Creamy Roasted Veggie Pasta
Prep. Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
1:25 hour
Servings
3-4 plates
Difficulty
Challenging
Soy-Free, Gluten-Free, dairy-free, egg-free
Sometimes pasta just wants to wear a fancier outfit. This one shows up in roasted veggie velvet, with cashews and coconut cream doing their best “we’re totally dairy” impression. The whole thing feels rich, but it’s built on simple tricks: roast a few vegetables you’ve got, let the oven do the heavy lifting, then blitz it all into a sauce so smooth it could pass for Alfredo’s cool vegan cousin. It’s weeknight cooking that looks dressed up for company, but really it’s just you, your blender, and a pot of noodles.
Ingredients
For the Sauce
1 cauliflower head
1 small basket (about 0.5lb/8oz/240g) of cherry tomatoes
1 onion (white or red), sliced
3 garlic cloves
For the Seasoning
1 tsp dry basil
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp silan
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup tap water
For When the Veggies Are Ready
1/2 can lite coconut milk
3.5oz (100g) tomato paste
3.5oz (100g) raw unsalted cashews + boiling water (for soaking)
Pasta of your choice (for a gluten-free recipe, use GF pasta)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 420F (210C).
Boil water, and place the cashews in a small glass bowl. Pour the boiling water onto the cashews, and let it soak until the vegetables are ready, or for at least 20 minutes.
Boil water and pour onto the cashews. Cover the dish and let it sit for at least 20 minutes, or up to 1 day (refrigerated).
In an oven-safe dish, place cauliflower florets, sliced onion, whole peeled garlic cloves and whole cherry tomatoes.
Combine the seasoning ingredients, and drizzle as evenly as possible over the vegetables.
Cover with aluminum foil and place in the oven. Bake for 45 minutes.
Remove the foil and place the dish back in the oven for 30 more minutes.
Meanwhile, cook pasta of your choice, and set aside a little cooking water (water from after the pasta is ready), to add it to the sauce later (see why in my notes below).
Take the dish out of the oven and let it cool a little.
In a blender with a steel blade, combine the roasted veggies, coconut milk, tomato paste and soaked cashews, and blend until the resulted sauce is smooth and consistent.
Serve this magnificent sauce with your cooked noodles, or refrigerate up to 3 days.
Notes
Those pasta water work like magic! They are highly starchy and it helps emulsify and thicken sauces to cling better to the noodles.
If needed, silan can be replaced with agava syrup or brown sugar.
The Latest Bite
Wonderful Parsley Salad
I usually buy parsley with the idea that I’ll use “just a little” in a recipe, and then I’m left with a big bunch staring at me from the fridge. This salad is my solution. Instead of letting those greens wilt away, I chop the whole thing and make it the main event. It’s fresh, full of flavor, and takes almost no effort.
The best part is how forgiving it is. Walnuts give it crunch, but almonds or pecans work if that’s what’s in the pantry. Cheese adds creaminess and the dressing is quick to whip together with what we usually have on hand, and it makes the parsley feel less like “just herbs” and more like a real salad.
This isn’t a kid-friendly dish in our house (the parsley is just too “green” for them), but it works great for the adults. I’ll make it at home when dinner needs something light on the side, or pack it into a container when we’re traveling in an RV and want an easy salad to balance out heartier meals. Since it’s dairy-free and plant-based, it holds up well for hours on the road without the stress of refrigeration worries you get with mayo-based dressings.
It’s fast, flexible, and keeps parsley from going to waste—a little grown-up salad that travels well.