Creamy Cauliflower Cheese Bake Topped With Filo Pastry
‘I was lucky to have this made for me by Julia herself. Lovely as always and great that I can use the cheese sauce for other dishes such as lasagne.’
Kerry B, Cumbria; Black Labrador Member
Table of Contents
- ✨ Before We Begin…
- The Cook’s Mind
- A Note on Origin
- Ingredient Focus: Filo
- My Favourite Way To Eat
- Multi-Purpose Recipe
- Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- What Will You Learn Whilst Making This Recipe?
- Handpicked to Go With This One
- Waste Less: How To Use Up Your Ingredient Stash!
- Creamy Vegan Cauliflower Cheese Bake Topped With Filo Pastry Recipe
✨ Before We Begin…
Think cauliflower cheese, but lighter on its feet and crisped up with golden layers of filo. This bake is velvety and warm, but with a bit of drama from the pastry on top – crackling, flaking, and catching the light just so. It’s simple enough for a midweek supper, but striking enough to serve when you want a dish to feel special. The flavours are classic, the texture contrast is everything, and the mood is very much: home-cooked, but elevated.
‘Must be best food offer, of any genre, in Kendal. Hugely accomplished cooking and very much recommended.’
Tony P, Kendal; Food Customer
The Cook’s Mind
You’ll master this dish to understand how to balance the common ‘cheese’ flavours to perfect a vegan cheese sauce. This cauliflower cheese could be used for many dishes. For example, you can use it in vegan lasagne or vegan cheesy pasta bake.
Make-Ahead
You can prep the cauliflower and sauce in advance, then assemble and bake just before serving. Filo is best baked fresh – avoid refrigerating assembled filo as it can go soggy.
Freezer-Friendly
- Freeze the filling (cauliflower and sauce) separately.
- Having filo in the freezer ready is a good idea!
- Freezing the finished dish won’t work.
Key Substitution Ideas
- No filo? Use puff pastry or even breadcrumbs for a different kind of crunch.
- Add sautéed leeks for extra savoury depth.
A Note on Origin
Cauliflower cheese is one of those quietly beloved dishes that feels stitched into British life – hearty, humble, and full of nursery warmth. Emerging in the Victorian era as an affordable luxury, it’s a simple idea: tender cauliflower cloaked in a creamy, savoury sauce, often baked until bubbling and golden. Over time, it’s come to symbolise home-cooked comfort – a dish that asks little but gives everything.
Ingredient Focus: Filo
Filo pastry – paper-thin layers of dough, brushed with oil or butter and stacked into shimmering sheets – brings a delicate, crackling beauty to savoury and sweet dishes alike. Originally from the kitchens of the Ottoman Empire, filo invites texture without weight: it’s crisp, fragile, and wonderfully dramatic with very little effort. In plant-based cooking, filo becomes a secret weapon – adding lightness, crunch, and a whisper of decadence without needing heavy fats or complicated techniques.
✨ A brittle, golden sigh of lightness.
My Favourite Way To Eat
This is a meal I’d make as a special meal. I’d serve this on a quiet evening. Clock ticking. A crisp green side dish wouldn’t go amiss either – maybe lightly dressed rocket or steamed greens with lemon. This is one I make when I want the meal to feel a little special, even if it’s just me at the table.
Multi-Purpose Recipe
This recipe has more than one life… A side, a main, a bring-to-the-table beauty. Serve with salad, roasted roots, or tucked into a crusty bap for a comforting sandwich. Any leftovers can be turned into soup, stuffed in a wrap, or baked into next-day fritters.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- It’s comfort food, reimagined – creamy, familiar, and somehow still light.
- The cheese sauce is plant-based but deeply savoury – no compromises here.
- The filo topping adds golden crunch without heaviness – and it looks beautiful too.
- It’s freezer-friendly and dinner-party ready – clever and flexible.
- It’s nostalgic and modern all at once – the kind of dish that knows exactly what it’s doing.
What Will You Learn Whilst Making This Recipe?
