This super easy, ultra creamy, and heavily spiced Cauliflower and Chickpea Masala is my new favorite dinner! That spicy-creamy sauce is just so 👌that I have to sop up every last bit with a piece of naan. This dish comes together super fast, requires very little chopping, is insanely inexpensive, and holds up well in the fridge, so it’s great for meal prep! This one is going right into my weekly rotation. :)
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How to Serve the Cauliflower and Chickpea Masala
I’ve been eating my Cauliflower and Chickpea Masala with a piece of naan bread to scoop up that delicious sauce, but this dish would be equally as good over a bed of hot rice. Either way it’s creamy, spicy, and oh so delish!
Make it Spicy or Mild
You can adjust the heat of this sauce by increasing, decreasing, or even eliminating the amount of cayenne pepper in the spice mix. The amount listed below creates what I would call a “medium” spice level, but that’s extremely subjective, so take that with a grain of salt.
Make it Vegan
An easy sub for the heavy cream in this recipe would be full fat coconut milk (the stuff that comes in cans, NOT the dairy milk substitute). You can play around with the quantities, but I’d guess somewhere between 1/2 to 1 cup would work well.
Cauliflower and Chickpea Masala
Servings 4 About 1.25 cups eachIngredients
Masala Spice Mix
- 2 Tbsp garam masala ($0.60)
- 1/2 tsp cumin ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp turmeric ($0.05)
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika ($0.05)
- 1/4 tsp cayenne ($0.02)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- Freshly Cracked Pepper ($0.03)
Skillet Ingredients
- 1 yellow onion ($0.21)
- 3 cloves garlic ($0.24)
- 1/2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger ($0.15)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.32)
- 12 oz. frozen cauliflower florets ($1.00)
- 1 15oz. can chickpeas, drained ($0.49)
- 1 15oz. can tomato sauce* ($0.59)
- 1/4 cup water ($0.00)
- 1/3 cup heavy cream ($0.26)
- salt to taste ($0.02)
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine the spices for the masala spice mix (garam masala, cumin, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne, salt, and pepper).
- Finely dice the onion, mince the garlic, and grate the ginger. Add all three to a large skillet along with the olive oil and sauté over medium heat until the onions are soft and translucent (about 3 minutes). Add the spice mix and continue to sauté for one more minute.
- Add the frozen cauliflower florets to the skillet with the aromatics and spices, and continue to sauté for about 5 minutes more, or until the cauliflower have thawed through and are completely coated in spices.
- Add the drained chickpeas, tomato sauce, and 1/4 cup water to the skillet. Stir to combine, then allow them to simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes. This will help mellow the acidity of the tomato sauce and allow the spices to blend. If the mixture becomes too dry as it simmers, add a couple more tablespoons of water.
- After the sauce has simmered for 15 minutes, turn off the heat and stir in the heavy cream. Give the masala a taste and add salt as needed. Serve in a bowl either over rice or with a piece of bread for dipping.
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Cauliflower Chickpea Masala – Step by Step Photos
Begin by combining 2 Tbsp garam masala, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, and some freshly cracked pepper in a small bowl.
Finely dice one yellow onion, mince three cloves of garlic and grate about 1/2 Tbsp fresh ginger (ginger is hard to measure, so this is flexible).
Add the onion, garlic, and ginger to a large skillet with 2 Tbsp olive oil and sauté over medium heat until the onions are soft and translucent (about 3 minutes). Add the spice mix and continue to sauté for one more minute.
Add 12oz. frozen cauliflower florets to the skillet and continue to sauté until the cauliflower is thawed through and coated in spices.
Next, add one 15oz. can chickpeas (drained), one 15oz. can tomato sauce, and about 1/4 cup water to the skillet. Stir to combine and then let the sauce simmer over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. If the sauce starts to dry out as it simmers, add a couple more tablespoons of water.
After the sauce has simmered and the tomato sauce has mellowed a bit, turn off the heat and stir in 1/3 cup heavy cream.
After stirring the cream into the sauce, give it a taste and add more salt to taste (I added about 1/4 tsp).
I garnished here with fresh cilantro, but didn’t find that it added a lot to the flavor, so that’s entirely optional!
Dig in!
Another delicious recipe! Added some curry powder in addition to the garam masala for my favorite flavor combo. Topped with fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lemon – so tasty! I’m going to try and freeze some of the extras. Seems like the type of recipe that would reheat ok.
Oh that sounds great! Thank you for sharing Sandy.
