Veganuary Day 23 - Spinach Pasta Sauce
An easy and quick recipe!
Hi there! Happy Thursday 💚🌿
This week, I intend to get more greens into my family’s diet, and every time I have this urge, this recipe comes to mind. I don’t know about you, but no chance my kids will eat spinach if they see the actual leaf, but this sauce is one of their favorite pasta sauces. It’s very creamy, comes together in 15 minutes, and not many ingredients are needed!
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Ingredients for the Spinach Pasta Sauce
Spinach. For this recipe, we use fresh spinach. You can use regular spinach leaves or baby spinach. If you are using frozen spinach, make sure they are completely thawed before adding them to the blender, and we do recommend cooking them before.
Silken Tofu. We use Organic Silken Tofu. You can use firm or soft silken tofu. If you are using regular tofu, make sure you are using fresh, soft, or medium tofu. If you want to substitute the tofu in this recipe, you can use cashew cream or coconut cream.
Lemon Juice. You will need fresh lemon juice. Optionally, you can add lemon zest before serving or preserved lemons.
Basil. Adding fresh basil leaves adds a delicious touch to the sauce. Our son Luca loves pesto, so we added some basil leaves for him and realized it adds an amazing touch to the sauce itself.
Nutritional Yeast. This ingredient adds a delicate, cheesy flavor and provides vitamin B12. If you need to substitute this ingredient, we have some vegan alternatives for nutritional yeast that can help you.
Pistachios. We love the flavor that pistachios add to the sauce. You can also add some crushed pistachios on top before serving this creamy pasta. Alternatively, you can use pine nuts, walnuts, or Macadamia nuts.
Pasta. You can use any type of pasta you like. We recommend short pasta or tubular pasta, such as penne pasta, as they hold the sauce better.
Cooking Method
Rinse the spinach and basil leaves with fresh water. Add the spinach, silken tofu, lemon juice, basil, yeast flakes, pistachios, and a pinch of salt to a blender jug.
If you prefer to cook the spinach, before adding them to the blender, briefly sautée them with some olive oil and garlic.
Blend until you have a smooth sauce. Don't worry if the sauce is too thick, as we will be adding some pasta water later.
Cook the pasta al dente following the package instructions. Before draining the water, reserve about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the rest of the water and pour the pasta back into the pot or a large skillet.
Add the sauce onto the cooked pasta, and pour some of the pasta water. Mix well and add the rest of the pasta water if needed.
If you mix the pasta with the sauce right after draining the pasta, the dish will be ready to be served as the pasta will slightly warm the sauce.
Otherwise, you can heat the pasta and sauce at medium heat for 2-3 minutes.
Serve this green pasta topped with some crushed pistachios (skip this for kids as they could be a choking hazard), lemon zest, or some additional yeast flakes. You can add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil as well, black pepper, or vegan parmesan cheese.
Variations
Use another type of plant-based cream. To give our spinach pasta recipe a creamy texture, we use silken tofu. You can also use cashew cream as we do for our Broccoli Pasta Sauce. To make cashew cream, we use pre-soaked cashews and water. Simply leave the cashews soaking for at least 20 minutes in warm water. Other plant-based options are coconut milk, soy cream, oat cream, or regular heavy cream if you want to make this recipe vegetarian.
Add veggies. We kept this recipe really simple as this is how our kids love it and how we make it weekly. You can add different ingredients to make this dish more complete or to your taste. Some great options are chopped avocado, cherry tomatoes, steamed broccoli, mushrooms, or green beans.
Make it gluten-free. The creamy spinach sauce is naturally gluten-free, so the only thing you would need to change is the pasta. You can use gluten-free pasta, chickpea pasta, or red lentil pasta, for example.
Use different nuts or nut butter. For this recipe, we add pistachios to the sauce. They add a delicious, nutty flavor. You can add different nuts, such as cashews or walnuts, or simply add some nut butter. You can check our recipes for cashew butter and Brazil nut butter.
Make it spicy. Add some chili powder or red pepper flakes to the blender for a spicy touch. Another option is to add jalapeño peppers on top before serving.
Download the whole recipe for quantities and instructions. Also, you can find more information about this recipe on the blog.
I hope you enjoy this recipe; I’m also making this for dinner tonight!
Love,
Laura.