A 5-Ingredient, Salty-Sweet Roast That Will Be On Your Table in 30 Minutes

We partnered with our friends at Natural Delights, purveyors of Medjool dates, for our latest contest—Your Best Recipe with Dates.

Hats off to Jessica! Her recipe for Roasted Cauliflower with Prosciutto and Dates has won our latest contest, Your Best Recipe with Dates.

We love the play of textures and flavors in this recipe: By choosing stars—dates, cauliflower, and prosciutto—that each respond differently to the oven's heat (sweet dates melt and their edges sear; salty prosciutto sizzles and crisps; and cauliflower softens, its ridges char)—Jessica was able to streamline the ingredient list (just 5!) and the method (ready in 30 minutes! Only one bowl and one pan to clean!).

All the ingredients are simply tossed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and roasted. But since cauliflower needs longer to cook, you'll want to stagger the cooking time. Add the florets first; then, when they're starting to soften, stir in the sliced dates and prosciutto and cook for another 15 minutes. Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice or a drizzle of white wine vinegar and shower with any herbs you have lingering in the pantry.

Placing the ingredients to the oven at different times based on how long they cook is the key to one-pan cooking—which streamlines your dinner big time.

Serve it as is, or use it..

• On top of focaccia, flatbread, or cooked pizza dough
• Stirred into a grain or lentil salad with chunks of salty cheese
• Atop a bed of leaves, everything dressed with balsamic vinaigrette
• Piled on ricotta
• On a cheeseboard, with toothpicks for spearing the various players

We can't wait to add Jessica's recipe to our arsenal of smart, speedy, weeknight-ready roasts:

Congratulations to Jessica; to recordsintheden whose Date, Halvah, and Chocolate Chunk Cookies were the runner-up; and to all the brilliant Community Picks.

We'll be announcing a new contest on April 25—and giving you a run-down of all the contest themes to come in the next year, so you can get to tinkering even earlier. We can't wait to see what you come up with.

We partnered with our friends at Natural Delights, purveyors of Medjool dates, for our latest contest—Your Best Recipe with Dates.