Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Spinach and Chickpeas
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Please read my disclosure.This roasted cauliflower salad is hearty, healthy, satisfying and packed with flavor! This recipe makes cauliflower the star, roasted to perfection and tossed with a warm dressing, along with some chickpeas for protein, spinach for some greens, and kalamata olives for a nice tangy bite. Perfect for lunch or a light dinner, and super easy to make!
Roasting vegetables is one of my favorite ways to prepare fresh veggies. Roasting brings out so much flavor and gives veggies a caramelization that is just to die for! Which is why, instead of using raw cauliflower in this recipe, I obviously had to use roasted cauliflower instead!
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This cauliflower salad recipe is vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free, but is so satisfying you won’t even notice!
It’s also super simple to do, and you can make a big batch and use it throughout the week for lunch or dinner. It’s a great meal-prep meal too!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
This Cauliflower Salad with Spinach and Chickpeas is…
- Super filling and satisfying
- A one-pot meal
- Delicious and flavorful
- Tender and caramelized
- Perfect for meal-prep
- Healthy
- Vegan
- Gluten-Free
How to Make Roasted Cauliflower Salad
Recipe Ingredients and Notes
This easy cauliflower salad with spinach requires basic pantry ingredients! You’ll need:
- Fresh Cauliflower: 1 large head cut into florets
- Baby Spinach: One of my favorite salad greens — packed with nutrients and requires no prep!
- Chickpeas: I used canned chickpeas to save time. About 1 15oz can.
- Olives: Kalamata olives are bright and tangy, but you can use any olives you like. Or if you’re not an olive fan, leave them out!
- Dressing Ingredients: Olive oil, vinegar, salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper, parsley, mustard seeds, dijon mustard.
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet or sheet pan with parchment or foil. Toss the cauliflower pieces with 1 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper.
Step 2: Spread on the prepared sheet and roast in the oven for about 35 minutes or until golden brown, tossing the vegetables once midway through cooking time.
Step 3: While the cauliflower is roasting, heat the vinegar and mustard seeds in a small saucepan over low heat for 5 minutes. Stir in the Dijon mustard, parsley, crushed red pepper, and olive oil. Keep warm.
Step 4: Place the chickpeas, spinach and olives in a large bowl. Add the hot roasted cauliflower and warm dressing, tossing to wilt the spinach a bit and coat all ingredients lightly with dressing.
Step 5: Taste and adjust seasonings with additional salt and pepper if needed. Serve warm or at room temperature.
What Makes This Roasted Cauliflower Salad Healthy?
- High in Fiber and Plant Protein: Each serving of this cauliflower and spinach salad has 10 grams of fiber and almost 10 grams of plant protein! Fiber is important for digestion and protein helps keep you full and satisfied.
- Antioxidants: Cauliflower is part of the cruciferous vegetable family, which is known for its powerful anti-inflammatory, cancer-preventing antioxidants.
- Vitamins and Nutrients: You’ll get a healthy dose of Vitamins C, K, Calcium, Iron, Potassium and Magnesium in this salad!
Tips for Making The Best Cauliflower Salad
Overall Tips
- Make your dressing from scratch! While you could save a little time using store bought, homemade dressing is way more flavorful and you can control all the seasoning.
- Try prepping all the ingredients ahead of time, and just tossing the salad before serving to save time on the day of.
How to Serve, Store and Keep
- Serving Suggestions: I like serving this salad with a soup or stew, or as a healthy side dish for pizza, pasta or burgers!
- Storage Instructions: Store in an airtight container in the fridge. It will keep for up to 3 days.
Try These Recipe Variations
- Roast the chickpeas: You can roast them right on the sheet pan with the cauliflower – they will get nice and crunchy and will add even more texture to your salad.
- Add other roasted veggies: Roasted red peppers or roasted squash would both taste great
- Make it Keto: Omit the chickpeas and add meat (or just make it a veggie forward salad)
- Add Cheese: Feta or goat cheese would taste amazing in this salad!
Check Out These Other Salad & Side Dishes!
- Feta Salad with Cucumbers and Lentils
- Keto Greek Salad
- Roasted Pumpkin Salad
- Beetroot And Feta Salad
- Gluten Free Pasta Salad
If you have tried this Roasted Cauliflower Salad Recipe or any other recipe on my blog, then please rate it and let me know how it turned out in the comments below! You can also FOLLOW ME on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, INSTAGRAM, and PINTEREST to see more delicious, healthy, family friendly food!