This was perfect! Beth, I have been cooking for family and friends since I was married 40 years ago. As you can imagine, I have gone through many cookbooks: but I find your recipes to be the most flavorful and easy to prepare. There’s never a miss! My 30-year-old son and his girlfriend use them, too. Thank you.
Wow, THANK YOU! That is a huge compliment! ❤️
Thank you for this recipe. My wonderful girlfriend Kat was excited to make this made this for dinner and it was super delicious. I see a few people have altered the recipe, and we might do that on the next go around, but as it stands. It was delicious. Would you happen to know if anyone has done the macros on this?
We do get that request a lot, but unfortunately we don’t have a reliable source for the nutrition information. The calculators and databases that most bloggers and websites use to calculate the info can be extremely inaccurate, and for something that can so severely impact the health of people with health conditions, we just don’t feel comfortable publishing unreliable numbers. We prefer to leave it up to the reader to use the database or calculator they trust. I’m sorry and I wish accuracy were easier than shipping the food off to a lab for analysis!
I made this last night and it was easy and my husband I both loved it! I doubled the cayenne pepper (we like spicy :). I also used fresh cauliflower instead of frozen. I decided to roast it beforehand with some olive oil, tumeric and cumin and then I added it in when this recipe called for it. Turned out awesome – served with a side of naan.
Sounds perfect Jessica!
This recipe is a LIFESAVER for work lunches. I’m a huge fan of Chicken Tikka Masala but the chickpeas make this recipe much more budget friendly. I’m not a big cauliflower fan so I just use extra chickpeas which works perfectly. I always get compliments on how delicious this looks when I’m eating it at work.
Happy to hear it Kelsey!
Sauce is so delicious. Wow. Dipped in Naan but rice would be great too.
Could I make this with dried lentils and leaving out the chick peas and cauliflower? What would I do differently?
You could definitely make a similar sauce for lentils instead of chickpeas and cauliflower. I’d need to do some testing before being able to advise on the best method, though.
A nice simple recipe that tastes good. What more could you want? I served this together with a blend of brown basmati, red and black rice.
Oh man that blend sounds amazing!
I made this last night but changed a few things, subbed whole can of coconut milk for heavy cream that I added with the tomato sauce. And when I cooked onions I also added 1 diced sweet potato which increased the cooking time. But totally loved the addition of the sweet potatoes. Ended up bringing the mix to a boil and reducing heat and covering to simmer on low for about 30 mins or until potatoes are cooked.
Happy to hear it Shay!
This is an amazing recipe. Budget bytes has saved me (I’m not a great cook) and this might be my favorite of Beth’s recipes!
Thanks Ellie!!
Made the vegan version and it was delicious!
Hooray! Happy to hear it Bayley.
How much coconut milk did you use?
First I wish to thank you for providing the option to jump to the recipe! I just can no longer bear going through pages and pages of chatter and ads.
Second, EXCELLENT recipe, and I will make it many times over. .We just loved it., and highly recommend it.
Many thanks again!
You’re welcome Barbara! And thank you!
amazinggg, although i’ll use fresh cauliflower next time because it took way too long for my cauliflower to thaw. Whole family loved it.
I’m not sure if you did this too, but I let the cauliflower thaw for about 20 minutes at room temperature before cooking. After cooking they were nice and warm.
Honestly not any faster with fresh cauliflower. Mine has been simmering for a while now. I think the freezing process probably breaks the fiber down a bit and makes it easier to cook with.
Made this for meal prep, only addition was small cubes of paneer cheese which I love to add to most vegetarian curries! So easy to prep, will definitely be making this again!
Oh that sounds like a great addition Lindsay!
Made this last night using coconut milk instead of cream. It was easy and tasty.
This was pretty awesome!! I’m of Indian descent so I feel like that’s saying something :) Plus I’m usually not a huge fan of cauliflower dishes, but I had everything on hand and love chickpeas, so why not give it a whirl! Followed the recipe exactly but with fresh cauliflower and a little bit more cream at the end! A bit spicy for my toddler, so next time I might add less cayenne and maybe give coconut milk a try. I do have really fresh spices and I use a brand of tomato sauce my super-cook mom swears by, so mine was a tad more $$, but overall I’m pleasantly surprised. I’ve been using recipes from this site for years and have had mixed luck with other Indian-ish dishes, but Beth really knocked it out of the park with this one!!
Happy to hear it!
I made this recipe. Hubby said it was really good. I personally don’t like all the spices in the recipe but I made it for my husband. He loved it and ate it with naan. Thank for sharing.