The Restaurant Trick That Makes Roasted Broccoli Taste Amazing

Roasted broccoli. It’s probably not the first dish that pops into your brain when you’re looking for an exciting side to serve alongside a beautiful roast chicken or a plate of grilled shrimp. This recipe, however, will change that. It’s broccoli as you’ve never seen it before, and I can all but guarantee you’re going to love it.

What Makes a Dish Bang Bang?

This broccoli dish borrows the name and flavors from a popular dish found at the Bonefish Grill. Their Bang Bang Shrimp® (that’s right, it’s trademarked) consists of crispy battered and fried shrimp in a lightly spicy, creamy sauce. 

Its extreme popularity has spawned tons of copycat recipes (including our very own taco-fied take) and the balanced sweet and spicy sauce has made the jump from shellfish to lots of other things, from potatoes to cauliflower to chicken nuggets.

In this day and age, if something is fried to a crisp and topped with that special sauce, it can be considered bang bang. That being said, the recipes using this mayo-based sauce have been, but should not be, confused with Sichuan bang bang chicken.

What To Serve With Bang Bang Broccoli

Our broccoli recipe plays with the Bonefish Grill recipe in a different way than most copycat recipes out there. Instead of battering and frying the broccoli, we keep the prep as simple and hands-off as possible by roasting it in the oven, topping it with the namesake sauce, and finishing with a sprinkle of store-bought fried onions to provide the necessary crunch.

As a hearty side, I love to serve this dish with rice—think simply steamed, garlic fried, or even with coconut and lime—and a protein, like roasted or grilled chicken, shrimp, or pork. It’s also really great with a few fried eggs or as a component of a filling salad.

So Many Variations

This recipe has a few different ways you could play with it to make it your own. Some favorites of mine include:

• Use steamed, grilled, or even blanched broccoli spears
• Use just broccoli florets, a mix of broccoli and cauliflower, or broccolini 
• Add chopped cilantro, chives, or scallions
• Top with seasoned crispy panko breadcrumbs instead of onions
  

Preheat the oven to 400ºF.

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven.

Prep the broccoli:

Slice off the very bottom of each broccoli stem and discard. Arrange the stem end facing you on the cutting board and use your knife to carefully slice the stem in half from just under where the florets start all the way through the base of the stem. Use your hands to break the rest of the head in half so that you have two pieces for each head of broccoli.

Set each half cut-side down on the cutting board and use your knife to slice between the florets and down the stem into 4 or 5 even spears.

Roast the broccoli:

Add the broccoli spears to a baking sheet and drizzle with the vegetable oil. Season with salt, pepper, and chili flakes, if using. Toss to ensure each spear is coated, then roast on the upper rack until fork-tender throughout, about 20 minutes, flipping the broccoli halfway through.

If the spears are browning more quickly than you’d like, move them down to the middle of the oven.

Make the sauce:

While the broccoli is roasting, add the mayonnaise, sweet chili sauce, and sriracha to a small bowl and mix to combine. Taste and season with salt as needed.

Transfer the broccoli to a serving plate. Drizzle with the sauce and top with the crispy fried onions before serving.

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