If you wish to add chicken to the recipe, there is the option of incorporating 600g steamed chicken tenderloins (or use leftover cooked chicken from another meal). You can use whatever chicken you like, but I suggest 600g chicken tenderloins as that weight is readily available already packaged at supermarkets and I want to make this an easy dish. The chicken is steamed immediately after making the white sauce eliminating the need to wash the bowl between processes.

This makes a large dish, big enough for 8 generous serves so is great for dinner with a fresh simple salad, but is also terrific as an alternative to dishes like Cauliflower Cheese when being served with other dishes as part of a main meal for larger gatherings.

With the veggie ingredients don’t be limited by what I suggest … if you have leftover baked veggies and wish to just add the steamed cauliflower to it, then run with that as there are no hard and fast rules here.

I have purposely made the white sauce thin so that when it is added to the veggies it will coat them nicely without being “gluggy”.

Before you start the topping preheat your oven to 200 degrees fan forced (to bake the veggies), and place rack into middle of oven.

This whole dish can be prepared to the stage of the filling going into the baking tray (without the topping so keep that separate), covered and placed in the fridge overnight. Take out an hour before you plan to bake and place topping on before going into the oven. Simple.