I was requested to make this recipe, in order to find a better way around cauliflower tots. When you make them in the oven, they’re not that great – a little bit crispy on the top and then pure mush throughout. I figured…if people are making faux mac and cheese in the oven from roasting cauliflower, why can’t I do it fried?
When I made these, I wasn’t planning to eat them. I had just eaten dinner and was stuffed to the brim. You know what? They looked so good after I finished them that I not only at 1, I ate the entire batch. These things are seriously good eats, and if you can make them in bulk, you have some amazing snacks on your hands!
Keep in mind that in the pictures, I only made 1/3 of the recipe. I had leftover cauliflower rice from making Low Carb Cauliflower Fried Rice and decided to try something new with it.
You can also grate the cauliflower into larger pieces, but I don’t believe it would let out as much moisture when you cook it as when it’s completely riced. It’s up to you, but I honestly find grating cauliflower to be too much work when you can grind it in a food processor in 10 seconds.
Yields 27 total Low Carb Fried Mac & Cheese Patties.
The Preparation
- 588 grams cauliflower, riced
- 3 large egg
- 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 2 teaspoons paprika
The Execution
1. Get your head of cauliflower ready. We’ll need to prep it before ricing it.
2. Cut your cauliflower into florets, making sure you get any excess stem off.
3. Add the cauliflower to your food processor and pulse it until it is the consistency of short grain rice.
4. Put your cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl, and microwave for 5-7 minutes.
5. Once it’s done in the microwave, we want to get all the excess moisture out. I lay my cauliflower onto a kitchen towel to wring it out. You will get cauliflower “juice” all over the towel, so this will need to go into the laundry afterward. If you don’t want to do that, you can do this with paper towels also.
6. Once you have the cauliflower in the kitchen towel, roll it up tight and apply pressure (your whole body weight) to the cauliflower. Try to push as much extra moisture out of the cauliflower as you can.
7. Once you’re finished, extract the “mushed” cauliflower from the kitchen towel and put it into a bowl. Make sure that it’s room temperature by this point.
8. Add your eggs ONE AT A TIME to the cauliflower. You don’t want a mixture that too watery! Keep in mind that I only did 1/3 of the entire recipe.
9. Add your cheese.
10. Finally, your spices to the cauliflower – tumeric, rosemary, and paprika.
11. Mix everything well, using your hands if you want. I prefer using my hands because I can get the mixture to be balanced well.
12. In a pan, heat your olive oil and coconut oil on high until it gets very hot.
13. Form your cauliflower mixture into a ball, and then flatten it out in the palm of your hand.
14. Add your cauliflower “patties” into the hot oil and reduce the heat to medium high.
15. Allow them to get crisp on one side before flipping them.
16. Continue cooking them until they’re crisp on both sides.
17. All done! Serve on a bed of spinach, or just eat as a snack. They’re absolutely delicious!
This makes a total of 3 servings of Low Carb Fried Mac & Cheese. Each serving comes out to be 380 calories, 26.9g fats, 6.6g net carbs, and 24.8g protein.
| NUTRITION | CALORIES | FAT | CARBS | FIBER | NET CARBS | PROTEIN |
| 588 gram cauliflower | 135 | 2.9 | 24.1 | 13.5 | 10.6 | 10.6 |
| 3 large egg | 236 | 15.7 | 1.2 | 0 | 1.2 | 20.7 |
| 1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese | 742 | 61.2 | 5.7 | 0 | 5.7 | 42 |
| 1 teaspoon turmeric powder | 10 | 0.1 | 2.1 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 0.3 |
| 3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary | 3 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0 |
| 2 teaspoon paprika | 13 | 0.6 | 2.5 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 0.7 |
| Totals | 1139 | 80.7 | 36.1 | 16.2 | 19.9 | 74.3 |
| Per Serving (/3) | 380 | 26.9 | 12 | 5.4 | 6.6 | 24.8 |

Low Carb Fried Mac & Cheese
Ingredients
- 588 gram cauliflower riced
- 3 large egg
- 1 ½ cup cheddar cheese shredded
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
- ¾ teaspoon dried rosemary
- 2 teaspoon paprika
Instructions
- Get the head of cauliflower ready. We'll need to prep it before ricing it.
- Cut the cauliflower into florets, making sure you get any excess stem off.
- Add the cauliflower to your food processor and pulse it until it is the consistency of short grain rice.
- Put your cauliflower into a microwave safe bowl, and microwave for 5-7 minutes. Once it's done in the microwave, we want to get all the excess moisture out. I lay my cauliflower on a kitchen towel to wring it out. You will get cauliflower juice all over the towel, so this will need to go into the laundry afterward. Alternatively, you can do this with paper towels, but you'll need to use multiple ones to avoid tearing.
- Once you have the cauliflower in the kitchen towel, roll it up tight and apply pressure (your whole body weight) to the cauliflower. Try to push as much extra moisture out of the cauliflower as you can. Once you're finished, extract the mashed cauliflower from the kitchen towel and put it into a bowl. Make sure that it's room temperature by this point.
