Fettucini Alfredo was one of my favorite foods before I went vegan, so I’m suprised it took me a year to get around to veganizing this dish. This recipe isnt exactly like regular alfredo sauce, but it’s close enough to satisfy my cravings! I like to use cashews for cheesy italian things (ricotta, alfredo, etc) because I think it works better, taste wise, than soymilk or tofu. So when I found a simple recipe for cashew alfredo on vegweb, it got my gears turning. I tried a few other recipes online before this one, and the cashew recipe was closer to authentic than the others. I’d imagine if you can get your hands on some mimic cream, you could probably subsitute that in for the cashews & hot water.

Vegan Alfredo Sauce
makes about 1 1/2 cups of sauce- enough for two people

• 1 cup cashews (I used raw)
• 1-1 1/2 cups hot water (you can even take it straight from the pasta water)
• 1 tsp garlic powder (or 1-2 cloves of fresh)
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• juice from 1/4 a lemon (about 1 1/2 tsp)
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance margarine (optional)
• parsley flakes (optional)

I started out by placing my cashews and 1 cup of hot water in my food processor, and pulsed until it was smooth looking. In retrospect, the sauce was kind of grainy from bits of cashews (as seen below), so next time i’ll use a clean coffee grinder on the cashews first, or just a blender instead of a food processor.

once the cashew cream is smooth, add the remaining ingredients (minus the parsley), and blend. If your sauce is too thick, add more hot water. I added the earth balance straight onto the pasta to melt, but if you want to blend it up in the sauce, you can melt it or soften it first. You can also add other ingredients to change the sauce to your taste: a pinch of nutmeg, some vegan parmesan cheese, your favorite spice!

pour the sauce over cooked pasta of your choice (fettucini is good, but i only had spaghetti), stir, sprinkle with parsley, and serve immediately! For me, non-vegan alfredo leftovers were never really as good, so I’d imagine this variation doesn’t reheat well, either.