This creamy, dairy free, white bean pasta sauce is a quick and easy high protein dinner that the whole family will love!

White plate with white bean pasta with asparagus and two lemon wedges.

I’ve always had a thing for smooth and creamy pasta sauce. To this day I still put store bought pasta sauces in the blender to make them creamy. Is that weird? Probably, but honestly it makes it SO much better! Anyway, I gave up dairy almost 4 years ago because of my skin, and initially thought creamy pasta sauces were out of the picture. I thought wrong!

Ingredients for the sauce in a food processor.

I’ve experimented with all sorts of ingredients to make sauces creamy but definitely have a few favorites. Dairy free butter always makes things rich and creamy, but I try to avoid processed ingredients in my recipes. Cashews, white beans, and coconut cream are my favorites as of late.

Cooked pasta in a black pot with sauce poured onto the center.

How to make a creamy sauce without dairy

There are several ways to make a creamy vegan pasta sauce. I often use cashews like in my vegan fettucini alfredo sauce but since many people have issues digesting cashews, I wanted a sauce without them! For this recipe, we’ll be using a two key ingredients to yield a very creamy consistency

White beans→ Beans are a great way to make something creamy without adding dairy. Plus, they add a lot of protein, fiber, and other nutrients to the sauce without you even realizing.
Olive oil → A little bit of olive oil makes *most* recipes better. In this white bean pasta, the olive oil helps make the sauce rich and creamy without a touch of dairy. It also adds a great flavor a lots of healthy fats.

Large black pot filled with pasta and white bean sauce with a wooden spoon on the side.

A few notes on this white bean pasta

You can use any white bean in this recipe such as cannellini, small white beans, great northern beans etc. but I would not recommend using chickpeas.
To make this recipe oil free you can sub the olive oil for vegetable broth. However, the sauce won’t be quite as creamy or have the same flavor without the oil.
I used brown rice pasta to keep it gluten free, but any pasta will work.
In place of nutritional yeast, you can use my dairy free parmesan recipe which you can find with my vegan pesto pasta.

Try these other dairy free pasta recipes next!

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