Almost like the original
Vegan Pasta Alfredo: Pasta with 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 comfort food. The vegan version is not only a lot lighter, it also tastes surprisingly close to the original.
There are some dishes that immediately make you feel better. They are just so wonderfully warming, satisfying and soothing, they captivate our senses and take us – if only for a brief moment – into another world. The typical “Pasta Alfredo” is one of this type of dishes: incomparably creamy, cheesy and aromatic. And that’s no coincidence – the original version, which you like in the Served in the USA, it 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 no time at all – and it can definitely compete with the traditional version in terms of taste.
Pasta Alfredo – Italian pasta Americanized
The history of “Pasta Alfredo” has its origins in Italy, more precisely in Rome. Alfredo di Lelio prepared the dish in his restaurant here in the early to mid-20th century. According to family history, Alfredo worked 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. Back then, it was assumed that anything 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 such as Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks visited Ristorante Alfredo alla Scrofa during a film shoot and were thrilled by the creation. The dish came to the USA and from then on was also prepared with cream. During 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 nutritional yeast
But how do you veganize a pasta that consists mainly of butter, cheese and cream? With cauliflower. No, this is not a joke, but completely serious. The cabbage vegetables not only visually fit into the color scheme of the light dish, when pureed they also ensure the incomparably creamy consistency of the sauce. It is also 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 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. When roasted, whole garlic cloves develop a sweet, nutty and surprisingly mild aroma 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 comfort food of superlatives.
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 olive oil
- 200 milliliters of unsweetened soy milk
- 4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon almond butter, white
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 pinch of nutmeg
- Salt
- pepper
- 500 grams of fettuccine
- freshly chopped chives
preparation
- Clean the cauliflower and divide it into florets, put it in a pot and cook in the vegetable broth for about 15 minutes until soft. 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 fry. Add to the cauliflower.
- Add the plant milk, yeast flakes, almond butter, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, garlic powder and nutmeg and puree everything with a hand blender. Season with salt and pepper.
- If the consistency is too thick, add a little more plant milk.
- Prepare the fettuccine according to the package instructions. Then set aside.
- Pour the finished sauce into a large pan. Bring to a boil and cook for about a minute.
- Stir in the fettuccine. Season again with salt and pepper if necessary.
- Sprinkle with fresh chives, pepper and nutritional yeast and serve.