Almost like the original
Vegan Pasta Alfredo: Noodles with a creamy cauliflower sauce
Wonderfully creamy, cheesy and full-bodied – an absolute “comfort food”
© Mehriban Aliyeva / Getty Images
Known for its richness, “Pasta Alfredo” is the epitome of a feel-good dish. The vegan version is not only a lot lighter, it also comes astonishingly close to the original in terms of taste.
There are some dishes that make you feel better immediately. They are just so wonderfully warming, satisfying and beneficial, beguiling our senses and taking us – if only for a short moment – into another world. The typical “Pasta Alfredo” belongs to this type of food: incomparably creamy, cheesy and aromatic. And that’s no coincidence – the original version, which is preferably served in the USA, consists of a white sauce made from melted cheese and cream.
As delicious as it is, it is certainly not vegan. All the better that you can prepare a version without animal products in the blink of an eye – and in terms of taste it can definitely compete with the conventional variant.
Pasta Alfredo – Americanized Italian pasta
The history of “Pasta Alfredo” has its origins in Italy, more precisely in Rome. Here Alfredo di Lelio prepared the dish in his restaurant from the beginning to the middle of the 20th century. According to family history, Alfredo had been working in his mother Angelina’s restaurant in Piazza Rosa since 1892. In 1908 he invented the cheesy delicacy to encourage his weakened wife to eat again after the birth of their son Armando. According to the principle of “mangiare in bianco” (“eat in white”) he prepared – as he thought – a light, light dish made of pasta, butter and plenty of parmesan. At that time it was assumed that everything light was easy to digest. In 1914 he opened his own restaurant on Via della Scrofa in Rome and from then on called the dish “Fettuccine Alfredo”. Hollywood stars like Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks visited the Ristorante Alfredo alla Scrofa during a film shoot and were thrilled with the creation. The dish came to the USA and was henceforth additionally prepared with cream. On one of their later visits to Rome, the Hollywood couple gave the now famous Alfredo a golden spoon and a golden fork with the inscription: “To Alfredo, the King of the Noodles”.
Vegan competition: cauliflower and yeast flakes
But how do you veganize pasta that mainly consists of butter, cheese and cream? With cauliflower. No, this is not a joke, but rather serious. The cabbage vegetables not only visually match the color scheme of the light dish, they also ensure the incomparably creamy consistency of the sauce when mashed. In addition, it is ideal as a base due to its mild aroma. White almond butter makes the dish particularly full-bodied, but the star of the creation is definitely the yeast flakes. Its mild, nutty and above all cheesy taste imitates the original version in an amazing way. In addition, yeast flakes are real nutrient bombs and score points with plenty of vitamins B1, B2, B6 as well as pantothenic and folic acid. They also contain numerous trace elements, minerals and protein in the form of easily usable amino acids. The dish is rounded off with the unique flavor of garlic. Whole cloves of garlic develop a sweet, nutty and surprisingly mild aroma when roasted and complement the other ingredients wonderfully.
Voilà, the vegan “Pasta Alfredo” is ready. Not only is it a lot lighter than the original, it also scores with plenty of vitamins and minerals. A superlative comfort food.
Recipe for a vegan pasta alfredo with cauliflower sauce
ingredients
- 500 grams of cauliflower
- 300 milliliters of vegetable broth
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 onion
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- 200 milliliters of unsweetened soy milk
- 4 tablespoons of yeast flakes
- 1 tablespoon almond butter, white
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
- 1 pinch of nutmeg
- salt
- pepper
- 500 grams of fettuccine
- freshly chopped chives
preparation
- Clean the cauliflower and cut into florets, place in a saucepan and simmer in the vegetable stock for about 15 minutes. Then take it out.
- In the meantime, peel and chop the onion and garlic cloves.
- Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, add both and roast. Add to the cauliflower.
- Add the vegetable milk, yeast flakes, almond butter, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, garlic powder and nutmeg and puree everything with a hand blender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- If the consistency is too firm, add a little vegetable milk.
- Prepare the fettuccine according to the instructions on the packet. Then put aside.
- Put the finished sauce in a large pan. Bring to a boil and cook for about a minute.
- Stir in the fettuccine. Season to taste with salt and pepper as needed.
- Sprinkle with fresh chives, pepper and yeast flakes and serve.