Roasted Red Pepper Pasta
Made with simple and wholesome ingredients, this Roasted Red Pepper Pasta is comforting, delicious, and makes the perfect weeknight dinner. It’s dairy free, vegan friendly, and gluten free!
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 there’s so many fun and delicious sauces to pair with it.
This roasted red pepper pasta is one of my favorite pasta recipes. It’s rich and creamy and is perfect for an easy weeknight dinner. You can sprinkle on top some cashew parmesan, fresh basil and red pepper flakes for some spice!
I love to serve it with some grilled chicken (or my lemon pepper chicken), but for a vegan version you can try my lemon pepper tofu!
It takes around 30 minutes to make and is loved by kids, adults and people in all dietary camps. If you love this recipe try my roasted carrot pasta or white bean pasta next!
Why you’ll love this recipe
- Easy to make
- Vegan friendly
- Packed with flavor
- Kid approved
- Healthy
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 roasted red pepper pasta
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.
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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! Serve with my air fryer chicken cutlets for protein!
My favorite gluten free pasta
The sauce is naturally gluten free and no adjustments need to be made here! 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.
How to store
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 and heat until warm and creamy.
Can I make it nut free?
I have not tried this recipe with something in place of the cashews. You can try using tahini in place of cashews (about 1/4 cup tahini), but you will need to decrease the amount of milk to about 1/2 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! You can also try my tahini pasta instead!
You may also like..
- Mushroom Broccoli Rigatoni
- Tomato Basil Cream Sauce
- White Wine Cream Sauce
- Vegan Vodka Sauce
- Spaghetti Pomodoro Sauce
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Roasted Red Pepper Pasta
by: claire cary
Ingredients
- 16 ounces pasta of choice
- 2 large red bell peppers
- 1 large red onion
- 4 large cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ cup raw cashews
- 3/4-1 cup plain unsweetened almond milk or other milk
- 1 tablespoon tapioca starch
- ¼ cup parmesan or nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ¼ cup fresh basil
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
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. Drizzle with the oil.
- 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 3/4 cup of milk and add more as needed to thin it out.
- Stir the sauce into the cooked pasta, and top with extra fresh basil if desired!
Notes
Comments
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I used unsweetened oat milk instead of almond milk and it turned out very tasty. The family loved it so this recipe will be added to my roster of pasta sauces. It is easy to make so perfect for a weeknight meal.
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Perfect, so glad your family enjoyed it!
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So so so good, I did a little dance after first bite! My favorite sauce with chickpea pasta. Thank you 🙂
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Love that, thank you!
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I wonder what went wrong, because my dish tasted really bland. I didn’t have nutritional yeast, so I googled for substitudes and used dried porcini mushrooms. I wonder if I should have used soy sauce instead.
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Hmm, I’ve never heard of using porcini mushrooms in place of nutritional yeast. I’d definitely give it a try with the nutritional yeast next time, it’s key for that bit of cheesy flavor! You can always add more salt, pepper or red pepper flakes as well.
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Should the peppers, onion and garlic be tossed in the oil and salt prior to roasting? It doesn’t really say in the recipe directions…
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You can, but there’s not really a need. The oil, salt, pepper get added later.
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Is this sauce freezer friendly?
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I haven’t tried it, but it should be fine in freezer for up to 2 months.
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This is A. MAZING. Tastes cheesy, creamy, and rich–with just the right tang from crushed red pepper and the veggies. Filling, too. Home run!
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Thank you, Jamie!
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I’m new to vegan recipes. I don’t know if I could go completely vegan, because it’s so time consuming. However, this recipe is so easy and literally gourmet. I doubled the recipe and bought fresh basil and had it for 7 nights in a row! It is delish! I love spice so I added (with the double recipe) 1 t of red pepper. And each night I had it, I added about 1 C of almond milk to thin it out. This is by far my fav recipe. I’m planning to make it tomorrow for my mom who is a “Minnesota” meat lover, but I know she will love it. Thanks so much for posting. This will be my staple recipe forever!!
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Amazing, hope your mom loves it!
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It was really good! I made mine without the cashews (because I have a tree nut allergy) and used extra creamy oatmilk instead of almond milk and it still had great flavor! Plus, when you make it the way I did, it’s VERY low in points for WW!
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This pasta was SO GOOD! I made it for my family and everyone loved it. I doubled it so there was extra and they’re already looking forward to having it for lunch tomorrow! Will definitely be making again, thanks for the recipe 🙂
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I didn’t have almond milk so can I used water or coconut milk
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Yes I would just use water!
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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?
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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!
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Can i leave out the cashews all together and just add a bit more arrowroot or something else to thicken?
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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.
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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!
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So glad you were able to make it your own! Sounds delish with those additions
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