A traditional Alfredo uses butter, cheese and a load of cream for the sauce. For those who avoid dairy, for whatever reason, those are all red flags. We can, however, create a creamy sauce without dairy, and cashew nuts are the star of the show.
For this recipe, made for two, we use cashews for their creaminess, and nutritional yeast for its cheesiness. To make it completely vegan, just make sure that there are no eggs in the pasta! If you don’t like cashews, you could consider silken tofu as the cream and make it similar to my Creamy vegan carbonara.
Ingredients:
60g raw cashew nuts
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
Dash of lemon juice or cider vinegar
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
Soak the cashews overnight. You can also soak them in boiling water for about 30 minutes. Either way, rinse them well after the soaking.
Usual pasta instructions - bring a pot with plenty of water and some salt to the boil and add your pasta. When the pasta is almost done, add all of the other ingredients, along with about 120ml of the pasta water, into a blender and process until smooth. If it seems too thick, add a little more pasta water.
Drain the pasta then add it back to the same warm pot and stir in the sauce. Taste for seasoning. If you like it, you could stir in some freshly chopped parsley.
Serve in warmed bowls with some freshly cracked black pepper. A sprig of basil will top it off nicely.