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| Vegan Alfredo with veggie sausage, zucchini browned onions and pepper flakes. |
It's one of the most-viewed posts on my blog, and for good reason; tasty, fast and easy, in fact virtually foolproof.
Though I've tweaked it a bit here and there, it has served me well over my years of veganism, and I promise, EVERYONE who tries it loves it, whether they're die-hard butter-and-cream lovers, or life-long twig-and-granola-eating health-food fans.
In the dish pictured, we added browned onions, Field Roast vegan Italian sausage, zucchini and red pepper flakes. Feel free to dress it up however you like!
Vegan Garlic-Alfredo Cashew Cream Sauce
1/2 cup raw cashews (not roasted)
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice (I don't measure, just a good squeeze)
3/4 cup boiling water
1 cup unsweetened plant milk (So Delicious Coconut Milk is the PERFECT texture and taste here)
1 clove garlic (or more to taste)
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tb. nutritional yeast (optional)
salt to taste
Pulverize raw cashews in the food processor until very fine - but do NOT process long enough to turn them into cashew butter.
Add boiling water. (*The BEST way to do this, is to make the sauce while the pasta cooks - scoop out 3/4 cup of your lightly salted, boiling, pasta-cooking water and use it - the starch from the pasta-cooking water thickens the sauce PERFECTLY!)
Add water to cashews and process until fairly smooth.
Add So Delicious Coconut Milk and continue processing until as smooth as possible (I don't have a fancy Vita-Mix type thing, so this takes me a while)
Add nutritional yeast (optional - my kids prefer it without), garlic clove(s), olive oil and squeeze of lemon juice. Process again until smooth, another couple minutes, it'll start to thicken a bit too! Taste and adjust with more salt, lemon or garlic to your preference.
Makes a SUPER easy, decadently creamy sauce. Serve over cooked pasta, potatoes or vegetables
This recipe is posted for the So Delicious Dairy Free recipe contest.
Make sure and go to the Pinterest Official So Delicious Recipe page and "like" this or any of my recipes. Please please.
This looks and sounds delicious! I've pinned it to the recipe contest page, so you are officially entered - I will share it too :)
ReplyDeleteIn a word... Y U M !!! I included both coconut milk and some nutritional yeast. Definitely a do again recipe!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marti! (Any steps closer to doing a cookbook?)
P.S. Sent it to my sister who's watching her cholesterol. Who needs butter, cream and cheese?!
This was a delicious meal! I added a bit more garlic and sautéed mushrooms. So good. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis was excellent, one of the best vegan meals I've ever had. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Marti, headed to the store now to get the cashews and coconut milk! Have you tried freezing this - or better yet - canning it? I like to cook in batches cos most of the time I just want to heat something up.
ReplyDeleteThanks - PS, I'm just down the road in Portland.
Mike
Mike, I have frozen the pasta with sauce mixed in - it seemed just fine (maybe a TINY bit dried out, the sauce seemed to all soak into the pasta, but adding more milk helped when I thawed it. Freezing anything with garlic greatly diminishes the garlic flavor, if you wanted you could crush a fresh clove into it when thawing and re-heating.
ReplyDeleteCanning, I have absolutely NO idea about!
Thanks for this recipe. I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian whose been slowly eating more vegan meals, and this was a winner.
ReplyDeleteI just made this (using almond milk) and I got rave reviews. This is definitely something I'll be making often.
Mucha Gracias Mi Amiga.
Made this today and the sauce was really thin. I had to use some cornstarch to thicken it a bit.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry the sauce seemed thin. Did you use boiling water? That starts to thicken the cashew mixture almost immediately.
ReplyDeleteAlso, were the cashews raw? Roasted cashews will not react the same.
Also, were the cashews blended very smooth? This seems to help make the sauce thicker too. If needed you could use more cashews, as this will thicken the sauce even more.
Thank you for the feedback!
The sauce was really yummy and versatile for a number of dishes (steamed veggies, potatoes and root veggies, chicken, wraps, you name it). It was definitely too thin even though I used raw cashews, boiled pasta water, etc...I even used creamy organic coconut milk from a can which is much thicker than the refrigerated kind. I doubled the cashews (maybe a little more) and the consistency was perfect! I left out the nutritional yeast because I didn't have any on hand. Next time I'm going to add some fresh herbs and see what kind of magic I can make :-)
ReplyDeleteThe sauce was yummy and versatile for a number of dishes (pasta, steamed veggies, chicken, potatoes, wraps, you name it). I used it for a spring pasta dish with sauteed peas, green onion, and asparagus. It was definitely too thin even though I used raw cashews, boiling pasta water, etc...I even used the super creamy organic coconut milk from a can which is much thicker than the refrigerated kind. I doubled the cashews (maybe a little more) and the consistency was perfect! I left out the nutritional yeast because I didn't have any on hand, but that sounds yummy. I'm going to add some fresh herbs next time and see what kind of magical deliciousness I can make :-)
ReplyDeleteJust made this tonight (a little behind the times, I know) and it was delicious! Added extra garlic because I firmly believe there's never enough garlic and we licked our bowls clean. Thank you for sharing this recipe. :)
ReplyDeleteHas anyone figure out if you can, can this recipe?
ReplyDelete