- Add your eggs ONE AT A TIME to the cauliflower. You don't want a mixture that's too watery! Keep in mind, in the pictures I only did 1/3 of the entire recipe.
- Add the cheese.
- Finally, add the spices to the cauliflower - tumeric, rosemary, and paprika.
- Mix everything well, using your hands if you want. I prefer using my hands because I can get the mixture to be balanced well.
- In a pan, heat the olive oil and coconut oil on high until it gets very hot. Form the cauliflower mixture into a ball, and then flatten it out in the palm of your hand.
- Add the cauliflower "patties" into the hot oil and reduce the heat to medium high.
- Allow them to get crisp on one side before flipping them.
- Continue cooking them until they're crisp on both sides.
- All done! Serve on a bed of spinach, or just eat as a snack. They're absolutely delicious!































You are a freaking genius and I love you. 🙂
Haha thanks! All the love back to you too 🙂
These look excellent, and I’m making them right now, but I’m wondering how much oil I should use and what ratio. Thanks!
I use 1 Tbsp. Olive and 1 Tbsp. Coconut oil when I fry things. As the oil gets soaked up, I just add more olive oil – no more coconut oil. Hope that helps!
Thank you! That’s pretty much what I did in the end, so I’m glad I had good judgment.
You might want to add one more instruction to this. Wait until cauliflower has cooled before adding cheese. Total fail here, I will try again.
Jim,
By the time I’ve wrung out the cauliflower it’s pretty cool. I spend a LOT of time wringing it out to make sure I’ve gotten as much of the water out as possible. Then I’ll do it again depending on how moist it is when I push my hand against it.
Sorry it didn’t turn out – I’ll add it in the recipe to make sure that it’s clear 🙂
Mine didn’t look like these or taste that good 🙁
Getting the excess moisture out of the cauliflower is by far the most important step. You have to make sure you really push the paper towels against the cauliflower, or use cheese cloth. I went through about 4-5 sets of paper towels before I got to the point I started mixing anything else in. The golden-brown that is created is also a result of 2 things: The temperature of the oil and the dryness of the cauliflower.
I’ve got a question: What if you don’t have a microwave? I haven’t had one for several years (just oven/stove), and was wondering how you might be able to “zap the moisture out” of the cauliflower without it?
Ria, I’m not entirely sure this would work – but if I had no microwave I would bake it at 400F for 7-12 minutes, spread out across a baking sheet.
Hi! I love all of your recipes, so I was wondering if you could add something. How do you store these (and your other recipes, like your focaccia bread) if you can’t/don’t eat them all at once?
Thanks!
Christine, it depends on the recipes but mostly I have 2 main ways. I either toss it in a tuppaware and keep it in the fridge for leftovers (as long as I am going to eat it within 1 week for meat, 2 weeks for sweets).
If I want to save it any longer than that, I use my foodsaver to store the food and freeze it airtight for a few months. I also wrote about how to eat keto on a budget here: http://www.ruled.me/eating-keto-budget/
Just made these for the family, turned out great! I made them a bit bigger, only got 15 servings. My wife said maybe some salt next time. So maybe I’ll try a 1/4 tsp next time and let you know. Otherwise I found a drop of sriracha a fun addition. Great recipe!
Thanks Nick, glad you guys enjoyed them!
I’m cooking up a batch of these babies tonight, they look so good 🙂
Let me know whatcha thought of them!
Just made some of these! My first batch turned out perfect, the rest kinda fell apart but were still good! Tastes a lot like hash browns! Might add crumbled bacon next time and do it for breakfast! Thanks!
Ashleigh, glad to hear they came out well! Crumbled bacon sounds absolutely delicious in it also!
I can’t seem to get these right, they keep sticking and falling apart (no stick pan, copious oil). Could it be the oil isn’t hot enough at first?
Rob, if they’re falling apart then the cauliflower might not be dry enough. Try wringing it out in a cheese cloth or something similar so you can get out as much excess moisture as you can.
I was thinking that was probably it, but I thought I had wrung it out very thoroughly. I picked up some cheesecloth I think I’ll give that a try this time! Thanks!
BTW this site is like the only reason I haven’t given up on staying keto! Thanks for everything you do!
Awesome Rob, it always puts a smile on my face when I hear comments like that! I know I’ve been a little inactive on posting recipes lately but I’ll be back to posting recipes soon!
Hi Craig – just a little tip to say paper towels, I use a potato ricer with the disc with the smallest holes in it to ‘dry’ my riced cauliflower. It works perfectly every time – except the time I was too strong for my ricer and broke it. I have a good sturdy one now. It is also much cleaner since bitties of cauliflower can make quite a mess. cheers.
That’s an awesome idea Julie. I know I have a potato ricer somewhere so I’ll have to break it out the next time! Thanks!
