• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Low-Carb, So Simple!

  • Home
  • About
  • Meal Plans
    • The Ultimate Weight Loss Kick-Start 7-Day Keto-Paleo Meal Plan
  • Recipes
    • Accompaniments & Side Dishes
    • Appetizers
    • Breakfasts
    • Breads
    • Desserts
      • Brownies, Blondies & Bars
      • Candies & Chocolate
      • Cookies
      • Fruits, Berries & Jams
      • Ice Creams & Frozen Treats
      • Icings, Spreads & Fudges
      • Jellies, Custards, Mousses & Puddings
      • Muffins & Cupcakes
      • Pancakes & Waffles
      • Pies, Cobblers & Crumbles
    • Drinks
    • Main courses
    • Salads
    • Sauces & Dressings
    • Snacks & Savory Treats
    • Soups
  • My Pantry
  • My Library
  • Contact

Caraway-Kissed Cauliflower Salad (Vegan)

May 19, 2019 By elviira Leave a Comment

Jump to recipe

Caraway-Kissed Cauliflower Salad | Low-Carb, So Simple
Yes, this yummy salad features cauliflower, a keto staple, but it’s anything but boring. Caraway seed pairs surprisingly well with cauliflower, and there are plenty of other flavors and textures here, too: celery lends a mouth-watering crunch, and onion a gentle punch. And chopped fresh parsley provides a final, herby flourish. Serve with your favorite keto vinaigrette dressing!



Tips for making the Caraway-Kissed Cauliflower Salad

There is nothing complicated whatsoever in this salad — it’s easy even for a novice cook. Chopping the ingredients takes longest: then you just throw the salad together.

A couple quick tips, though: When you cook the cauliflower, just remember to leave it crisp-tender. We’re not making mashed cauliflower here: you want your salad to be something you can sink your teeth into.

Also, this salad is easy to make ahead. You can actually prepare everything the day before you are planning to make and serve the salad. That means you can go ahead and boil the caraway seeds, boil the cauliflower, and chop the celery, onion and parsley.

So, let’s take a look at how to prepare this scrumptious salad:
First, take your caraway seeds and place them into a saucepan.

Caraway Seeds | Low-Carb, So Simple

Cook them in (salted) water for 1 minute.

Boiling | Low-Carb, So Simple

Remove from the heat but don’t drain: leave them to soak in the hot water until the water has cooled.

Cooling | Low-Carb, So Simple

Once the water and seeds have cooled, drain the seeds well. I use a tea strainer, but you can also put the caraway seeds in a tea ball before cooking and then just remove the tea ball after the seeds have cooled down.

Draining | Low-Carb, So Simple

Next, take the cauliflower chunks. Cook them until crisp-tender. This takes about 5 minutes. Drain well and let cool to room temperature. (To make things a little easier, you can cheat and use pre-cooked frozen cauliflower, thawed. You can still cook it a couple of minutes if you consider it too hard.)

Cauli | Low-Carb, So Simple

Take a large bowl and add the cauliflower…

Cauli in a Bowl | Low-Carb, So Simple

…caraway seeds…

Adding Caraway Seeds | Low-Carb, So Simple

…parsley…

Adding Parsley | Low-Carb, So Simple

…celery…

Adding Celery | Low-Carb, So Simple

…and onion.

Adding Onion | Low-Carb, So Simple

Not that the order really matters: just throw all the ingredients into the bowl. Toss gently but well.

Tossing | Low-Carb, So Simple

Cover and refrigerate for an hour to give the flavors time to mingle.

Letting Flavors Mingle | Low-Carb, So Simple

Serve with your preferred vinaigrette dressing. (Find some tasty inspiration here!)

Caraway-Kissed Cauliflower Salad | Low-Carb, So Simple

Yum!

Caraway-Kissed Cauliflower Salad | Low-Carb, So Simple

Here I serve the salad with a Quick Raspberry Vinaigrette, a recipe from my Low Sugar, So Simple book.

Caraway-Kissed Cauliflower Salad with Quick Raspberry Vinaigrette | Low-Carb, So Simple
 

My cauliflower salad experiments

This week, I really wanted to make a salad with cauliflower. I was after something a bit special—and maybe unusual, too—since I’m always looking for ways to pep up cauliflower, that plain old keto standby.

After checking my pantry for ideas, I discovered a big bag of caraway seeds. This one:
 
Big Bag of Caraway Seeds | Low-Carb, So Simple
 
Well, why not use those? Caraway sounded like a perfect addition to my cauliflower salad — and it definitely counted as unusual, since it doesn’t turn up in many recipes. Traditionally, caraway is paired with cabbage (it also reduces intestinal gas formation caused by eating cabbage), but as cauliflower is also a cruciferous vegetable, caraway should go well with it, too, I thought.

Since I was making a salad which didn’t need heating, I was afraid that the caraway seeds would remain dry and chewy if I were to add them raw. So, I decided to try an age-old method and soak the caraway seeds in hot water first. That makes them soft and plump, and gives them almost a melt-in-your-mouth texture.

But what else I should add to my salad besides cauliflower and caraway seeds? Chopped onion, for sure — it’s an excellent natural flavor enhancer for almost any savory food. It would lend just the right amount of punch.

Lately, I’ve been using plenty of parsley almost in every (savory!) dish I make — just because I’m craving it for some reason! So I decided to toss in a good amount of chopped fresh parsley as well.

Good start, but I still wanted to add some (very) low-carb veggies to the mix. After a little pondering, I decided to try cucumber and celery — not simultaneously, but one at a time, to see which would work better in the salad. I was so sure that cucumber would be the winner that I cubed a ton of it — so much that it filled a large bowl.

