Made with simple and wholesome ingredients, this Vegan Roasted Red Pepper Pasta is comforting, delicious, and makes the perfect weeknight dinner. It’s dairy free, vegan and incredibly easy to make!
Pasta, I love you. Pesto pasta, mac and cheese, and this roasted red pepper pasta, you name it, I love it. It’s my go to comfort food and was always my favorite food to bring on long road trips as a kid.
This roasted red pepper pasta is one of my favorite pasta recipes. It’s rich and creamy without a touch of dairy and is perfect for an easy weeknight dinner. Sprinkle on top some cashew parmesan, fresh basil and red pepper flakes for some spice!
It takes around 30 minutes to make and is loved by kids, adults and people in all dietary camps.
The key to a creamy sauce
If you’ve recently cut dairy out of your diet, I understand the struggle of not knowing what to use in cooking to make things creamy. Fortunately, there lots of amazing replacements these days to satisfy your creamy pasta cravings. There are a few key ingredients we will be using that will yield a super creamy red pepper sauce.
Cashews: Raw and soaked cashews are my go to ingredient to make any pasta sauce cream. I do have a slight intolerance to cashews, but I deal with pain after eating this pasta because it’s just so good.
Olive oil: A good quality olive oil is going to give this sauce depth of flavor and will help round out the creamy texture. You can omit this if you are oil-free, but it won’t be quite the same.
Almond milk: You can use any non-dairy milk in place of almond milk if needed. Just make sure it is both unflavored and unsweetened, we don’t want any hits of vanilla in this pasta!
How to make this recipe
First, add the cashews to a bowl of boiling hot water and soak them while you prep everything else. Next, you’ll want to chop the onion, peppers and peel the garlic.
Add them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. While those are roasting, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook pasta according to package instructions. When it’s done, don’t rinse it, but drizzle with a bit if olive oil and toss around.
When the veggies are done, add them to a blender with the drained cashews and all remaining ingredients.
Process until smooth. Combine with the cooked pasta, top with fresh basil and enjoy!
Does it keep?
Yes! Once prepared, this vegan roasted red pepper pasta will store in the fridge for about 3-5 days. To reheat, add the pasta to a pan with a splash of almond milk, oil or water to bring out the creaminess and reheat over low heat until warm.
You can also just pop it into a microwave safe bowl, add a drizzle of oil, then microwave for about 1 minute or until nice and hot.
Tips & tricks
You don’t want to skimp on the onion or the garlic in this recipe. I recommend using 4 large, like really large, cloves of garlic or 6 smaller ones.
To keep this dish gluten free I used brown rice pasta, but any pasta will do! For extra protein you can use chickpea pasta or a legume based pasta.
I have not tried this recipe with something in place of the cashews. You can try using tahini in place of cashews (about ¼ cup tahini), but you will need to decrease the amount of milk to about ½ cup. I have not tried this myself, but I think it would work well! The flavor will be a bit different and more nutty, but still delicious!
Always salt your pasta water! Generously! It will infuse a ton of flavor into the pasta while it cooks AND it even helps the sauce “stick” to the pasta better. Especially important if you’re using gluten free pasta!
You may also like..
- Mushroom Broccoli Rigatoni
- Tomato Basil Cream Sauce
- White Wine Cream Sauce
- Vegan Vodka Sauce with Penne
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Roasted Red Pepper Pasta
Ingredients
- 16 ounces pasta of choice
- 2 large red bell peppers
- 1 large red onion
- 4 large cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- ½ cup raw cashews
- ¾-1 cup plain unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tbsp arrowroot powder (tapioca or cornstarch also work)
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp salt (or to taste)
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- ¼ cup fresh basil
- Black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Add the cashews to a bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside while you prep the remaining ingredients. If you have had trouble with cashew based sauces in the past, you can boil them in a pot for about 20 minutes while you prep all other ingredients which helps to soften them further.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Peel the garlic, and chop the onion and bell peppers into large chunks.
- Place on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and roast for 30 minutes.
- While the veggies are roasting, cook your pasta of choice.
- When the veggies are done, add to a high speed blender with the drained cashews and all remaining ingredients and process until completely smooth. Start with ¾ cup of milk and add more as needed to thin it out.
- Stir the sauce into the cooked pasta, and top with fresh basil if desired!
Rachel
I was really excited about this recipe! The only thing is that if didn’t come out quite as creamy as i was hoping. I’m not quite sure what I did wrong (maybe didn’t blend enough) but I ended up using 1 cup of non dairy milk, but my only other thought was to add more. Regardless, the taste was AMAZING! I’ll definitely try it again!
Claire Cary
oh no sorry to hear that! I would try either boiling the cashews so they’re really soft, and/or blending the sauce for longer! Hopefully that does the trick!
Henna
This was so delicious!! I will definitely be making this over and over again! I will probably bump up the spice level just a bit, but other than that – heaven!
Claire Cary
So glad you liked it! I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to spice LOL so feel free to add more red pepper flakes for a bit of a kick!
M
Hey there I only have unsweetened coconut milk and soya milk here but I’d still like to try, do you feel one would be better than the other?
Claire Cary
Is your coconut milk from a can or a carton? If from a carton, that would be fine, but I think the soy milk would probably be best as long as it’s unsweetened!
Shanna
Can i leave out the cashews all together and just add a bit more arrowroot or something else to thicken?
Claire Cary
Yes you can just leave them out and then add more arrowroot as needed to thicken! It won’t be quite as rich/creamy this way though.
Sarah
This sauce is so creamy and has so much flavor. I love the base alone but I enjoyed playing around with it to make it match my taste. I added a can of tomatoes, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. I added zucchini, squash and artichokes for some texture and it was delicious!
Claire Cary
So glad you were able to make it your own! Sounds delish with those additions