Have you ever tried Bang Bang sauce? If not, let me tell you, you are missing out on some serious tasty goodness. I could literally put this sauce on everything. I’d probably even consider putting it on top of a dessert…it’s that good. There’s lots of variations of the sauce itself, but all of them are delicious.

Bang Bang sauce is usually used on chicken or shrimp, which is deep fried and then tossed with this amazing Bang Bang sauce. I found a recipe from That’s So Michelle for Bang Bang Cauliflower and knew that I needed to try it, but I wanted to try to keep it a little lighter so I decided to try to bake the cauliflower instead of fry it. This cauliflower was so good that I dreamed about it all day at work after I’d made the night before, and I made it AGAIN the next night for dinner. And when I say I made it for dinner, that’s all I made for dinner. My husband and I scarfed down an entire head of cauliflower cooked up Bang Bang style, and would probably have eaten more if we could.

Baked Bang Bang Cauliflower

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower, rinsed and cut into florets
1/2 cup of Panko bread crumbs
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs, beaten

Bang Bang Sauce

1/4 cup of mayonnaise (you can use light mayo for this; with all of the flavor in the sauce, you won't notice the difference).
1/4 cup of red chili sauce (I use Mae Ploy)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of Sriracha sauce. I would suggest starting with a little and add more sauce to taste, as this is a spicy sauce.
3-4 green onions, diced, plus additional for garnish.

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees
Combine the Panko bread crumbs, garlic powder and salt and pepper in a medium sized bowl.
Place the eggs in a small bowl and whisk them.
Coat the cauliflower florets in the beaten egg, then shake to remove excess egg and coat with Panko.
Place a baking/cooling rack on a baking sheet and place the cauliflower on the cooling rack. I did this so the cauliflower would crisp evenly and prevent them from being soggy on one side, but you can place the cauliflower directly on a baking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
Bake the cauliflower in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes or until the cauliflower is golden and crispy on the outside.
While the cauliflower is baking, prepare the Bang Bang sauce by combining the mayonnaise, red chili sauce, Sriracha and green onion and stir to combine.
Place the cauliflower in a bowl and coat with the Bang Bang sauce. You can do this by drizzling the sauce over the top, brushing the sauce with a basting brush, or pouring the sauce in the bowl and stirring to coat. Garnish with green onion and serve immediately

Notes

A few notes: the cauliflower should really be served immediately as it does get softer as it cools. The sauce could probably also be served on the side as a dipping sauce, but I like them coated in sauce. 🙂
I also like to double the sauce recipe so I have extra for dipping or to use later.