Hi Craig,
I am into my third week of a Ketogenic diet.. Loved this recipe. It was like having comfort food without any guilt!!! Thabk you so much.. Will order your book shortly!
Cheers
Thanks Mahwish! I’m just about to bring a new recipe version of this exact recipe out today 🙂 Kind of a coincidence that you posted!
These look delicious! On ricing the cauliflower-I have had success every single time, perfect cauli rice, by cooking in oven. I just spread it on a baking sheet, and bake it at 425 for 15 minutes, stir it once in the middle o baking time. The oven evaporates all the moisture for you, eliminating the nee to blot it out! while giving it the texture of rice. It is so easy, and even my picky carbavore husband loves my cauli rice!
Awesome Lindsay! I’m glad to hear you’ve made a foolproof method of cooking cauli-rice. I hate when that extra moisture gets stuck in and you’re left with soft and soggy rice. Thanks for leaving your feedback!
Just made ’em. Pretty simple and quite deliious. I added a dollop of sour cream and sriracha to them. Next time, I think some salt would be a good addition. So delicious; thanks Craig!
Yeah, I look back at this and definitely agree salt would be better. The sour cream sounds great though. Glad you enjoyed!
I will make these. Im having carb-cravings now becuz they look so much like mac & cheese, fried up in lil patties and I know how good mac & cheese is…
LOL
(it, and pizza, are the 2 carb things I miss when I dwell on such things)
Is that dried rosemary? I can’t really tell from the picture.
It’s dried, but I’ve also used fresh and I think either work really well!
Darn these look good. Do you think the ‘patties’ can be made ahead of time. Refrigerated and then fried up a little later?
Hi Connie! I think these would work great as long as making them ahead of time included some cooking. The raw batter might be difficult otherwise.
Would it be possible to get a cup amount on the cauli-rice? Sometimes I get small heads, sometimes larger, so it’s difficult to determine what a “whole” head equates to in cups. Thanks!!
Hi Jeannette, this recipe is a little older so I’m not sure if Craig will remember how many cups it was. I would go by the average size of cauliflower – which yields about 4 cups. If you decide to use a full head and need to troubleshoot I would try adding a few tablespoons of coconut flour to a batter that is too wet, or an extra egg to a batter that is too dry.
Do you have an approximate number of cups for the riced cauliflower? Hard to tell what is considered a “medium” sized head is, and we sometimes purchase cauliflower already riced from Trader Joe’s. I can experiment with one of the 12 ounce packages of riced cauliflower. Thanks!
A medium head of cauliflower is around 575g in weight, but will be a bit less once you cut off the excess.
Not sure how I managed to miss this comment and answer! It would be
great if you could update the recipe with the weights….cauli’s where I
live are the size of a tennis ball so it was hard to get this right. I
ended up using 3 cauli’s and halving the recipe. Great flavour though.
Next time I will try mixing parmesan and mozzarella with the cheddar, and
using cayenne for a bit more heat.
Understood – we are currently working on a metric conversion that will apply to all recipes on the site. We’re hoping to launch it soon 🙂
How much olive oil and coconut oil, and how hot to cook them?
I’d say enough to have a thin layer on the bottom of the pan you are using. They need a few minutes per side so that they harden up some.
Excellent — except we don’t use microwave ovens. do you offer a conventional over alternative?
Thanks
You could steam it in a pan normally 🙂
They tasted okay but not like fried Mac and cheese
Sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy it – it’s very difficult to get the chewiness of real pasta on keto, but this for taste was pretty close for me and gets the craving gone.
People who don’t like this because it’s keto should just eat Mac and cheese. I’m grateful for the reciep. Thank you
We thought it was fairly tasteless, but it had potential. Salt, pepper, maybe even a SMALL amount of mustard powder (A secret ingredient to mac and cheese) and it could taste better. Definitely needed way more cheese.
The mixture became too watery even with one egg.Is there any way to avoid it?
Also,after microwaving the cauliflower mixture,its amount reduced way too much.
That sounds right – you really have to wring out the cauliflower mixture so that it can take on the egg without being too watery.
Love many of your recipes and cook with them weekly, but this one was a pretty big miss for me. In addition to some salt and more cheese, I probably would’ve added some mustard powder… disliked the end result enough that I won’t try and tweak it.
Do you think it would work to coat in oil (for fat) and put into an air fryer?
PS. This vegetarian recipe sounds amazing.
Truth be told I’m not sure – I don’t have any experience with an air fryer 🙁
I had so much trouble trying to fry them, they kept falling apart and were burned in the hot oil. Will not try this one again.
Sorry to hear. If they fall apart they usually haven’t been wrung out enough. If you try anything similar, I’d recommend pressing the cauliflower in a french press to help get any remaining water out.
Can you please import this recipe with macro to Myfitness pal website?
You should be able to copy/paste the ingredients into myfitnesspal. We do include a full macro breakdown of the recipe.