🎥 Watch How to Make It
Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Spinach and Chickpeas
This recipe makes cauliflower the star, roasted to perfection and tossed with a warm dressing, along with some chickpeas for protein, spinach for some greens, and kalamata olives for a nice tangy bite.
Servings: 4 servings
Calories: 321.5kcal
Ingredients
- 1 large head Cauliflower outer leaves removed, cut or broken into bite-size florets/pieces
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp salt more to taste
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- ⅛ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- ½ tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- ¼ cup chopped Italian parsley
- 15 oz chickpeas rinsed and drained (1 can)
- 6 oz Baby Spinach
- ¼ cup Kalamata olives chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet or sheet pan with parchment or foil.
- Toss the cauliflower pieces with the 1 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper. Spread on the prepared sheet and roast in the oven for about 35 minutes or until golden brown, tossing the vegetables once midway through cooking time.
- While the cauliflower is roasting, heat the vinegar and mustard seeds in a small saucepan over low heat for 5 minutes. Stir in the Dijon mustard, parsley, crushed red pepper, and olive oil. Keep warm.
- Place the chickpeas, spinach and olives in a large bowl. Add the hot roasted cauliflower and warm dressing, tossing to wilt the spinach a bit and coat all ingredients lightly with dressing.
- Taste and adjust seasonings with additional salt and pepper if needed. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
Top Tips for Making Cauliflower Salad
- Make your dressing from scratch! While you could save a little time using store bought, homemade dressing is way more flavorful and you can control all the seasoning.
- Try prepping all the ingredients ahead of time, and just tossing the salad before serving to save time on the day of.
- Try roasting your chickpeas along with the cauliflower for a crunchy texture and caramelized flavor.
Nutrition
Calories: 321.5kcal | Carbohydrates: 34.3g | Protein: 9.6g | Fat: 18.3g | Saturated Fat: 2.2g | Sodium: 556mg | Potassium: 1026mg | Fiber: 10.2g | Sugar: 4g
Muuuy delicious 😋!! 👍👍♥️♥️🎈so delicious thank you .. I’m vegan and this is so healthy!! I made whole bunch of salad !!!
Aw yay! So happy to hear that!
Super easy and tasty! I sdd toasted walnuts on top for more crunch and health benefits. Pomegranate arils for color works too!
Thanks so much Cynthia! So glad you liked it!
Definitely my type of salad! I love different textures in my salad so I knew I would love this recipe as soon as I saw it. Made it tonight and I was right. It’s absolutely delicious!
Yay!! So happy to hear that Melanie! 🙂
Roasting the cauliflower adds depth of flavor making this one delicious salad!
Thanks so much Gail! 🙂
This cauliflower salad looks delicious! I love the olive addition. I just love that briny burst of flavor, and I bet it’s great with that dressing.
Totally!! It has the perfect combination of flavors – you will love it!
This is an amazing salad. I love how healthy it is while at the same time is loaded with great flavors!
Thank you so much Jo! So glad you liked it!
This is now my favourite cauliflower recipe! 🙂 I have just made this recipe, and I loved it! Very simple and easy to do.
Anjali, I have a questions….what is the point on heating the vinegar with the mustard seeds?
I used red vinegar (did not have white) and when I heated the vinegar and mustard seeds, the vinegar started to evaporate (leaving a very bad and strong vinegar smell behind). It evaporated completely. Maybe I should have used a very low heat instead! At the end, it did not have much of vinegar flavour (which was a not a problem for me).
Cheers!
Hi Tai! Since this is meant to be a warm salad, you’re just supposed to heat the vinegar on very very low heat so that the flavor from the mustard seeds gets incorporated into the vinegar, and so the dressing is warm when you pour it on the salad. It’s very possible you used too high heat – and most of the vinegar probably did evaporate 🙂 Hope that helps!
Awesome recipe. Thanks for sharing as it can be hard to find recipes that are truly healthy once you add all of the other ingredients – sugar, etc!
Thanks! So glad you liked it!
It seems yummy. I will try it as soon as possible.
Thanks so much! I’m sure you’ll love it!
Hi Anjali,
I love roasted veggies. Please advise could I use Red wine vineger instead on White as that is what I have on hand.
Hi Charm! You should probably be fine substituting red wine vinegar instead of white in this recipe. Let me know how it turns out!
Charm, did you use the red wine vinegar? If so, how did it turn out? Please share the amount and all the adjustments you made because I’d like to try it. Thank you