Creamy Fettuccine Alfredo with baked cauliflower
Alfredo is traditionally made with lots of butter and parmesan cheese, here we make a healthier creamy vegan version based on cashew nuts and serve it with baked cauliflower and crispy thyme croutons – its a beautiful dish with lots of texture and is super tasty! Enjoy
Takes 25 minutes
Serves 2
Ingredients
- Ingredients;
- 300 g Linguine/ fettuccine pasta – or ribbon pasta of choice or whole wheat noodles if you want to use healthier pasta
- 100 g Cashews
- 300 ml non dairy milk of choice
- 1 tbsp Nutritional yeast
- Juice of half a lemon
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 head of cauliflower
- 4 slices of bread
- 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
Instructions
- Method;
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees c fan assisted.
- Fill and boil the kettle.
- Roughly chop the cauliflower discarding any thick outer leaves and ensuring to keep some of the more delicate inner leaves.
- Add the cashew nuts to a bowl and cover with just boiled water and leave to sit for 10 mins until nice and soft, drain and rinse well.
- Fill a large pot of boiling water and add a tbsp of salt, add the pasta and then the chopped cauliflower to the pot. Cook the pasta according to the pack instructions. When cooked, remove the cauliflower using a slotted spoon onto a baking tray and drain the pasta to a colander as carefully as you can and drain the pasta, ensuring to reserve some of the pasta water. Rinse the pasta in cold water to stop it from sticking together.
- Add 1 tbsp of oil to the cauliflower on the baking tray along with a generous pinch of salt and mix well and put in the preheated oven to bake for 10-15 mins until golden.
- In a mug add 2 tbsp of oil, 1 tsp of garlic powder, some of the fresh thyme removed from the stalk and a pinch of salt and mix well. Use a spoon or pastry brush and brush both sides of each slice of bread with the oil mixture. Slice the bread into 3cm squares and place on a baking tray and bake for 4 mins and turn the bread and bake for a further 2 mins. Remove and allow to cool.
- Blend the cashews, lemon juice, 1 tsp garlic powder, nutritional yeast, 1 tsp of salt and ½ tsp of ground black pepper in a high speed blender until very smooth.
- Add the cashew alfredo sauce to a large wide non-stick pan over a low to medium heat and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring so the sauce doesn’t stick. Add the pasta and toss gently until fully coated in the sauce. If the sauce is a little thick simply add some of the pasta water or if it is too thin simmer a little longer to thicken it.
- Remove the baked cauliflower from the oven and add ½ to the pasta sauce.
- Serve in pasta bowls with the remaining baked cauliflower on top including the leaves and serve with some croutons on the side
- enjoy!
