Grain Free Cauliflower Tortillas

These soft, flexible cauliflower tortillas, made with just 3 main ingredients, are grain free, and have less than 2 net carbs each. There’s even a Paleo option.

How to make these low carb tortillas

These low carb, grain free cauliflower tortillas are soft and bendy, and are made of just three basic ingredients. They are cauliflower, eggs, and grated Parm.

If you’d like to make them Paleo, replace the cheese with 1 ounce of nutritional yeast. Scroll down to the Ingredients and substitutions section for additional dairy-free information.

I promise these tortillas don’t taste eggy. Only actual omelets should taste like them, not tortillas.

The best thing about these tortillas is really their texture, which has bite and chew. But there’s also plenty of flavor from the cheese.

You can’t cook these tortillas in a skillet. You can only brown them a bit in a hot skillet after they have been baked in the oven. Ask me how I know that for sure. 🤣

Can you make flour from cauliflower?

The cauliflower is simply “riced” cauliflower, not actual dried flour that you have to purchase. Scroll down a bit for details on how to rice cauliflower (or buy it already riced).

If you buy frozen, already riced cauliflower, you’ll need 12 ounces as frozen. Then, defrost without heating (on low power in the microwave usually works).

How to rice cauliflower

Buy it riced and frozen

Since I originally shared this recipe, I’ve been buying already-riced frozen cauliflower at my local Trader Joe’s grocery store regularly. The regular grocery store now even carries their brand as well.

I simply place the frozen riced cauliflower in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave it on low power for about 4 minutes. Alternatively, you can defrost it at room temperature, which takes much longer but is very easy to do.

The cauliflower preparation can all be done days ahead of time. In fact, I recommend you rice and fully prep at least 2 heads of florets.

Then, store them in the refrigerator a few days before you plan to make use of them. The rest of the recipe is truly a snap.

If you begin with raw cauliflower, you must first rice it, and then cook it a bit as instructed in the recipe. There is more than one way to rice it, though.

In a food processor

If you can’t find frozen, riced cauliflower, it’s very easy to make your own. The easiest way to rice whole, raw cauliflower.

Simply chop the raw vegetable into relatively fine grains. The easiest way is to pulse the florets in a food processor.

With a box grater

If you don’t have a food processor, ricing can also be done with a handheld box grater. Be careful not to end up with any big chunks, though. 

In a blender

A reader named Jennifer Swenson shared her favorite raw to rice cauliflower. Others have tried it with success, so it’s worth sharing here.

Simply cut apart a head of cauliflower into florets and place the florets in a blender. Fill the blender with cold water, blend for about four seconds, and then drain the now-riced cauliflower.

You must remove all the moisture

However you rice the cauliflower, once you’ve riced, you have to wring out all of the moisture in it. If you’ve never done this before, you’ll be amazed by how much moisture there is in lightly cooked cauliflower.

If you don’t squeeze out all the moisture, your cauliflower tortillas won’t dry in the oven during baking. That means that they will be limp, and not pleasantly flexible.

Ingredients and substitutions

These are a really, really nice healthy, low-carb alternative to tortillas. They’re not only grain-free; they don’t have a grain substitute.

But they’re not true tortillas in every sense, as they can’t be made much larger or any thinner. You may prefer our recipe for Soft Paleo Flour Tortillas. Or one of the other 9 recipes for gluten free flatbread that I swear by.

Dairy

The finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese gives these tons of flavor, but also dairy. If you’d like to make these dairy-free and by definition Paleo, you can substitute the cheese with 1 ounce (28 grams) nutritional yeast flakes.

I’ve also tried replacing the dairy cheese with Daiya grated cheese alternative. It makes the tortillas kind of puffy, and I really prefer nutritional yeast.

Eggs

The eggs are what is largely responsible for the structure of these tortillas, so replacing them is risky. I’m afraid I can’t promise success.

You can try replacing each with a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). If you do that, I highly recommend using the optional tapioca starch/flour.

Tapioca starch/flour

If you can’t have tapioca or you don’t want to add any more carbs to this recipe, leave out the tapioca starch/flour. It helps keep them soft and flexible even when completely cool, but it’s not an essential ingredient.