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“I Can’t Believe its Vegan” Roasted Garlic Alfredo

Vegan Comfort Cooking by Melanie MacDonald avirtualvegan.com

When they transition to plant-based eating, lots of people fret that they won’t ever find good recipes for those creamy dishes everyone loves (but their hearts don’t, so much). Like creamy soups, cheese sauces, and… Alfredo sauce. This is where our blogger friend Melanie McDonald of avirtualvegan.com comes in. Her Vegan Comfort Cooking cookbook is packed with all the yummy foods including an amazing Vegan Alfredo Sauce!

Vegan Comfort Cooking

When we were asked to give this cookbook a try we were really excited. Melanie has LOTS of creative, delicious recipes on her website so we just knew this was going to be wonderful. The cookbook arrived and we definitely weren’t disappointed. It has a ton of great recipes. Stuff like: Zucchini Fritters, Cinnamon Donuts, Peanut Butter Nutter Chocolate Cake, Heavenly Veggie Hot Pot – you get the idea! 🙂 The hardest part was deciding which one to try!

Making The Decision

Standing in our kitchen, flipping through the cookbook, it really was hard to decide. Of course, we wanted to try something immediately because, well, comfort food. Since we had a major craving for garlic, and had all the ingredients already, we went for the “I Can’t Believe Its Vegan” Roasted Garlic Alfredo sauce. We’ll tell you right now it was AMAZING! Like 5 stars, home run, nothing but net, 100% WIN. 

Let’s Make Vegan Roasted Garlic Alfredo Sauce

This recipe for vegan roasted garlic Alfredo sauce comes together very easily. It does require a little bit of advance time because the garlic needs to roast. However, if you balance all the steps, it really doesn’t take very long. Plus, like most of the recipes in Vegan Comfort Cooking, the ingredients list was very pantry-ready. You won’t find recipes in Melanie’s cookbook that require a search for exotic, unusual items (which can certainly be a fun adventure), so “comfort” won’t mean “frustration”. It got going in a jiffy and the only tweak we made was to add spinach and broccoli ’cause we love greens in our pasta sauce.

The Bottom Line

Honestly, this roasted garlic Alfredo sauce is simply incredible. So creamy, bursting with yum, and SO wonderfully garlic-y. It is so good we almost ate the entire pound of pasta that we cooked. Seriously! There was barely even a decent serving left over after Greg just couldn’t eat any more. The next day we even fought over who would get the leftovers (Georgia won) LOL! We are confident you could fool any dairy lover with this vegan version of a creamy classic.

Our version of this CRAZY good Roasted Garlic Alfredo 🙂

You Will Love This Cookbook

After having Vegan Comfort Cooking now for a few weeks we whole-heartedly recommend it for your cookbook collection. Melanie has done a tremendous job bringing together a wonderful collection of tasty treats and satisfying dishes. We bet you’ll come back to it over and over and you’ll find several favorites that you will love. Many thanks to Melanie for sharing a copy of the cookbook with us and for giving us permission to reprint her recipe for this delicious dish so we could share it with you! Pop over to Amazon using the link above or this one and please give Melanie a visit at her delightful blog A Virtual Vegan

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Vegan Comfort Cooking by Melanie MacDonald avirtualvegan.com

“I Can’t Believe its Vegan” Roasted Garlic Alfredo

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  • Author: Melanie MacDonald @ avirtualvegan.com
  • Yield: 5 1x

Description

Where are my garlic lovers? Gather round and get ready for this indulgent tangle of creamy, garlicky, restaurant-level fettuccine that you can make from scratch really easily. If you have never roasted garlic in its skin, quite frankly, you don’t know what you are missing. It is absolutely deliciously mild and sweet, which is why we can get away with using two full heads in this recipe. If you aren’t a garlic fan or don’t have time to roast the garlic, there is no need to miss out on this slurpy, delicious pasta because it’s still super delicious if you make it without!


