Cilantro lime cauliflower rice is just about the simplest little side dish to serve on taco night or as a base for your low carb burrito bowls!
Would you like to save this recipe?
We'll email it right to you, so you can come back to it later!
Is anyone else just completely and utterly in love with Mexican food?
I’m going to go ahead and guess all of you are, because I can’t imagine a world in which people aren’t daydreaming about that goodness all day long.
While I love our keto taco soup and eat my keto taco salad at least once a week, sometimes I just get a major craving for a burrito bowl like the ones from Chipotle or Qdoba!
This cilantro lime cauliflower rice recipe does the trick for any burrito bowl cravings you might have. It’s also an easy little side dish!
Serving Suggestions:
Use our cilantro lime cauliflower rice as the base for a burrito bowl, like our keto burrito bowl!
You can also bulk up your taco salad by adding in a bit of rice.
Use your favorite low carb tortillas and make an actual burrito – wrap up all of your favorites in there with this rice.
Serve this alongside our keto margarita for a delicious meal!
Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower about 4 cups riced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/3 cup chopped cilantro
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
Instructions
- Chop the cauliflower into florets and add to a food processor fitted with the blade attachment. Pulse until you have small rice-sized pieces. Alternately, finely chop the cauliflower into rice-sized pieces with a sharp knife.
- Heat a large skillet over medium heat and add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the cauliflower to the skillet and cook for 3 minutes, stirring often.
- Cover the skillet with a lid and continue cooking for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the cauliflower is as soft as you’d like.
- Remove cauliflower from the heat and stir in the cilantro, lime juice, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper.
- Serve immediately.
Tips & Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Ingredient Notes:
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Cauliflower – See the section below on how to make your own cauliflower rice, or buy a bag of riced cauliflower from the produce section or freezer section. Easy peasy.
Lime Juice – Freshly squeezed lime juice is what you want here, but you can use the bottled kind if that’s what you have on hand. If you want extra lime flavor add a bit of lime zest.
Cilantro – Some chopped fresh cilantro is pretty popular in just about every Mexican dish and it goes great with the lime! Other fresh herbs like parsley would work here too.
Seasoning – Along with the flavors from the cilantro and lime juice you’ll also mix in some garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and ground pepper.
Olive Oil – For cooking the riced cauliflower. You could also use avocado oil or other types of oils here.
Citrus Juicer
Freshly squeezed lime and lemon juice is useful in lots of recipes, and this tool makes it easy and mess free.
How To Make Cauliflower Rice:
- Cauliflower – You can either start with a whole head of fresh cauliflower or a bag of the fresh cauliflower florets. Frozen cauliflower florets aren’t a good option for cauliflower rice.
- Process – If you’re starting with a head of cauliflower, chop it into florets and then add it to your food processor.
If you don’t have a food processor, get your knife out and start chopping. And chopping and chopping and chopping until you have tiny little rice like pieces.
I’ve heard that you can also use a box grater to grate the cauliflower, but I haven’t tried this myself and can’t speak to how easy it is.
My Favorite Food Processor
I use this Breville food processor and it’s my FAVORITE kitchen appliance. I’ve gone through all the big brands of food processors, but this one is the best, in my opinion. It makes short work of grating cheese, making cauliflower rice, slicing veggies, and of course chopping up everything for these broccoli fritters.
“I made this tonight to go with sheet pan shrimp fajitas. So delicious! This is a perfect Whole30 compliant recipe to accompany ANY Mexican-style dish.” – Diane
How To Cook Riced Cauliflower:
- Cauliflower Rice – Add your cauliflower rice to a skillet with a bit of olive oil and cook for a couple of minutes while stirring. Cover and cook for another 5-10 minutes to get the rice to the texture you prefer.
- Season – When the rice is done cooking, sprinkle chopped cilantro and top and squeeze in the lime juice. Sprinkle in onion powder, garlic powder, and salt, and give it all a stir.
- Taste – Give your cilantro lime cauliflower rice a taste and see if it needs anything. I sometimes add an extra sprinkle of salt or squeeze of lime juice to brighten it up.
