Bar Tartine Cauliflower Salad
A beautiful cauliflower salad from the Bar Tartine cookbook - a crunchy, hearty mixture of cauliflower, seeds, chiles, radishes, chickpeas, and green onions slathered in an enveloping garlicky yogurt dressing.
I'm not much of a menu collector, although I have a small stack of gems in one of my desk drawers. A good number of them are menus from past meals at Bar Tartine. For those of you who have yet to visit San Francisco, Bar Tartine was a much loved establishment in the heart of San Francisco's Mission district, just a couple of blocks from the (deservedly famous) namesake bakery. After Tartine, Chad Robertson and Liz Prueitt opened Bar Tartine -chefs Nick Balla and Cortney Burns were at the helm from 2011 through closure in 2016.
It's the place Wayne and I liked to go to celebrate a birthday, or walk to on a sunny day for brunch, or just sit for a drink and a couple of little plates. That said, there are a lot of great places to eat in San Francisco, and when I think about why I appreciated Bar Tartine as much as I did, it's not because I loved the scale of the space, the nice staff, the old floors, or the hand-thrown plates and drinking vessels - because that stuff was all good. I liked to go because, foremost, the food was fascinating. The menu, always evolving, the food intensely flavorful - beautiful without being fussy or contrived. It was deeply California in source, but influenced by travel, and family, and life beyond that. There was all sorts of fermenting, drying, and experimenting going on, and the kitchen was open, so you get to watch as everything unfolds.
Before their namesake cookbook came out (so excited about it), I pestered my pals at Chronicle for an early copy, and chose this cauliflower salad to dive in. It's a crunchy, hearty mixture of cauliflower, seeds, chiles, radishes, chickpeas, and green onions slathered in an enveloping garlicky yogurt dressing, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. -h
Pictured above, the ingredients to make the cauliflower salad. And below, everything assembled and ready to enjoy!
More Cauliflower Recipes
- Simple Weeknight Cauliflower
- Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini
- Cauliflower Caponata
- Pickled Cauliflower
- Chickpea Cauliflower Korma
- Simple Cauliflower Soup
- Rainbow Cauliflower Rice Bowl
- all cauliflower recipes
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Bar Tartine Cauliflower Salad
If you're sensitive to chiles, start with one, then add more to taste. You can seed them if you like, but the heat is a nice play off the creamy yogurt.
- 1 cup strained or Greek yogurt
- 5 tablespoons unfiltered sunflower oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
- freshly ground pepper, to taste
- 2 medium, Persian or Japanese cucumbers, seeded, cut into 1/2-inch dice
- one 12-ounce head of cauliflower, trimmed into tiny florets
- 1 bunch green onions, cut into 1/4-inch rounds
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas
- 8 ounces button mushrooms, quartered
- 1 bunch radishes, trimmed and thinly sliced
- 1 or 2 green serrano chiles, stemmed and thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, lightly toasted
- chopped leaves from 1/2 bunch each fresh dill, flat-leaf parsley, and tarragon
- sweet paprika, to serve
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To make the yogurt dressing: In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sunflower oil, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, honey, salt, and pepper to taste. The dressing can be made up to a week in advance and stored in an air-tight container.
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Add the cucumbers to the bowl with the dressing along with the cauliflower, green onion, chickpeas, mushrooms, radishes, chiles, sunflower seeds, dill, parsley, and tarragon and let stand for 15 minutes. Toss all of the ingredients with the dressing and let stand until the vegetables begin to give off some liquid and the cauliflower begins to take on a silky texture, about 15 minutes longer. The salad should be slightly soupy.
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Transfer the salad to a serving platter, finish with the paprika, and serve. Leftover salad will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Serves 6.
Adapted slightly from Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes, by Nicolaus Balla and Cortney Burns, Chronicle Books, 2014.
Related Recipes
Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini
A special roasted cauliflower inspired by Sara Forte’s new cookbook. It’s wildly delicious - loaded with herbs, dates, nuts, roasted red onions and tossed with a tahini dressing.
