Easy Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice

Cilantro lime cauliflower rice has been our favorite side dish lately. We are always looking for healthy sides that compliment our main dish and round out a meal. This dish is light and bright with a punch of lime and fresh cilantro.

We often like to double down on veggies for a meal rather than doing a carb, so this cauliflower rice, or cauli-rice, acts like rice but without all the carbs.

Serve this up with our steak fajitas, pork carnitas, or smothered honey lime chicken burritos! It is the perfect compliment to any Mexican meal. Here are all our favorite Mexican main dishes so you can find the one that speaks to you!

What is Cauliflower Rice?

Cauliflower rice is cauliflower that has been chopped up into tiny pieces that resemble grains of rice in size and texture. It can be made at home by putting cauliflower florets in a food processor or it can be purchased already chopped at the grocery store.

How to Make Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice

When it comes to easy side dishes, this one is right up there with the easiest. If you don’t buy cauliflower rice pre-chopped, take your head of cauliflower, remove the core and leaves, and break it into florets. Place the florets into your food processor or blender and pulse it until you have small pieces similar to the size of rice grains.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil, garlic and cumin and cook until it is fragrant (about a minute). Then add the cauliflower rice, lime juice, lime zest and cilantro and salt to taste and stir everything together. Cook it while stirring until it starts to turn brown slightly. It will take about 5-8 minutes. Serve it up with more fresh cilantro and enjoy!

How to Make Cauliflower Rice Not Soggy

I have found that the key to keeping cauliflower rice not soggy or mushy is to pan fry it or roast it in the oven. With just a little olive oil, the cauliflower will cook up just great on the stove top. Cauliflower stores a lot of moisture inside it, so it doesn’t need any extra moisture added to cook it. Once the cauliflower has been pulsed, you can squeeze it in a cheesecloth to omit some of the extra water.

How Many Carbs are in Cilantro Lime Cauliflower Rice?

Cauliflower is a popular low carb vegetable because it is so versatile. A cup of raw cauliflower contains just 5 grams of carbohydrates and 3 of those grams are fiber. That’s just 2 grams of digestible carbs!

For this recipe, 1 cup of cauli-rice is 71 calories and only 6 carbs.

Is Cauliflower Gluten Free?

Yes! Cauliflower is gluten free. This recipe is gluten free too and

Grilled Avocado Tacos Recipe

This easy avocado tacos recipe is made with creamy grilled avocados, a little bit of queso fresco, pickled onions and a tangy lime crema. You’re going to love them!

Grilled Avocado tacos, an absolute must this summer! They may not look like much, but trust me before you know it you’ll be shoveling your 5th taco in your mouth.

Recommended Equipment

• Wusthof Knives
• Tongs
• Pastry Brush

Before You Begin…

I like to make the crema before I start doing anything with the avocados or the grill. The flavors meld together if you let it set for a few minutes so the flavor is more bold and fabulous. Our favorite brand of crema is Cacique!

How This Recipe Came to Be

I once had a roommate who made avocado tacos. At first appearance it seemed almost too easy to me, but then she let me try one. And try it I did, over and over, and over again. They were delicious, light, easy and surprisingly flavorful. And then I got married, moved out and totally forgot about them for a few years.

And then enters my darling friend, Lisa. Lisa is a vegetarian and although I’m all about the meat I find myself frustrated for her when people or restaurants don’t have options for vegetarians. I actually think there is no excuse for a restaurant to not have at least a couple of vegetarian options unless it’s something like a place that specializes in just meat, like J Dawgs.

I’m constantly trying my hand at vegetarian recipes ever since meeting Lisa, kind of like this Roasted Red Pepper Pasta, and then one day I remembered the avocado tacos. I’m not saying that these are the most over the top, crazy delicious dinner recipe you could make, but they really are super delicious, and perfect for both vegetarian and meat eaters at get-togethers or BBQ’s.

In fact, we eat them all the time, and if it’s lunch and we don’t want to heat up the grill we just cook the tortillas and skip grilling the avocados. It’s still delicious, I promise. And because Lisa started this new search in us, we’ve actually found that we prefer to not eat meat every single night. Our bodies seem to respond better to meat sparingly. Go figure. But I will say, meat and protein in the form of meat is still essential for us. And Lisa doesn’t mind.

Ingredients for Grilled Avocado Tacos

For the Tacos

• Corn Tortillas: We have become obsessed with this Vista Hermosa brand of corn tortillas. They have such great flavor and hold up well.
• Avocado: You want a ripe but firm avocado that can hold up to the grilling.
• Salt and Pepper: Adds flavor to the avocado as i

Creamy Avocado Cilantro Lime Dressing

Our creamy avocado cilantro lime dressing is fresh, tangy, a teeny bit spicy and delicious not only on salads, but also on tacos, rice bowls, or as a dip for veggies!

I’m slowly but surely gathering up all of my favorite salad dressing recipes… for my mom. Haha! I mean, I’m doing it for all of you as well, but this stems from a comment my mom made that I’m not completely ruminating on. She said she doesn’t know how to make a good salad. AND, FURTHERMORE, she doesn’t really eat salad in the winter because she associates it with summer. 

Oh heck no. 

Salad is one of the greatest things of my life, so I absolutely have to help her out! Salads are the easiest recipe because literally anything goes. You wanna add roasted sweet potatoes? DO IT! You want to mix cottage cheese in? IT’S DELICIOUS!

So, first up, Cilantro Lime Avocado Dressing because it’s healthy, and so bright and zesty! And look at that green color! All the heart eyes!

Ingredients for Avocado Cilantro Lime Dressing

This recipe uses all natural ingredients and is gluten free and dairy free. Here is what you will need:

• Avocado: make sure it is ripe by gently grabbing the top and bottom between your thumb and index finger and giving it a slight squeeze, it should have a little give to it
• Cilantro: grab a handful of the leaves and pull them from the stems
• Lime Juice: you definitely want fresh limes for this
• Jalapeño: remove the seeds and use more or less of the jalapeño to determine the heat you want
• Tomatillo: have a tangy and almost citrus-y flavor
• Garlic: fresh garlic, adds a little bite to the dressing
• Apple Cider Vinegar: adds acid and flavor
• Honey: mellows out all the acid and tanginess
• Ground Coriander: adds a slightly sweet, lemony flavor
• Olive Oil: adds flavor and healthy fat
• Kosher Salt: adds flavor
• Water: thins the dressing out, you can add as much or as little as you want to control the creaminess

The measurements for all the ingredients can be found in the recipe card at the end of the post.

Avocados for Life

Someone recently asked me what my favorite food is. That is quite possibly the hardest question to ask a food blogger! I could maybe narrow it down to a top 10 food. And if I was forced to choose, avocados would definitely be on the list. I am obsessed with them!

You can eat avocados for every meal, and I do! Have you seen our post about avocado toast? Heaven! I love to throw them on sandwiches for lunch and we even have an avocado taco recipe that is so deli