One of my most popular recipes on the website is the Cauliflower No Cheese Sauce and this Cauliflower Pasta Alfredo uses that as an inspiration. Instead of adding nutritional yeast and turmeric to make it an orange cheese color, this recipe uses potato and raw cashews to retain the light color of traditional Alfredo sauce.
However, with this plant-based Alfredo version, you eliminate fattening and unhealthy dairy and cheese, but still retaining a beautiful flavor. In addition, you create creaminess with the addition of raw cashews. You don’t need to soak these, however, as you just toss them with the cauliflower and potatoes to soften before blending. This saves a step. I keep my raw cashews in the freezer to keep the oils from spoiling and toss them right into the broth.
If you’d like to keep the calories lighter, you can add 1/2 cup of non-dairy milk instead of the raw cashew and reduce the broth by 1/2 cup. And, for this version of Cauliflower Alfredo Pasta the sauce is not super thick because otherwise, it will become too sticky. The sauce tends to thicken as it cools a little and will vary depending on the size of your potatoes.
Also, if you’d like, you can add green peas or raw spinach for added veggie goodness.
When adding a sauce to pasta, I’ve found that the sauce needs to have plenty of flavors because the pasta tends to make the sauce taste blander. Alfredo sauce is usually a subtle flavor, but if you want to pump up the flavor a little more, try the addition of 2 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce.
The steps to making this easy recipe are to simmer the cauliflower, potatoes, raw cashews, and garlic in the vegetable broth until tender. Then, when cooled, toss all of the vegetables, including the broth into a blender and blend until smooth. Now add the other spices, mustard powder, lemon juice, and salt and pepper.
I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below for this Vegan Cauliflower Pasta Alfredo! If you have a photo, post it on my Instagram page, tag me using the hashtag #plantbasedcooking in your caption, and I won’t miss it!
| Prep Time | 15 minutes |
| Cook Time | 25 minutes |
Servings | people |
- 1 16-oz box whole wheat fettucini or other pasta shape
- 4 cups cauliflower florets mixed medium and small pieces
- 2 medium potatoes or 1 large peeled and cut into 1” chunks
- 3 1/2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
- ½ cup raw cashews or or ½ cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
- 1 tsp ground mustard
- 2 Tbl Tb lemon juice
- ¼ cup fresh basil chopped
- salt & pepper to taste
- See Optional Additions below in the notes
- 2 teaspoons Vegan Worcestershire sauce (optional)
Ingredients
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- Bring 6 quarts of water to boil in a large pot. Add pasta and return to boil. Lower heat and cook about 10 minutes, stirring frequently to keep from sticking. Drain and keep warm.
- While the pasta is cooking, bring the vegetable broth to a boil in a saucepan and add the cauliflower, potatoes, raw cashews, garlic, and mustard. Lower the heat to simmer, cover and cook until the cauliflower and potatoes are fork tender, about 15-20 minutes. Do not drain.
- Once the cauliflower mixture has cooled slightly, transfer the ingredients to the blender. Add the mustard, lemon juice. Salt and pepper to taste. NOTE: If you're using non-dairy milk instead of cashews, add it into the blender, as well.
- Blend until the sauce becomes very smooth.
- Pour over the noodles in your pan and stir to distribute the Alfredo sauce. If you're addition greens peas or fresh spinach, now is the time to add them and heat through.
- Top each serving with chopped basil
Servings:
This recipe makes about 5 cups and leftovers can be used as a topping for vegetables, baked potatoes, or as a soup.
Optional Additions:
1 1/2 cups green peas tossed into the sauce to warm
1/2 lb raw spinach added into the sauce and allowed to wilt.
I was quite disappointed with this recipe which does not taste anything like Alfredo sauce.
I’m sorry to hear you were disappointed. It may take some time to adjust tastes and enjoy vegan versions if you’re just starting on a plant-based diet. It would have probably helped for me to mention in the post that this won’t taste exactly like traditional Alfredo which is made with dairy, butter, and cheese. We do our best making recipes similar, but I hear you and will keep tweaking to make it better.
Fake cheeses aren’t the answer either because of their high fat content. I hope you won’t give up on trying plant-based recipes because we know how good they are for our health and in most cases very delicious, at least in my book.