Cauliflower Caponata
This deeply flavorful caponata recipe cleverly trades out traditional eggplant for roasted cauliflower and uses an oven in place of deep-frying. The idea comes from Easy Wins by Anna Jones and has become an absolute favorite.
Cauliflower Soup
This is the simplest of cauliflower soups. And it is so incredibly good. The ingredient list is shorter than short, and if you have a great yellow curry paste on hand (or even just a good one), it is worth making.
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Comments
Make this salad. It will take a lot of time, but is great for a party, as the ingredients keep really well chopped and it can be prepped and sits 1/2 before. I bought the book as a result. Thanks Heidi !
Mmm, this is the second recipe I made from your website (the first was the coconut red lentil soup which was great!) and this recipe is also fantastic. My bf, who is not really a fan of raw vegetables, (he calls it “konijnenvoer” aka rabbit feed in english) went back for seconds! He said the amount of herbs was in perfect balance with the vegetables and the rest of the ingredients.
I have a question about the dressing though. I tasted the dressing before adding the lemon juice and it thought it was already almost perfectly balanced. After I added the lemon juice, the honey and the creamy taste got completely lost and I ended up adding extra honey to balance things out. Is the dressing supposed to be only tangy and creamy or tangy, sweet and creamy? I don’t know what I missed or did wrong.
Hi GW – you can absolutely make it to your liking!
Fascinating. I would not have thought of putting mushrooms or radishes together with cauliflower, nor putting radishes and mushrooms together except in a tossed salad. Will try this.
I made this and I loved it so much. It’s delicious, as others have stated, but also really pretty with pink pieces of radish and all of the herbs dotted throughout the yogurt covered cauliflower. I can imagine using the yogurt dressing for a variety of other salads, or as a dip using less oil to keep the yogurt thick and adding in fresh herbs.
Just made this tonight and it was fantastic. I used olive oil rather than sunflower (since that’s what I had on hand) and it worked. First time I’ve ever posted here Heidi, but several of your recipes (especially the salads) make recurrent appearances at our house.
Hi Heidi!
I soooo hope I can visit San Francisco some day soon!
Just want to second comments for a vegan idea? I have access to soy yoghurt which would be much thinner or a lovely coconut yoghurt (COYO – do look out for it in the UK or Aus) which has the thickness and sourness but a coconut flavour which might not work. Do you think avocado could work?
Thanks!
Hannah
Made this last night– delicious. If I closed my eyes and clicked my heels three times I swear I was at Bar Tartine. Thank you. I just pre-ordered the book !
this looks so delicious! I can not wait to try it!
Made this today for a picnic; I’m glad the recipe makes a lot because it’s scrumptious! Thank you for sharing this with us, Heidi.
Hi Heidi !
Any vegan replacement suggestions besides the obvious (soy yogurt), as I have yet to find any non dairy yogurt without sugar or cane syrup. How about Veganaise ? Would thay be good in this ?
Thanks so Much ; )
This salad looks so delicious Heidi. I have been never been to SF but it’s on our to visit list for sure!
Any suggestions for dairy-free dressing? I am low dairy and am wondering if there are suggestions on substitution for the Greek yogurt?
Thank you! Namaste.
made this and it was a hit. I made a bit extra of the dressing and think it will be awesome with raw veggies and greens.
Simple, clean and delicious, this looks fantastic and I love the photographs as well 😀 Places like that are always great to have nearby ^ ^
Thanks for sharing the recipe! x
Enjoyed this recipe even though I had a couple of substitutions (broccolo romano for the cauliflower and turnip for the radish) and omissions due to not having it in the house. It sat very well for several hours and we shall see tomorrow how it is after a night in the fridge. It was a hit at the table even though my husband was a bit dubious at first.
I can’t wait to buy this book! I love their bread recipes.
This looks gorgeous. (I love that serving bowl, btw!) I’m curious about the raw mushrooms…how did they work out?
Just made this salad for a dinner party tonight, had to taste it of course and it is amazing, I am sure it will only improve over the next couple of hours as the flavors marry. Gave a bit to my hubby to test, he gave it two thumbs up. Can’t wait to see what my guests thinks.
