This cheesy Instant Pot cauliflower is a great low carb macaroni and cheese style side dish everyone in your family will love, and want you to make again.
If you’re looking for a great low carb Instant Pot recipe this cheesy Instant Pot cauliflower is a real winner! Served as a side dish at dinner time or a complete meal, I can never make enough of it! It’s now one of our favorite easy vegetable Instant Pot recipes on The Typical Mom blog.
We first made this Instant Pot cauliflower mash which is a fun and delicious side dish to try, we even used purple cauliflower so it came out as a brilliantly bright purple mashed cauliflower dish the kids loved.
I don’t have this issue in my house but if your kids aren’t super keen on eating vegetables on a regular basis I would encourage you to try fun new ways of making them, like colored cauliflower. It doesn’t taste any different really but with kids sometimes it is just in the way it looks and color makes things more fun!
Cheese is also a great way to get kids to eat more vegetables of course so I bet they are going to love our cheesy Instant Pot cauliflower recipe here.
Following our Instant Pot vegetable cook time chart we ended up setting it on high for just 2 minutes but if you didn’t want it quite as soft 1 minute would work well too.
When it comes to cooking vegetables in the Instant Pot it doesn’t take long at all, and you don’t want them to get mushy. I prefer to cook it a little less because when it sits, or if you add hot sauces like this one it tends to soften even more when it sits but it is just a preference really.
I left it at 2 minutes on the instructions because everyone else liked this macaroni and cheese cauliflower (as they like to call it) on the softer tenderest side of things.
If you are on a low carb diet this cheesy Instant Pot cauliflower dish is great, if not you’ll enjoy how creamy it is.
We are big vegetable lovers at this house so my kids ask for things like this and our easy Instant Pot artichokes all the time. Using my Instant Pot gives me the ability to serve vegetables I once had to watch over more often, thus allowing us to eat healthier. That’s just the bottom line, this new multi cooker pressure cooker just rocks!
Of course you could make this without an Instant Pot, just steaming your cauliflower in a basket on the stove as you’d normally do. Then gently boil the sauce in the recipe card below, remove from heat, add your cauliflower, gently stir together and serve.
Either way you’ve gotta’ make this!
This is what you’ll need to make our cheesy Instant Pot cauliflower dish
- Head of cauliflower – stem cut off, broken up into medium size pieces (as usual when you would typically steam and serve cauliflower)
- Instant Pot vegetable steamer basket
- Heavy whipping cream
- Cream cheese
- Dijon mustard
- Cheese – sharp is great or a mix of pepper jack and cheddar is fab
- Garlic salt and salt to taste – I add after it’s done to avoid over salting
Looking for other Instant Pot side dishes?
- Instant Pot cheesy bacon ranch potatoes
- Instant Pot broccoli
- Instant Pot brussel sprouts
- Instant Pot stuffing
- Instant Pot sweet potato casserole
Here’s the printable recipe as well:
Cheesy Instant Pot Cauliflower
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower stem removed, cut into med. size pieces
- 1 c heavy whipping cream
- 2 oz cream cheese
- 1.5 tsp dijon mustard
- 1.5-2 c cheese sharp cheddar or a mix of white cheddar and sharp
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Put vegetable steamer basket into your Instant Pot and add 1.5 c water too.
- Put med. size pcs. of cauliflower into steamer basket and close lid, and steam valve.
- Set to pressure high for 2 minutes. Do a quick release and remove basket with cooked cauliflower, set aside.
- Turn pot off, then push saute button.
- Add heavy cream, cream cheese, dijon mustard, garlic salt and stir until it starts to slowly bubble and cream cheese clumps are now smooth.
- Add 1.5 c. shredded cheese and stir until melted, then dump cooked cauliflower into the pot and turn your pot off.
- Gently mix together so sauce is coating all pieces, empty into a bowl to serve so it doesn't continue to cook in your pot and get too soft.
- Enjoy topped with some shredded cheese or as is, add a dash of salt if desired.
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Another great idea for my instant pot! Thanks so much for sharing!
SOOOOO good. Am going to try it with smoked gouda next time!
That would be good too!