayenne pepper next time. I added bacon and found the meal very satisfying. Thank so much for the recipe!

  12. This side dish was INCREDIBLE. I was expecting it to be delicious, but THIS delicious? Thank you. Best side dish ever; until you top yourself. Likely.

  13. Omnomnomnmmmyesssssss… This is wonderful. I didn’t put in any cayenne (because my british husband is the wimpiest of wimps) and yet with the paprika and s&p it was still delicious. Next time he’s gone though I’m breaking out the spicy shit. Bet on it.

  14. This is kind of a silly question- but how do you get bacon fat? Or any other animal fat? Do you have cook it, then keep the left-over fat?? I’m new to this! HELP!!

  15. Loved it the first time and making it again tonight. Glad you posted a side dish because I have no idea what to ever make as a side, except the usual blasted potatoes. Making it to go along with the deer tenderloin that Dearheart harvested for us this year. Thanks for all you do!

  16. This was a HIT. I didn’t make it spicy…I added 1/2 teaspoon of New Mexican chili powder instead of the cayenne. I made this on a cookie sheet hoping to get more of a “roast” and the veggies were still too crowded and ended up getting more of a “steam”…I cranked up the heat toward the end to get a little extra color. I think next time I might just roast it in two batches. We ate this with browned chicken apple sausage and then had leftovers for breakfast with a fried egg on top…MAN, was it good!

  17. Wow! this is absolutely lush! Thank you for sharing and I can’t wait for the book. Is there lots of vegetarian options within it please? (“,) xxx

  18. I’m planning on making this for dinner tonight and the bacon fat scares me a bit…I’m new at this whole cooking thing, what’s the best way to melt it back to liquid, just nooking it in the microwave? I saw you in an earlier post you save your bacon fat in a jar…how long is that good for?

  19. OMG! this has to be the BEST cauliflower dish we have EVER eaten! We’re trying the paleo diet for my son as he has eczema and we’re hoping this will help. It won’t hurt my husband and I either. I’m already a celiac and lactose intolerant (badly) so I’m already halfway there anyways! Thanks for an AWESOME recipe! I’m making it again tonight so my Dad can try it!!

  20. OMG…LOVED this recipe. I halved the cayenne and used 1/2 coconut oil and 1/2 butter for fat. I used Italian Seasoning for the oregano. Please make sure that your sweet potato cuts are uniform so that cauli and taters are done at the same time.

    Thank you SO much for the recipe!!

  21. How I love your blog…. and you. 🙂 I made this recipe with ham and yam chunks (leftovers ftw) and ate it as a meal—awesome!!! I call it Ham-Yam-Thank-You-Ma’am-Hash… 🙂 That sassy name seems fitting for a recipe that you created. Thank you!

  22. Do you think broccoli would make a good substitute since I ate the stinking cauliflower I had bought already (before I knew of this wonderful recipe)?

  23. New paleo’er-two weeks today. Recipes like this are what is keeping me honest. Made this tonight, and OMG. Took the comments into consideration and modified it a bit. Out of bacon fat, so I threw 3 slices of bacon cut in half to a saute pan and cooked it on low until I had about 2 tablespoons of fat. Threw the diced sweet potato in and let it cook for two minutes to jumpstart it. Turned off the heat and added the cauliflower, onion, 3 cloves of garlic, and 2 heaping tablespoons of coconut oil. Mixed all the seasonings together in a separate dish, though I reduced the cayenne to 1 tsp and the red pepper flakes to 1/2 tsp. Mixed that all through the pan and then dumped it (still with the slices of bacon) into the baking dish and covered it as suggested. Baked it for 20 minutes, then uncovered and cooked it an additional 25. Served it with last night’s slow cooker pork roast heated up in the leftover juices and some cold, crisp, peppery lettuce. SOOOO good. And the pieces of bacon were an added taste sensation. Thank you for this recipe. With food like this, I may survive the month without bread… I took a couple of pics, and may come back to add some links. This is the only way to eat!

  24. It was 30 minutes before dinner and I had no veggies pre-cooked to go with my chicken dinner so I quickly searched the internet and found this paleo cauliflower recipe. Holy crap is this thing spicy! I think the idea was great and motivated me enough to whip it all together but next time around I will probably cut the cayenne pepper by two 3rds. Thanks for sharing.

