That’s not chicken. That’s not fake meat. That’s cauliflower, Baby!

A while back we were vegan. And gluten-free. And sugar-free. And 80% raw.

Sounds crazy, I know, but I had a bunch of health problems at the time and I figured trying a specialized diet couldn’t hurt. My husband was kind enough to do the same so that I could have support in my journey. It was a great experiment. I not only learned how to listen to my body and decipher what my cravings meant, but I was turned onto new foods from which I had previously shied away.

In my pursuit for tasty goodies, I discovered that there is a lot of crap vegan food out and about. Most vegan food, in my opinion, is very, very underseasoned. I have no idea why so many vegan chefs shy away from using a spice or two. There is nothing worse than heading out to a vegan establishment, dropping $40 or so for lunch and being met with a boring bowl of undersalted quinoa and plain steamed veggies or worse–far worse–fake meat. God, I HATE fake meat. In a previous post I mentioned I hate breakfast, but breakfast is incredible compared to fake meat. (There is one, and only one recipe that I have ever found worked with fake meat. It’s a taco dish and I’ll post it the next time I make it.) My feeling is that if you want something with the texture of meat, just eat meat. Otherwise, use the incredible amount of non-animal source food out there to create an insanely tasty truly vegan dish.

These wings are AMAZING. We are no longer vegan and I still make them–that’s how good they are. I normally serve them as is, but I’ll post a raw vegan ranch dip in the near future in case people want a side sauce.

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE WINGS

• 1 head of cauliflower

FOR THE COATING

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 bag potato chips (I used Kettle Chips Sea Salt & Vinegar)

FOR THE SAUCE

• 4 tbsp butter substitute (or butter if just going vegetarian)
• 1 lemon
• 1 ½ cups franks red hot
• 2 minced cloves garlic

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 450. For easy clean up, line 2 jelly roll pans with a silpat or parchment paper. Rinse cauliflower and cut out stem. Cut out florets from the head in rather large pieces and put on a paper towel to drain while you mix the coating.

In a medium sized bowl, wisk together the flour, water, garlic powder, and sea salt. Take your bag of chips and a rolling pin or jar and smash the devil out of the chips so they form nice small crumbs. Dump these chip crumbs out into another medium sized bowl.

Piece by piece, dunk a cauliflower floret in the flour mixture, tap on the side of the bowl to remove any excess, fully coat in the potato chips, and then place on lined jelly roll pan. When all florets are coated, put in the oven for 20-25 minutes until chips are browned and cauliflower is cooked, but not overly soft.

While the cauliflower is cooking, make the sauce. Place all ingredients in a medium sized pot over medium heat and let cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

To sauce the cauliflower you can either put all the cooked florets in a bowl and toss with the sauce OR dunk each piece individually into the sauce and remove with a slotted spoon. I prefer the latter method as it keeps the chips crunchier.