Vegan Pasta Dishes

A Pasta Dish For Every Night

Pastas are great dishes for vegans. They are easy to make, they use few ingredients that are full of flavor and and the recipes are endless. Pasta recipes can vary so much that you can eat two or three different dinners without getting bored.

Sure, you may miss the cheese oozing out or the meaty flavor of the sauce, but veggies, nuts, seeds, herbs and oils have just as much to give and then some. Parsley, garlic and olive oil are already enough to make a decent pasta dish. All you need to do is add in or subtract any ingredients that work together.

Vegan Topping Alternatives

Vegan parmesan from cashews are a great topping that add that extra crunchy and salty flavor missing from the cheese. If you are missing some flavor and don’t want to add more salt, try throwing a bunch of ruccula on top of your dish with a bit of oil. The flavor of the cashew nut parmesan and the rest of the pasta dish will pop out much more.

Vegan Cashew Parmesan

First, let’s make our cashew nut parmesan. Having this as a topping to your pasta dish is essential! Taken from theMinimalist Baker site, we share with you a solid recipe that never fails. This part is really, really easy and takes only 10 minutes to complete.

Ingredients

3/4 cup raw cashews
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
3/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Instructions

Add all ingredients to a food processor and mix/pulse until a fine meal is achieved. Store in the refrigerator to keep fresh. Lasts for several weeks.

Vegan Pasta Alla Puttanesca

This easy vegan pasta alla puttanesca from Cookie and Kate is perfect for busy weeknight dinners! It’s made with pantry staples but tastes super fresh and delicious. Recipe yields 4 generous servings.

This dish relies on some very briny ingredients for flavor, so if you aren’t a fan of olives and capers, this one is probably not for you. If you would like to go for a gluten-free option, all you need to do is replace the pasta for courgette noodle made with a spiral. If you haven’t tried using a spiral for cutting the courgette, now is the time to give it a shot!

Ingredients

Puttanesca sauce

1 large (28 ounce) can of chunky tomato sauce (I recommend Muir Glen brand) or diced tomatoes
⅓ cup chopped Kalamata olives
⅓ cup capers
1 tablespoon Kalamata olive brine (from your jar of olives)
1 tablespoon caper brine (from your jar of capers)
3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup chopped fresh parsley leaves, divided
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt, if necessary

Everything else

8 ounces whole grain spaghetti, or an equivalent combination of spaghetti and zucchini noodles (I used 6 ounces spaghetti and one 8-ounce zucchini, spiralized)

INSTRUCTIONS

In a medium saucepan, combine the tomato sauce, olives, capers, olive bring, caper brine, garlic and red pepper flakes. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring often, for 20 minutes.
Remove the sauce from heat, and stir in the olive oil and almost all of the chopped parsley, reserving some to sprinkle on the finished bowls. Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper and salt, if necessary (the sauce was already plenty salty for me, so I didn’t add any salt).
While the sauce cooks, bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook your spaghetti according to package directions. Drain and return it to the pot.
If you’re adding zucchini noodles, spiralize the zucchini with a spiralizer (here’s how), or turn the zucchini into noodles with a julienne peeler, or grate the zucchini the long way on a large box grater.
Once all of your components are ready, pour the sauce over the pasta and stir to combine. Stir in the zucchini noodles, if using (if you plan on having leftovers, store extra zucchini noodles separately, as they leech water once they come into contact with salty ingredients). Divide into individual bowls and top each bowl with a light sprinkle of parsley. Serve immediately.