I took a large cauliflower head, chopped it into bite-sized pieces and cooked it until crisp-tender. Once the cauliflower was cool, I added my plump caraway seeds, 1/2 cup (120 ml) chopped parsley and 1/3 cup (80 ml) finely chopped onion. I tossed the ingredients well.

Then I put some of this salad “base” into small bowls and added cucumber cubes to one and thinly sliced celery to the other. This is my experiment:
 
Experiment | Low-Carb, So Simple
 
Eagerly, I tasted my experiments. To my big surprise, the version with celery was the obvious winner. Not only did it provide a delicious crunch, it was also a better match with caraway. (Great: now what was I supposed to do with my big bowl of cubed cucumber?) And I didn’t have any celery left, so I had to go buy some more.

After shopping for more ingredients, I made a bigger batch of the salad: I was so excited that my cauliflower salad with caraway turned out so well. I was afraid it would taste too… um, interesting (read: weird), but all the flavors complemented one another perfectly. With vinaigrette dressing, the salad was everything I’d hoped it would be!

Here’s the recipe:


Caraway-Kissed Cauliflower Salad

Print this recipe
elviira
May 19, 2019
by elviira

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon caraway seeds
  • 1 large cauliflower head (2 lbs = 910 g), chopped into small chunks
  • 1 cup = 240 ml thinly sliced celery
  • 1/2 cup = 120 ml finely chopped fresh parsley
  • 1/3 cup = 80 ml finely chopped onion

Instructions

  1. Cook the caraway seeds in a small amount of (salted) water for 1 minute. Remove from the heat, but don’t drain: let the seeds cool and soak in the water for a few hours. Then drain well.
  2. Cook the cauliflower chunks in salted water until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes. Drain well, and let cool to room temperature.
  3. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Toss gently but well.
  4. Cover and refrigerate for an hour so that the flavors mingle.
  5. Serve with your favorite vinaigrette dressing.

Tags

salad,
veggies
© 2025 Images, text and recipe fully copyrighted by Low-Carb, So Simple
https://www.lowcarbsosimple.com/caraway-kissed-cauliflower-salad/

 


 

Nutrition Information In total Per serving if 4 servings in total Per serving if 6 servings in total
Protein 22.4 g 5.6 g 3.7 g
Fat 2.7 g 0.7 g 0.5 g
Net carbs 24.2 g 6.1 g 4.0 g
kcal 215 kcal 54 kcal 36 kcal

 

Tips for variations

Don’t like caraway? No worries! Just omit it. The salad is still very tasty without it. Or, you can add some other seeds, like fennel seeds or even sesame seeds. If you use sesame seeds, add them right before serving so that they don’t lose their crunch.

Want to make it a full meal? That’s easy, too. Add cubed, cooked meat, fish, or chicken to your salad.

Get more crunch by using raw cauliflower instead of cooked. Cauliflower rice sounds also fab. Throw in some chopped walnuts, pecans, or almonds for more nutrients and even more crunch!

You can also use homemade mayonnaise instead of vinaigrette. Mix well, and use the salad as filling in your low-carb sandwiches. (Hint: this keto bread makes excellent sandwiches!)

Related posts:

Fresh Sugar-Free Cucumber Pickles | Low-Carb, So Simple!Fresh Sugar-Free Cucumber Pickles (Vegan) Strawberry Spinach and Avocado Salad | Low-Carb, So Simple!Strawberry, Spinach and Avocado Salad (Vegan) Green and Crunchy Shirataki Rice Salad | Low-Carb, So SimpleGreen and Crunchy Shirataki Rice Salad Crunchy Nutty Cauliflower Salad | Low-Carb, So Simple!Crunchy & Nutty Cauliflower Salad

Filed Under: Salads Tagged With: salad, veggies

Previous Post: « Surprisingly Succulent Vanilla Keto Muffins
Next Post: Foolproof 4-Ingredient Blender Hollandaise — Super-Buttery! »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Awards

Welcome to My Blog!

Elli_henkilökuva_kaulin_neliö

Hi! I’m Elviira, Certified Keto Coach, Certified Nutritional Adviser, and Finland-based blogger. My passion is to help you with innovative gluten-free, sugar-free low-carb and keto recipes that are of high quality, simple, and super-easy to make. Forget the complex recipes with dozens of ingredients; meet the true art of easiness and simplicity!

Keto Coach Badge New

Order My Book:

Get My Weight-Loss Meal Plan:

Image of the Cover of The Ultimate WEIGHT LOSS KICK-START 7-Day Keto-Paleo Meal Plan

Get My Keto-Vegan Meal Plan:

My 7-Day Keto-Vegan Meal Plan

Get My eBooks:

Subscribe to This Blog:

Terms Display
carbs under 5 dessert carnivore fiber-free chocolate dairy-free appetizer berry accompaniment breakfast drink fruit bacon ketovore almond flour cheese fat bomb ice cream chicken egg-free frosting beef bread holiday dip candy cookie cheesecake finnish cake halloween fish icing coconut flour christmas jam almond butter custard fudge book bar cocktail cracker giveaway fathead how to calories brownie guest post blood

Join over 700,000 Facebook fans for extra recipes, giveaways and other fun!


Follow us – get the free Keto App

Footer

  • Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and Affiliate Disclosure
All text and images are fully copyrighted. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited and all possible legal actions will be taken if any copyright infringement is noticed. If you wish to use images on this site, contact first to info @ lowcarbsosimple.com and always link back to lowcarbsosimple.com if you refer to any material (e.g. text or images) used in this site.
DMCA.com Protection Status

Copyright © 2025 Low-Carb, So Simple! on the Foodie Pro Theme