Nothing is quite as comforting as a freshly baked, warm healthy cauliflower casserole made from scratch. Made with easy ingredients such as sweet potatoes, cauliflower, and a delightful red pepper cashew cream sauce, this vegan cauliflower casserole is sure to please.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, and slice the red peppers into quarters. Place them on any size baking sheet and coat with olive oil and pinch of salt on top. Cook in the oven for 45 minutes, or until the skin of the peppers is black and the peppers are nice and soft. After taking these out of the oven let them cool. Then remove and throw away the skin of the peppers.
Put the cashews, roasted peppers, vegetable broth, water, paprika, and pepper into a food processor or high-power blender. Turn on and keep mixing until everything is smooth with no clumps. Taste and add any salt if necessary.
Once your sauce is made, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Cut up your cauliflower, shallots, and sweet potato. I used a mandolin for the potato which worked really well to slice it thinly. Once everything is ready, you can start putting the casserole together.
Using a 9x13 oven-safe casserole dish, start by layering the bottom of the dish with some of the red pepper cashew cream sauce, enough to coat the bottom but not too much. Next you will do a layer of sweet potatoes and some of the shallots, then a layer of the sauce and a layer of the cauliflower. Repeat until the dish is filled and you’ve used all the ingredients. Make sure that your top layer is the sauce and then it is ready to go in the oven.
Cover with a lid or some aluminum foil and bake for about 45 to 50 minutes. Cook until the vegetables have softened, and if you’d like you can even uncover the dish and broil the casserole for about 10 minutes to brown the top of it.
Take out of the oven and garnish with the cilantro and parsley, then cut to serve.
Notes
Buy cashews in bulk to save money.
Make sure to use raw, unsalted cashews.
Slice the sweet potatoes evenly so they cook evenly and use a mandolin for the best results if you have one.
Need to save time? Use jarred roasted red peppers instead.