These Cheesy Low Carb Breadsticks are made with just a few simple ingredients and grain free, gluten free, keto and so tasty! No one will notice they're made with cauliflower!
A grain free, low carb cheesy bread stick?? Pretty amazing right?
I'm such a sneaky mom and don't feel one bit of guilt in doing so! Sneaky veggies are in many of my recipes, like my Deep Dish Cauliflower Pizza and Zucchini Cheese Bites!
There is a secret ingredient you probably know about already or maybe you don't, either way you must give this recipe a shot before you say, "WHAT the WHAT?!!"
My kids would never notice cauliflower in this Cheesy Alfredo Sauce! This Slow Cooker Pepper Jack Cauliflower my hubby will love! Call it Pizza and my family will eat it and this Pepperoni Cauliflower Pizza is awesome!
Once you steam the secret ingredient and add some other seasonings with it, you get something that looks like dough, and spreads easily with your hands to form a rectangle shape.
Baking it produces this nice golden crispy color, but since I've made this twice now, you need to do one extra step here. You must then flip this over onto another parchment lined baking sheet to get the bottom just as crispy and browned. Yes tricky, but will produce a better, more "pick-up-able" stick. Drizzle some water on the baking sheet and lay the parchment on it and it will stick to it well. Then place the baking sheet right over this crust once out of the oven and do the flip. Gently peel the parchment off the bottom of the crust which is now the top. Easy peasy and definitely worth it! 🙂
Cutting them into 12 sticks is how I began, but noticed since they are quite long and not typical "bread" sticks, they are flimsy. So I cut those 12 in half and made smaller sticks which were a lot easier to dunk in marinara sauce.
In case you're wondering how my family reacted to this I'm going to share the truth. The look of them is quite appealing and NO ONE, I repeat, NOT ONE of the them asked what was in them and all tried them. The secret ingredient smell is masked by the Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. You might want to add more than a cup of mozzarella on the top if you're not watching calories. The comments were good! They thought they were all very tasty, but a bit softer then typical bread sticks.
Much better and easily fooled my kids who all tried them without complaining they tasted weird!
This recipe was originally posted in March of 2013! I decided to adapt it slightly, make some new pics for it and share a video to bring it out of the archives!
Looking for more Sneaky Cauliflower Recipes? Check out these luscious ones:
- Bacon Cheeseburger Cauliflower Casserole
- Chicken Enchilada Cauliflower Casserole
- Loaded Mashed Cauliflower
- Cauliflower Tortillas
Grain Free Low Carb Cheesy Bread Sticks
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower washed, dried or 4 cups chopped
- ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasonings
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cup mozzarella cheese shredded, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cut cauliflower into bite size pieces steam for 20 minutes until just tender. You can also use all ready riced frozen cauliflower and microwave for 8 minutes .
- If using fresh, place cauliflower in food processor and pulse until the size of rice.
- Place cooked but cooled cauliflower into a clean dry towel over a bowl and wring out as much liquid as you can.
- Pour riced cauliflower into a large bowl and add Parmesan cheese, egg, seasonings and ½ cup mozzarella cheese.
- Mix well then spread mixture onto baking sheet in a rectangular 8 by 10 shape. Bake for 10-15 minutes until browned on top.
- Invert over onto the other baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Sprinkle mozzarella over the top and bake another 5-10 minutes until browned.
- Let rest 10 minutes. Slice into 24 pieces.
Nutrition
About Brenda
Brenda Bennett is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, certified Sugar Detox Coach, certified Keto Coach and certified Life Coach. She has been Sugar Free & Refined carb free for 17 years and has written 2 cookbooks, Sugar-Free Mom, and Naturally Keto and her 3rd book The 30-Day Sugar Elimination Diet, is a four part program to help you detox from sugar, eliminate cravings, balance blood sugar and lose weight all while eating a delicious, nutrient dense whole foods. Meal plan offers two tracks to follow, low carb or keto. She is the founder of the Sugar Free Fresh Start course and Sugar Free Tribe weight loss membership. Learn more.
Ruth
If you rice you own fresh cauliflower, how long in the microwave?
Brenda
See Step 3.
Cory
WAY WAY WAY WAY too much sodium.
Char Mayne
I made this and couldn’t eat more than 2 bites because it had an incredible amount of sodium.
Genny
Can I use frozen cauliflower? If you how many cups do you think? Tia 🙂
Genny
I meant to write...If so how many cups do you think?.....darn auto correct 🙂
Brenda
Yes you could but thaw it out first and weigh the amount.
nikki
my big problem with all these great recipes is my daughter and I cant eat eggs !! what can we use as a replacement ?? and we are also allergic to most flours and nuts . we can only have coconut flour .please help
Bob Waldrop
My only problem with this recipe was flipping it. I didn't get a clean flip, instead it folded over on itself, so it took some picking away with knife and fingers to get it unflopped and that broke it up a bit into smaller pieces, but that didn't affect the taste at all. They didn't last long. I knew I should have doubled the recipe, lol.
caren gittleman
this sounds fabulous! Just pinned it!
low carb snacks
Hola! I've been following your website for some time
now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Dallas Tx!
Just wanted to say keep up the good work!
Brenda
thanks so much!
Maria
This looks phenomenal! I just happen to have a whole head of cauliflower that awaits this fate! Today is the day that this one dies, only to be resurrected as something even better 🙂 . Thank you!
mommyof2
These are really tasty. I think I made them a bit too thin tho. I only eyeballed the measuring of the rectangle and i didn't realize how much they'd cook down. Also I just used a whole egg because it was easier and i think it worked well. I will make this again but make sure to leave the rectangle really thick. thanks!
Diane
Brenda these cheese sticks rock!! We made them with our dinner & loved them! Definitely won't be the last time we make these! Thanks so much. Started doing Wheat Belly & this recipe was right up my alley!
Brenda
I'm so glad you all liked it! Thanks for letting me know!
Victoria Olson
Nice technique. I'd tried a cauliflower pizza and it was 'never again'. The flipping looks like it should dry them out, but are they leathery at all? Just wondered what the texture is like. Thanks.
Elle
I bake these in tortilla rounds. They freeze very well too. Isn't cauliflower wonderful?
Holly
OMG, Brenda! I made these tonight for dinner to go w/ spaghetti & meatballs. My family loved them! My 14yo son figured out the cauliflower part & still liked them. (He doesn't eat cauliflower otherwise.) I was so happy to make them something tasty & healthy. Thanks!
Brenda
Yeah!!!!, even your son figured it out but still ate it and liked it, SCORE!!!!
Tortoise & Hare Body
What other binding ingrediant would you suggest adding to the steamed cauliflower besides cheese? I'm grain free but have to keep the calorie count down. Maybe greek yogurt or low-fat cottage cheese?
Charlotte Moore
I was amazed to see what they were made out of. They look just like bread. Looks tasty!!!
Elle
I use nutritional yeast and it does the same glue thing that the parm does! Fun how we can hide cauliflower!
Amy
How much nutritional yeast did you use to replace the cheese? We are dairy free at my house and I would love to make these.
Jenn
Hi, When I try to save recipes to zip list they don't always match the recipe posted. I tried to save the breadsticks and it came up with a pie crust recipe. I'm not sure if your aware of the problem.
You have a great blog and your recipes look fantastic.