How To Season Riced Cauliflower:
While we’re making a cilantro lime cauliflower rice today, there are a million ways to season cauliflower rice. We love to make a more traditional Mexican cauliflower rice by seasoning with cumin, garlic, tomato paste, and cilantro.
Roasting the cauliflower rice with minced garlic makes for a wonderful garlic rice. Keep it simple, but feel free to experiment!
Our cauliflower risotto is another delicious way to prepare cauliflower rice.
A bit of Cajun seasoning also amps up the flavor in cauliflower rice, too!
- This is so versatile! Serve it as a side on taco night or use it as the base for your next burrito bowl.
- Whether you have fresh cauliflower or a bag of frozen cauliflower rice, you can easily make this recipe.
- This is light, healthy, and simple!
What to Serve with Cauliflower Rice:
This cilantro lime cauliflower rice will go great as a side with pretty much any Mexican inspired dish. Here are a few tasty options:
- Sheet Pan Shrimp Fajitas
- Baked Chicken Fajitas
- Mexican Shredded Beef
- Keto Guacamole
- Air Fryer Frozen Shrimp
- Low Carb Taco Casserole
FAQs:
It’s a vegetable that tricks you into thinking you’re eating a starch! That’s a good enough reason for me. 😉 Honestly, though, cauliflower rice is a great way to get more veggies in your diet and cut back on those carbs. It’s healthy, flavorful, vegan and paleo friendly, gluten free, and, in my opinion, is easier than cooking traditional rice. It takes less time as well. If you’re tired of taco salads, swap out the lettuce for this cilantro lime recipe and it feels like a whole new meal.
You can keep any leftovers of this cilantro lime cauliflower rice stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days. You can also freeze it for up to a few months. It can be reheated in the microwave or even on the stove.
If you riced the cauliflower yourself and it seems mushy then you may have over-processed it into too small of pieces. It’s best to work in smaller batches to get it just right! Process until it’s the right consistency and then stop.
Saira says
It was delicious. I had it with low carb air fried chicken.
Karly Campbell says
Sounds tasty! 🙂
Diane says
I made this tonight to go with sheet pan shrimp fajitas. So delicious! This is a perfect Whole30 compliant recipe to accompany ANY Mexican-style dish.
Patti K Wolfe says
Awesome!!! I used the cauliflower rice from Trader Joe’s to save a step. Gonna try to make an Asian version tomorrow.
Karly Campbell says
Glad you enjoyed! I have a chicken fried cauliflower rice recipe, if you’re interested! 🙂
Charli says
Is it easier to just start with riced cauliflower or does that change the taste somehow?
Karly Campbell says
It’s easier to start with riced cauliflower. I prefer to start with the bag of fresh riced cauliflower over the frozen kind, just because I don’t super love frozen veggies. You can use whatever you like though. 🙂
Amanda says
Can I use frozen rice cauliflower…that’s all I have
Karly Campbell says
Yes, but adjust cook time as needed.
Diana says
The box grater works great! (grate?) for making cauli-rice.
Karly Campbell says
Great! Glad it worked out for you!
Penny says
Why rice it before you cook it. If I break a head of cauliflower up and steam it, it’s way easier to smash it up then.
Karly Campbell says
Hi Penny! I’ve never tried mashing cauliflower to make rice, but I imagine it would get mushy and chunky, not finely grated bits that are similar to grains of rice.
Susanne says
Looks like a great recipe. Just wondering if you ever tried to freeze?? Thanks !
Karly Campbell says
Hi Susanne! I’ve never tried freezing this. Not sure how cauliflower that’s already been cooked would hold up in the freezer.
Laura says
Could you freeze the cauliflower rice if you don’t need it all immediately?
Karly Campbell says
I haven’t tried freezing already cooked cauliflower rice. I’d be a little worried that it would get mushy when reheating, but I can’t say for sure.
Ivory says
Looks amazing , yummy!
Alan Watts says
Hi Karly
Pretty awesome recipe. I admit I’m not really a fan of cauliflower but this is definitely a must try.
Can we substitute rice for quinoa instead?
Karly Campbell says
You could substitute cooked quinoa and season it with the lime and cilantro, but it will no longer be low carb. 🙂