- How to make a silky, plant-based cheese sauce using everyday ingredients
- How to roast cauliflower until it’s soft but still structured
- How to layer and crinkle filo for maximum crispness
- How to season boldly so the dish feels complete without dairy
- How to balance richness and texture in a baked dish
Handpicked to Go With This One
A few recipes that play well together — flavour friends, not just neighbours.
Waste Less: How To Use Up Your Ingredient Stash!
Got something spare – a handful, a spoonful, or the end of a packet? These tags help you find other ways to use it. It’s a small step toward cooking intuitively and wasting less❣️
brown onion, butter, cashew nuts, cauliflower, dijon mustard, english mustard, filo pastry, firm tofu, fresh dill, fresh flat leaf parsley, fresh garlic, fresh herbs, lemon juice, nutritious yeast, soft light brown sugar, soya milk, stock cube, white miso paste
Creamy Vegan Cauliflower Cheese Bake Topped With Filo Pastry Recipe
Creamy Cauliflower Cheese Bake Topped With Filo Pastry
A classic cauliflower cheese, reimagined with a golden, crackling filo pastry top. The cheese sauce is smooth and savoury, holding the cauliflower in a warm, creamy embrace. Finished with layers of crisp filo, this bake is simple to assemble, comforting to eat, and just a little bit special.
Photographed truthfully. If you cook it, yours will look like mine.
Ingredients
- 200 g brown onions
- 15 g garlic
- 200 g firm tofu
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 500 g cauliflower | cut into florets, half for steaming for the sauce, half to add as an ingredient in the sauce
- 500 ml soya milk | unsweetened
- 60 ml lemon juice | ideally fresh, from 3 lemons
- 50 g cashew nuts
- 250 ml boiling water | to soak the cashews
- 10 g stock cube | use gluten-free stock cube if required
- 200 ml boiling water
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 pinches salt | good proper pinches
- ½ tsp soft light brown sugar
- 1 tsp white miso paste
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard | or 'french' mustard
- 1 tsp English mustard | the stronger more yellow mustard
- 2 tbsp nutritious yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp ground black pepper
- ½ tbsp cornflour | + 2/3 tbsp of water
- 1 tbsp fresh dill | chopped
- 1 tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley | chopped
- 7 sheets filo pastry
- 1 tsp salt | have a bowl to hand to season the filo
- 1 tsp ground black pepper | have a bowl to hand to season the filo
- 50 g butter | unsalted; melted; I melt in a Pryex dish in the oven as it heats up
Instructions
- Go through all the ingredients in the list: get them out, weigh, peel, chop, put into bowls and then put everything you're not using away.
- Peel and chop the onions into slender petals (10mm at the widest point). Peel the garlic.200 g brown onions, 15 g garlic
- Prepare the tofu: cut into little finger-sized pieces and toss in a little oil in a pan. You don't need to add salt. Just get it cooked and then put to one side to add later.200 g firm tofu, 1 tsp olive oil
- Prepare the 'sauce cauliflower': cut half of cauliflower into small florets (250g) and steam until the florets are really soft. Prod with a sharp knife. The knife should glide in like a hot knife through butter. Yes, that soft! Put the super soft florets into a bowl and to one side for later.500 g cauliflower
- Prepare the 'pie cauliflower': Once the super soft florets are done, steam the ones that will be used in the pie until al dente. 3-4 minutes. You want to keep a chunky, firm texture. Vegan/plant-based food must have texture; something to chew on is good! Put the al dente cauliflower to one side for later.
- Prepare the milk: squeeze fresh lemon juice in a lemon squeezer and add it to the soya milk. Stir it around. The soya milk will, correctly, curdle.60 ml lemon juice, 500 ml soya milk
- Prepare the cashews: measure the cashew pieces into a jug and pour over the boiling water. The cashews need to soak for 15 minutes max. After that, drain into a sieve.50 g cashew nuts, 250 ml boiling water
- Prepare the stock: break the stock cube into a jug and weigh in 200ml of boiling water; it's fine to weigh water in as grammes; ml = g where water is concerned; stir the stock around.10 g stock cube, 200 ml boiling water
- Don't forget to keep things tidy. I have a dishwasher loading session at this point, and a wipe down. So it's all neat and tidy again before carrying on.