I love how you’ve described this restaurant and its menu, and now it’s on my list to visit too next time I’m in San Francisco. This salad looks nothing less than spectacular.
haven’t made it yet, but your recipe looks and sounds so good that i’ve just pre-ordered the cookbook.
I have all these ingredients on hand–I’m soaking my chickpeas tonight so I can make this manana. Thanks for sharing.
This recipe looks absolutely fantastic, I love cauliflower but find it hard to incorporate into my diet. This salad looks quite hearty so I definitely need to try this out!
How is this after a few hours? I’ve taken several variations of raw cauliflower salads as lunches (and some are great after a few hours in their dressing, others not so much!) Thanks!
Are there many vegetarian recipes in this book, Heidi? It looks beautiful, so I hope there are.
Hi LGB – There is a great amount vegetable focus and inspiration! In many cases, even if a recipe isn’t vegetable-focused, there is often a component, flavor combination, or technique worth exploring or thinking about. Super inspirational book.
This salad looks amazing. I am not a big fan of mushrooms, any suggestions for a substitution?
Hi Michelle – You should try it – it’s adds a wonderful textural component to the salad. That said, if you’re unwaveringly against them, just leave them out – maybe a bit of avocado would be an interesting sub?
Sounds ssoooo good! Can´t wait to make it.
The dressing looks like a great one to use for many different salads. Must check out that book too.
This recipe looks fantastic! We were lucky enough to go there earlier this month for our anniversary. The sprouted lentil croquettes were just phenomenal.
This salad is right up my alley, although I’m not a huge fan of raw cauliflower. Do you think it would be just as good if the cauliflower were roasted? Also, thanks for the sneak peak at the cookbook!
Hi Jill – letting the cauliflower marinate in the dressing takes some of that raw edge off. I’m not sure I’d go roasted (although I’m sure it would be delicious), if you’re really against raw, maybe a quick blanching.
I live in Italy, Tuscany, and I’ve never been to the US. But my first city to visit in a long list would be San Francisco.
I’ve fallen in love with the food scene since I started reading your blog, then I found Tartine cookbook and I started planning my visit focused on many stops there! Now you add yet another reason to visit San Francisco. I hope I’ll get there one day!
Can’t wait to get this book. Love all their goodies.
This looks perfect – I’ve only been to Tartine once, but it left a big impression. Definitely will be trying this soon – thanks for the recipe.
Salads like these are what make me go time and time again to the Tartine. It my go to place when I am in US. This is my lunch tomorrow!
Sounds wonderful & I’m guessing that it would be great if the cauliflower was slightly steamed and used at room temp!
I can definitely see why you keep that menu! It’s so special. This salad sounds great!
hi heidi, it’s been ages since i paid my visit to bar tartine (and tartine bakery, too, for that matter) and i am really, really hoping to make it to SF soonish. until then, i’m sure i will console myself with some of their recipes from the new book, which i can’t wait to take a look. i should also try this salad before the cukes are out of season. thanks for sharing!
Hi Chika – you’ll have to let me know!
Hi Heidi, what a treat to have an advance copy of this book – there are so many lovely books coming out this year and this one is very high on my list, so thank you for the good review! Love the sound of these ingredients together.
Kate! You, I know, will absolutely love it. Hope you’re well. xoxo
Oh I love Bar Tartine! This salad looks wonderfully hearty. Thanks for sharing, Heidi.
For some reason, the internet seems to be exploding with cauliflower salad recipes this week… But I’m not complaining – this strange vegetable soaks up dressing like a sponge, and I find that if it gets to sit and marinade in herbs and citrus juices, it becomes just about the closest thing vegetarians get to ceviche. Thanks for sharing this lovely recipe, and reminding me of my love for cauliflower salads!
This salad sounds fantastic! I normally don’t think to use raw serranos in practically anything, but I’m definitely intrigued to see how they play here, with the cooling yogurt dressing.
This recipe appeals to me so much. Thanks for sharing! I had the pleasure of eating at Bar Tartine once, and hope to make the trek again soon.
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