Ingredients

Scale

1 tsp olive oil

2 large whole heads garlic

½ cup (70 g) raw cashews (soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes if you don’t have a high-powered blender, then drained)

½ packed cup (50 g) ground almonds or almond meal

½ cup (56 g) nutritional yeast (see note on page 49)

2 cups (480 ml) unsweetened nondairy milk (I like to use soy milk for this recipe)

2 tbsp (30 ml) fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp (15 ml) white wine vinegar

¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 tsp (10 g) salt, divided, plus more to taste

1 lb (454 g) dried fettuccine or other pasta of choice


Instructions

Preheat the oven to 425°F (218°C) and brush a roughly 10-inch (25.5-cm) square piece of aluminum foil with the olive oil.

Cut the top quarter off each garlic head with a sharp knife so the cloves inside are exposed. Then place the largest parts, cut side down, in the middle of the foil. Draw the foil up around them, wrap and squeeze it tightly shut. Separately wrap the little pieces you cut off the top, too, and store in the fridge for another recipe.

Place the foil-wrapped garlic heads in the oven, directly on the oven shelf, and roast for about 40 minutes. Check whether they feel a little squishy through the foil. Return them to the oven for a few more minutes if not. If they are done, remove and set aside until cool enough to handle. The garlic can be roasted in this way up to 4 to 5 days before you make the alfredo and then stored in the fridge. I like to do it when I have the oven on to cook something else.

Make the sauce by opening the foil wrapping and squeezing the garlic cloves out of their silvery, papery skins from the root end, straight into your blender. They will pop out really easily. Add the cashews, almonds, nutritional yeast, nondairy milk, lemon juice, vinegar, pepper and 1 teaspoon of the salt; then blend until completely smooth. Taste to check the seasoning and add more salt, if necessary

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Season with the remaining teaspoon of salt, add the fettuccine and cook for the time directed on the package. It usually takes around 8 minutes. When it’s done, scoop out about 1/2 cup (120 ml) of the boiling water and set aside before draining the fettuccine. Return the fettuccine to the pot and immediately add the sauce. Return the pot to the stove and allow it to warm through over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes. It will thicken up a little as it warms up and you can loosen it to your liking with the starchy pasta water that you set aside. You won’t need all of it; just add it a little at a time, if necessary. Serve as soon as the sauce has heated through.

Leftover sauce can be reheated. It will thicken up when refrigerated, but just loosen it up with a little nondairy milk, warm through and it will be good as new!


Notes

tips: I like to top my Roasted Garlic Alfredo with some of my Cheesy Brazil Nut “Parm” (page 191) or some store-bought vegan cheese and red pepper flakes.

I like to roast lots of garlic heads at once, squeeze out the soft garlic cloves and freeze them in ice cube trays so I always have roasted garlic on hand. It’s great in recipes like this, spread on toast with some sea salt for a snack, spread in sandwiches or added to creamy sauces, mashed potato and hummus.

Husband and wife, father and mother, working adults – Greg and Georgia formed Full of Beans to share encouragement, inspiration, and tips to get you started on, and maintain, a plant-based vegan diet (even if you think you don't have the time/money/skills/energy). See the About page for more.

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. If you have a high powered blender do you soak cashews first or just do in their raw state? Thank you.

    1. Hi Michelle!
      Sorry about the delay in responding.If you have a high-speed blender (like a Vitamix) it certainly will manage to pulverize the cashews, but soaking results in a nice smooth blend. It’s best to do the soak. 🙂

  2. Hello, the picture of this recipe looks like it has broccoli in it? What is all the green stuff? Nothing in the recipe seems to add the green.

    1. Hi Shiela!
      You’re correct, we put broccoli in our’s. The recipe is just for the sauce, and you can add whatever else to your pasta when you add the sauce. We tossed it with cooked broccoli, but you could use mushrooms, or peas, and anything else you like.
      We even put the leftover sauce on baked potatoes!
      Enjoy it!
      🙂

  3. Hi guys! This Alfredo sauce sounds amazing! Any idea what I could sub for the almond meal? Teddy can’t do almonds. Flax meal maybe?

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