- Heat the oil in the pan on low, as low a heat as possible (smallest ring/lowest setting). Whilst the oil is heating, Tip the pan to cover the base of the pan with oil, then add the onion petals and stir into the oil, along with the salt. Proceed to cook the onions very slowly until they are soft and translucent and slightly caramelised.3 tbsp olive oil, 2 pinches salt
- Grate the garlic cloves into the cooking onions. The little pieces that end up on the grater can just get put into the pan no worries. Cook the onion and garlic together. Towards the end of cooking, add the sugar and stir until it's melted and caramelised. Turn the heat off.½ tsp soft light brown sugar
- Put the drained cashews into the food processor with the steamed cauliflower, and add a very small amount of the lemon/soya milk mix. Enough to loosen and help the blending process. Blend the cashews and cauliflower together until completely smooth (5-8 mins). Keep scraping the sides and the lid of the processor to get the larger pieces back down! You want this completely saucy smooth. Let the blender do the work. During this process, add the miso, Dijon mustard, English Mustard and Nutritious Yeast1 tsp white miso paste, 2 tsp Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp nutritious yeast, 1 tsp English mustard
- Preheat your oven to 190℃ fan and put a low heat under the onion/garlic pan. Prepare the cornflour: mix the cornflour with 2 or 3 tbsp until smooth.½ tbsp cornflour
- Tip the contents of the food processor into the pan along with rest of the soya/lemon milk mix. Add the salt and pepper. Stir thoroughly. Make the cornflour into a slurry with the smallest amount of water you can manage and stir into the sauce. Stir around and whilst you prepare the herbs, let it simmer. to cook the cornflour. The sauce thickens.1 tsp salt, ½ tsp ground black pepper
- Chop the fresh herbs and stir into the sauce and then add the tofu and mix, then the cauliflower and mix.1 tbsp fresh dill, 1 tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley
- Melt the butter (20 seconds in a microwave, or in the 'heating up oven') and unroll out the filo pastry. Have a clean cold plate nearby. Brush the top sheet of filo with melted butter, add a tiny pinch of salt and a tiny pinch of pepper, scrunch up loosely to get some height into it, and place on the plate. Repeat with another 6 sheets. I use my fingers for this! It's easier and quicker for me. The brushes are too small for my patience levels!7 sheets filo pastry, 1 tsp salt, 50 g butter, 1 tsp ground black pepper
- Ensure the oven is at the correct temperature and when it is, proceed to the next step.
- Add the scrunched filo to the top of the pan, covering the top of the pan with a little bit of the sauce edge showing.
- Place into the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes or until the filo is nicely browned. Remember to open the oven slowly to keep the heat constant. If you know your oven has hot spots, you might need to turn the dish a couple of times. during cooking to ensure even browning of the top.
- Serve with broccoli, green beans, spinach… You could add sourdough on the side to mop up the sauce
Nutrition
Calories: 367kcalCarbohydrates: 29gProtein: 13gFat: 23gSaturated Fat: 4gPolyunsaturated Fat: 6gMonounsaturated Fat: 12gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 0.1mgSodium: 1283mgPotassium: 575mgFiber: 4gSugar: 7gVitamin A: 331IUVitamin C: 53mgCalcium: 200mgIron: 3mg
Nutritional values are estimates only and will vary depending on specific ingredients used. Nutrition is per serving. Information is for the main recipe, not optional accompaniments.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
COPYRIGHT
© The Golden Polar Bear, 2025. Recipes and photography by Julia Savory. If you share this, please pass it along with kindness and if possible share a link back to this site. #ForTheAnimals
Photographed truthfully. If you cook it, yours will look like mine.
Next Steps?
You’ve got the full recipe — now take it further. Inside Black Labrador, you’ll find structured video courses and an ever-growing cookbook designed to help you cook with understanding, not guesswork. Learn, revisit, and deepen your skills at your own pace.
‘Totally recommend the cookery course. The meals are really tasty and full of flavour (not like most of the vegan mush I make for myself).’
Kerry B, Cumbria
