• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Gardening Basics
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Writer Jeanne Grunert
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

Vegan Cauliflower Recipe: Sicilian Sauce

March 4, 2023 by Jeanne

I adapted this vegan cauliflower recipe for Sicilian sauce to my family’s low salt, plant based diet – and got great results. It’s easy to make, tastes wonderful, and gives us another meatless meal for Lent. If you are a Christian seeking Friday dinner ideas for Lent, or simply have a head of cauliflower you want to use up, this recipe is wonderful!

What Is Sicilian Sauce?

There’s no single definition of what makes up a Sicilian sauce. This recipe was in an old cookbook that I had from my early forays into a vegetarian diet. The recipe was called Sicilian Cauliflower Sauce. Generally speaking, Sicilian sauces are tomato-based and include other in-season ingredients.

Low Salt Pasta Sauce and Vegan Cauliflower Recipe

This vegan cauliflower recipe looked like it would be tasty, but the original one was packed salt and was far from healthy. I adjusted it so that it is virtually “salt free” except for the naturally occurring salt in the vegetables and the pasta. And, of course, you can choose your favorite low-salt pasta to get the salt quotient even lower.

No-salt tomato sauce and diced tomatoes are easy to find at the grocery store. We purchase ours at Walmart. If you are new to a low salt diet, it may take a while for your taste buds to adapt, but once they do, you will never need quite as much salt in a recipe again.

The original recipe added salt, used salt infused canned tomato sauce, and include canned black olives. I omitted the salt and the olives and switched it to no salt added tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. The main flavor comes from the onions and garlic.

But It Has Wine!

Yes, it does. Wine cooks down so that the alcohol evaporates. It adds a subtle layer of flavor but does not include enough alcohol to be noticeable.

a plate of Sicilian pasta sauce with cauliflower

Sicilian Sauce with Pasta

Sicilian sauce with pasta is a vegan – vegetarian – meatless meal that's both filling and delicious! Packed with vegetables, it's a feast for the sense, easy to make, inexpensive, and tasty.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 15 mins
Cook Time 30 mins
Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian, Plant-Based, Vegan, Vegetarian
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

  • 8 ounces rigatoni pasta
  • 1 can no salt tomato sauce
  • 1 can no salt diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 head cauliflower florets, cut into small pieces
  • 1 onion diced
  • 4 garlic cloves cloves, diced
  • 1/2 cup red wine choose your favorite wine
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil extra virgin

Instructions
 

  • Set a pot of water on the stove (approximately 8 cups of water) and bring to a boil.
  • While the water is coming to a boil, diced the onions, garlic, and cauliflower
  • Once the water boils, add pasta and cook according to package directions.
  • In a large sauce pan, heat olive oil and add onions. Sautee 5 minutes. Add garlic, stirring constantly, and cook or 30 seconds.
  • Add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and cauliflower to the saucepan. Cook over medium heat until it comes to a boil.
  • Add the red wine; stir and reduce heat to simmer. Cover the pan and cook 10-15 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender.
  • Serve immediately once pasta is cooked and the cauliflower is tender. Drain pasta, and place sauce immediately over over pasta. Serve. Each person can add salt to taste, if desired.

Notes

This is one of my favorite Lenten meals and a staple in our plant-based diet. The sauce tastes wonderful and the cauliflower chunks give it a hearty, meaty texture without the meat. It’s packed with vitamins and micronutrients. An added bonus: if you are on a salt-free diet or a heart-healthy diet, using no-salt tomato sauce and no salt added diced tomatoes makes this a low sodium meal. The only sodium is what occurs naturally in the sauce ingredients and the amount in the pasta. 
Keyword salt-free meals, heart-healthy meals, vegetarian dinners, sicilian pasta

More Vegan Cauliflower Recipes

  • Vegan Creamy Cauliflower Soup
  • Foodie Friday: Roasted Cauliflower Recipes
  • The Sneaky Cauliflower
  • Parsnip Recipes – Roasted Parsnip Cauliflower Soup
  • Cooking Vegan – Healthful, Delicious and Easy

Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin1
Share
1 Shares

Filed Under: Dinner Recipes, Easy Recipes, Heart Healthy Recipes, Vegetarian Meals

Follow me on social media

Like
Follow
Follow
Follow
Follow
Previous Post: « Marinaded and Grilled Portobello Mushroom Steaks

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

We were featured in Porch.com and answered reader's questions about indoor plants.

Writer Jeanne Grunert

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Find all my books on Amazon.com

Gardening Articles

a white bowl filled with vegan creamy cauliflower soup made with orange cauliflower

Vegan Creamy Cauliflower Soup

a close up of a pink Christmas cactus flower on a wooden table

Schlumbergera x buckleyi – Christmas Cactus

red celosia flowers in the garden

How to Save Flower Seeds

savory on a wooden table

How to Grow Summer Savory

Footer

a woman holding a popover with the cream interior revealed and two other popovers on a plate

Best Popover Recipe

This is the best popover recipe ever! It was easy to make and turned out delicious popovers. This was my first time making popovers, and I can’t remember the last time I had one, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. As usual, I turned to my trusty Fannie Farmer 13th Edition Cookbook and found…

Read More

Christmas present under the tree

Christmas Gifts for Gardeners: Your Holiday Gift Guide

Are you looking for Christmas gifts for gardeners? This is your holiday gift guide to find the perfect present for that special gardener in your life! Ready? Let’s go shopping! Christmas Gifts for Gardeners: Your Holiday Gift Guide Maybe you’re searching for the perfect Christmas gifts for gardeners in your life. Or perhaps you are…

Read More

a white bowl filled with vegan creamy cauliflower soup made with orange cauliflower

Vegan Creamy Cauliflower Soup

This recipe for vegan creamy cauliflower soup offers a tasty, filling comfort food for cold winter’s nights – all without any animal products. The secret to its amazing taste is a combination of dried summer savory and parsley stirred liberally into the simmering vegetables. Here’s the full recipe and instructions for my vegan creamy cauliflower…

Read More

a close up of a pink Christmas cactus flower on a wooden table

Schlumbergera x buckleyi – Christmas Cactus

Schlumbergera x buckleyi – Christmas cactus. So many people love these plants, but so many people also don’t know how to take care of them. Now, part of that is the name – Christmas cactus. Unfortunately, whoever discovered them in the rain forests thought they were cacti, and so they received this unfortunate designation. In…

Read More

Copyright © 2023 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme