Here's a cauliflower rice salad recipe lightened up and made Whole30/Paleo. This cauliflower rice salad with grapes, cucumber, and tarragon recipe is perfect for a summer potluck or cookout. The flavors only improve in time as the raw cauliflower absorbs the flavors. This recipe, of course, can be made with Israeli couscous or rice and be really good, but if you're trying to cut carbs, cauliflower rice is a great option and is surprisingly delicious with the grapes + tarragon. It's an unexpected use of grapes, too!
This recipe was born out of my recent discovery that grapes are really yummy in a salad. That little burst of tangy sweetness when you're chewing. It's such a nice flavor contrast against a hearty green. Last week I made a kale, garbanzo bean, and grape salad as a last-minute/emergency dinner after being at work until 9 PM, and it was surprisingly delicious. My search for more interesting grape recipes was thus born. Enter this cauliflower rice salad.
For this recipe, I was at home in LA this past weekend and saw these gorgeous Vintage Red grapes at the Silverlake Farmer's Market. It is September and harvest season for all the vineyards up north is in high swing, so the grapes are really crisp and juicy right now. I got to thinking, what could be good with grapes? Probably another cool, crunchy vegetable. I love adding herbs to salads, and tarragon has such a unique flavor that pairs so interestingly against the grapes.
I'm too lazy to rice my own cauliflower, so I buy the prepackaged riced cauliflower packets from Whole Foods. You could pulse a head of cauliflower in a Cuisinart for this if you want to wash one more dish. (I don't.) Raw cauliflower definitely is crunchy, but it is a nice textural contrast to the grapes and absorbs the orange-olive oil vinaigrette nicely.
📖 Recipe
Cauliflower Rice Salad with Grapes, Cucumber, and Tarragon
Ingredients
- 12 oz riced cauliflower
- 1 cup of seedless grapes - halved
- 3 Persian cucumbers - chopped
- ⅓ cup chopped tarragon
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 orange - zest and juice
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- combine it all in a bowl and stir
- let it sit for about 20-30 minutes to the flavors have time to marinate