A hearty and healthy Roasted Cauliflower and Halloumi Salad with spiced cauliflower, chewy sweet cranberries and creamy pan fried halloumi layered on top! I made this salad in collaboration with Bertolli Olive Oil and loved it so much I had to put it on the blog.
Now that winter is here, it’s definitely time to get creative with salads and use some different seasonal produce. One of my favourite ways to use winter vegetables in a salad is to roast them, creating salads that really satisfying and dressed up with lots of herbs and spices.
My Roasted Cauliflower and Halloumi Salad is so hearty that it is a meal in its own right, and it is SO full of flavour. No boring salads here.
Cauliflower is especially good when it is roasted – you can rub in a variety of herbs and spices for maximum flavour. For this salad I chose to mainly use the spice sumac, which I think is totally underrated.
Sumac has a kind of tangy (but in a good way, like a vinegar) flavour about it, with a hint of lemon to its taste profile. This makes it lovely for pairing with the sweet cranberries and the salty halloumi of the salad – the perfect balance.
For a bit of a protein and fibre boost I roasted a can of chickpeas along with the cauliflower. They are so good coated in all of the same spices.
This salad also showcases one of my favourite kitchen staples, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).
EVOO is the king of all fats. “Extra virgin” olive oil is the least processed type of olive oil, extracted by natural methods that preserve as much of the goodness of the olives as possible. That goodness includes antioxidant compounds that are anti-inflammatory and have been associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease – pretty amazing, huh!
I don’t even bother buying a small bottle of EVOO ever because I know we will go through it too quickly in our house, we always buy at least 750mL bottles. And YES, you CAN cook with it! It’s safe for light pan frying and also for roasting so long as you’re not going over about 200 degrees Celsius with your oven temp.
Thank you so much to Bertolli Olive Oil for partnering with me to create some lovely EVOO-inspired recipes! I used their organic classic EVOO to make this. It was meant to just be a post for social media but I really enjoyed this salad and wanted to pop it on the blog so it’s easier to track down later – personally I get lost scrolling through old saved Instagram posts to find recipes because there’s so much on socials these days.
If you make my Roasted Cauliflower and Halloumi Salad let me know! Leave a comment below or take a snap and tag me on Instagram, you can find me over at @moniquecormacknutrition 🙂
Roasted Cauliflower and Halloumi Salad
Ingredients
- 1/2 large cauliflower
- 120 grams mixed salad leaves
- 1/4 red onion
- 220 grams halloumi cheese – 1 standard pack of halloumi
- 1 can chickpeas drained and rinsed
- 1/3 cup dried cranberries
- 1 handful parsley
- 1 handful dill
- 1 tsp sumac
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- salt and pepper to season
- extra virgin olive oil for cooking
Instructions
- Place cauliflower and chickpeas on a nonstick baking tray, drizzle with 3 tbsp olive oil, sumac, cumin, salt and pepper, toss. Bake at 180C (350F) for approximately 30-40 minutes or until browned at the edges.
- Slice the halloumi thinly and pan fry in a tsp of olive oil.
- Make the dressing by whisking together 3 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar and honey.
- Arrange the salad, layering the salad leaves, cauliflower and chickpeas, halloumi, red onion, cranberries and finally the herbs. Drizzle over the dressing and season with salt and pepper.
Notes
Nutrition
This was absolutely delicious! Served it with roast chicken for the non-veggies in my family, and pita crisps. I use frozen pomegranate arils that I thawed out, and was glad about their bite instead of dried cranberries which tend to be a little sweet. There is no oven temperature given in the recipe. I roasted my cauliflower and chickpeas at 400 F for 30 minutes, stirring at 15 minutes, and that worked well. Thanks for a great recipe!
Thank you so much for this lovely feedback! Oh goodness how did I leave the oven temperature off! I’m going to edit that now. Thanks again 🙂