Creamy Cauliflower Vegan Alfredo
in Recipes
I hate starting off my recipes with a warning note, but if you’re new to the whole plant-based thing then don’t freak out when you read the recipe section. Spoiler alert: you won’t find any cheese, butter, or heavy cream in this alfredo recipe. Oh no, we’re creating creamy, dreamy decadent pasta from nuts.
Yes, nuts.
Specifically brazil nuts and cashews.
Oh and there’s cauliflower in there too.
Cue the wierded-out-ness. But please, hear me out. Not too long ago, I would have thought this to be one of the strangest combinations in the world and also a very pathetic excuse for an alfredo pasta. You see, I was a cheese girl growing up (and I still am from time to time). My birthday dinner was always some sort of fettuccini alfredo/carbonara situation (with bacon, cheese, butter, cheese, and more cheese). That pasta was the thing of my dreams: creamy, cheesy, and so filling and heavy that I needed to be rolled away from the table.
This is the current pasta of my (kale and farmers market-laden) dreams. You’d never believe it, but soaking nuts and incorporating them with cauliflower, garlic, nutritional yeast, and other goodies transforms your pasta into something otherworldly, creamy, flavorful, tasty, and alfredo-like! Although it is a bit of a stretch to call this a proper alfredo – go with me on this one, and enjoy diving into a creamy bowl of satisfying vegan pasta.
Unlike traditional alfredo sauce, our cauliflower alfredo is plant-powered. The aforementioned nuts do a number to the creamy consistency and provide the perfect nuttiness and flavor to the sauce. Plus, these nuts rack in the health benefits and will leave you feeling full (in a good way) after eating this pasta…instead of needing to be rolled from the table. The hint of brazil nuts provides an almost buttery taste plus is a rich source of selenium – a vital mineral needed to produce an active thyroid hormone. Cashews are rich in magnesium, iron, and zinc and of course protein too. Cauliflower, the hippest veg of 2015, is an anti-inflammatory cruciferous vegetable shown to boost heart health and fight chronic diseases.
All these delicious whole food ingredients get a good whirl in your high-speed blender and then get swirled together with warm pasta. Holy moly vegan alfredo…this stuff is so good.
Creamy Cauliflower Vegan Alfredo
Serves 4-6 (with leftover sauce!)
½ cup raw cashews, soaked at least 1 hour
½ cup brazil nuts, soaked at least 1 hour
A small head of cauliflower, chopped into florets – about 3 cups or so
2 small shallots, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon tahini
½ cup filtered water
¼ cup nutritional yeast
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
A handful of parsley (to garnish)
Cooked pasta (I used elbow noodles!)
Begin by steaming your cauliflower florets for 5-7 minutes, or until fork tender. While cauliflower is steaming, bring a salted pot of water to a boil and cook pasta according to package directions.
As cauliflower is steaming, sauté your garlic and shallots. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium-low heat in a small skillet. Add in garlic and shallots and sauté for 5 or so minutes, until garlic is fragrant and golden.
While garlic/shallots are being sautéed and the cauliflower is steaming, drain and rinse your soaked nuts. Add them to the base of a high speed blender, along with ½ cup filter water and blend on high until nuts are creamy and broken down. Add in steamed cauliflower, garlic/shallots, tahini, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, and salt and pepper. Blend on high speed until alfredo sauce is completely creamy – about a minute or two.
Once pasta is boiled, drain and add back into pot. Pour about a ½ cup or so alfredo sauce over pasta and stir to combine. Add in more Alfredo until you’ve reached the sauciness you’d like! Gently warm noodles in pot if needed.
Divide pasta into bowls and garnish with a bit of black pepper, nutritional yeast, and chopped parsley. I also like to add in steamed broccoli florets or peas to boost the veg content even more. Enjoy warm and devour!
Oooh lala. I love this recipe. Beautiful ingredient choices, all my favourites! I’ll be giving it a try soon! Thank you :)
This creamy cauliflower Alfredo looks DIVINE! I can’t wait to give it a try :)
Can i use only cashews? I don’t like brazilnuts
This looks amazing, and I really want to try it! But can you suggest an alternative to the brazil nuts? As much as I adore them myself, my partner is allergic—just to brazils, not any other nuts. Would it work to use all cashews?
Annette & Janice – yes you can use only cashews! :)
Hmmmm, looks delicious. Will try it soon.
Thank you for this Kate! All the ingredients are fabulous and I’m looking forward to trying this out!
Maybe I missed it, but when do you add the lemon juice?
Barbara, keep you caught a typo! I’ll fix it now. You add in the lemon juice once you add in the cauliflower and the remainder of the ingredients.
just made this and it was pretty good, but i realized there’s no mention of when to add the lemon juice, so i totally forgot to add it. I’m assuming I should have just put it in at the end along with everything else?
woops! the page just refreshed and someone already posted the same thing ;)
Hi Carey – Yes, I completely forgot to add in further on in the recipe. It’s changed now! I’m glad you enjoyed it (even without the lemon!) :)
OMG Kate! This is the BEST Alfredo sauce I have ever tasted! The nutty flavor is perfect, the creamy smooth texture amazing! I could have eaten the entire dish myself!! But I did share with the family, who also liked it!
Judie, YAY I’m so pleased you like it! I often times have wanted to eat the entire dish myself too :)
Thanks so much for this recipe, the sauce was delicious! I thought you might be keen to know I don’t eat pasta so I sautéed some onion, red cabbage and kale and poured the sauce on top of that instead- it turned out so yummy! The red cabbage gave it a bit of freshness but still allowed that comfort-food-esque element to stay in the dish.
I’d say you could easily use this sauce over roasted pumpkin or some sort of antipasto with beans and sundried tomatoes etc.
I know it’s a spin on the dish that removes the whole pasta element (which I can tell you love!) but I just thought I’d share my thoughts :)
Thanks again!
Wow! This is delicious! I’m vegan and allergic to both dairy and gluten, and I’ve never been able to find a good Alfredo recipe before. Thanks so much for sharing this one, Kate. I’m so glad I found it through findingvegan.com. Will be trying many more of your recipes. :) For all the Brazil nut haters out there, I am of the same mind, and I subbed in walnuts bc they seemed the most similar to Brazil nuts to me (without that much bitterness). Worked wonderfully. Enjoy everyone!
How could I alter this recipe?, I am allergic to nuts :(
This recipe is delicious! We served it with orecchiette pasta and added petite green peas. Wonderful!
Hi Christina,
I’ve never tried this recipe without nuts, so I’m not sure how drastically the taste will change. I would take out the amount of nuts, add in an extra cup of cauliflower, and add a bit more tahini, lemon juice, and nutritional yeast. Let me know how it goes!
Hi Kate:) this recipe looks wonderful, thank you so much for sharing it with us. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next!
I’m certainly going to prepare this awesome recipe for some of my vegan friends and family very shortly after we celebrate our wonderful Thanksgiving feast dinner in a few days! Yummy Thanks for the recipe!
This was tasty! I used brewers yeast instead, as I couldn’t find nutritional yeast in my city and added some red pepper flakes to spice it up a bit. Thanks for sharing :)