  25. So I made this last night but my sweet potatoes don’t look like yours. So I looked it up and I had no idea there were so many different types of sweet potatoes! I use the orange fleshed ones. I am not a big fan of SP right now I made them a few months ago and the next day I was sick so now it is hard to eat them. I figure it is just a mind thing so I keep making them and I will eventually get over it. Anyways I made this last night for me and my husband who is on a routine right now where he pretty much cant have anything!!! It was good (still had to choke down the SP), I loved the cauliflower and the onions. We love anything spicy so this was great for us. looking forward to more great food!

  26. Um…where are the nutritional values? I’m on a strict diet and I need to know them. I’ve seen a lot of your recipes and they look so good but I can’t find the nutritional values. Thanks!

        1. no i do not provide nutrition values for my website. i do not work in a lab that weighs, measures then burns the foods to find the caloric content in food. if you want a rough guess of the nutritional content of each recipe, you can add ingredients into a calorie counter website. again, that is a rough guess of what the value of the food is. sorry my website of over 500 FREE recipes is worthless to you.

          1. Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, due to medical issues I have to have nutritional values of the foods I consume. (Not your problem, I know!)

            I think all your recipes sound wonderful but I do not have the time or inclination to figure out the values myself. I will have to find another website to pull new recipes from. Too bad!

            Quick question… Does your cookbook have nutritional values?? Maybe I could go that route. Good Luck and sorry I offended you.

  27. Made this recipe tonight…exceptional!! Used less cayenne and pepper flakes and it was still wonderfully spicy. Grilled a grass finished sirloin steak marinated in a balsamic/olive oil/rosemary blend. Delicious..what a great meal.
    In regards to nutritional values, I believe that is something that one needs to understand through education and practice. There is a wealth of information available online. Bottom line is eat whole foods, spices and herbs etc. I have been eating “paleo” for three years and the benefits are amazing. The calorie thing is but a distant memory. I am committed to consuming nutrient dense food.
    I find your website to be informative, reliable and the recipes to be incredibly “healthy”…no complaining from me. THANK YOU.
    Eat right. Feel younger. Live longer.

  28. This was a great veggie to pair with dinner. I too used half the amount of cayenne & thought the heat level was great. I have eaten the leftovers twice this week with an over easy egg over top… Yum!

  29. You like Muse! That’s a great band and this recipe looks like something I will try today…with less cayenne.

  30. I disagree with everyone. I baked it for 35 min and tried, back into over for 45 min., back again for an hour. I found the mixture of textures unpleasant (not usually a problem for me) and didn’t like the flavor. I don’t see a place to rate it, but I’d give this one star.

  31. This recipe was such a hit at my family’s Thanksgiving party! It has a very unique flavor. I only roasted chunks of 2 medium sweet potatoes & added 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne (anymore would be too spicy). I also added thin slices of 6 garlic cloves. It took around 45 minutes to cook the sweet potatoe. I gave it a good toss halfway cooking so it would brown evenly. I would not skimp on the onion cause it shrinks when it cooks. Thanks for the wonderful recipe. This will be my go to side dish for the holidays! Cheap, easy, and delicious!

  32. OK this was good and I like spicy food but this was a tad bit too much. I would do half of the flakes and 2 teaspoons of smoked paparika. Oh and if you don’t care for fat I would use bacon grease and add bacon to it! Good job this is a keeper! On a side note since I used a convection oven I lowered it by 25 degrees but I think I should have left it alone, it took 45 minutes.

  33. Delicious! I found it a tad spicy so added dried apricots at the end and their sweetness added a nice balance to the spice. Made a big batch on Sunday, then used it as a topper for my spinach salad all week at work. YUM!

  34. Interesting Recipe and I was going to try it but wondered about the Sweet Potato. I like them but they are fairly high Carb. I ran the recipe through my Nutrition Calculator and it said the 13 Carbs per serving (I assumed that this was to feed 4.

    I removed the Sweet Potato and it dropped to 5.

    Still may try it anyway (maybe carrots instead of Sweet Potato)

    Marc

    1. just simply leave out the sweet potato, if you prefer! i think it’s important to remember that some people (including me) want the higher carbohydrate recipes!

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